Ranking the Suns’ three best players

As we prepare to finalize our preseason SunsRank, it’s worth looking back at the list we’ve created so far. 

Overall, I think it’s a solid reflection of where this franchise currently stands. The depth of the roster creates a bit of a bottleneck within the Pillars tier because it becomes difficult to separate players who bring completely different archetypes to the table. You have a backup point guard, a starting power forward, a pair of centers, and a 6’3″ guard who plays much bigger than his frame and brings a relentless defensive mentality. That’s a good problem to have. 

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The Suns’ depth within this tier is broad, and the skill sets are varied. Distribution. Rebounding. Rim protection. Athleticism. And then there’s the unquantifiable attitude that helps reinforce the identity of the team. Phoenix may not be a roster that jumps off the page and intimidates you on paper. But when you play against them, you feel it. 

With only three players left to rank, here’s where we currently stand:

I was curious to see where Miles Bridges would ultimately land. The writers ranked him as the fourth-best player on the team, while the community placed Collin Gillespie ahead of him. And this is where my interpretation of the subjective term “best” comes into play.

If you ask me right now who the better player is, I’m going with Miles Bridges. When I do this exercise, I’m not looking at the price relative to the value paid or what a player might become 2 or 3 years from now. I’m looking at what I believe their production and impact will be this upcoming season. From that perspective, Bridges is going to have a much larger impact than Gillespie, and he’ll need to if the Suns are going to be successful. They bring completely different skill sets, but Bridges has more ways to affect the game offensively. He’ll be in the starting lineup, he’ll have more opportunities, and the gravity he creates should open up areas of the offense that Phoenix desperately needs to improve, primarily getting to the rim.

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Gillespie will still be vital. His ability to guide the second unit and provide much-needed three-point shooting will matter throughout the season. But if we’re asking who the better player is right now, I think it’s Miles Bridges.

And now we turn to the final three, the Cornerstones. These are the stars, the players with the ability to make an All-Star team. They’re the guys this team is building around, and they’re expected to make a major impact every night. Ultimately, how far the Suns go this season will depend heavily on what they get from this group.

And here they are.

The Cornerstones

Devin Booker

Devin Booker is preparing to enter his 12th season with the Phoenix Suns, something only Kevin Johnson and Alvan Adams have ever done. Adams still holds the franchise record, having played 13 seasons in Phoenix. And before this season is over, Booker will pass both Steve Nash and Walter Davis in total games played, moving into second all-time in franchise history.

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Yeah, you feel old yet?

The baby-faced kid from Kentucky has been a staple of this franchise for 11 years, and as he prepares for Year 12, he once again finds himself shouldering the responsibility of playing slightly out of position. The Suns can tell us all day that Jalen Green is who they want starting at point guard, but we all know that by 20 games into the season, Booker is probably going to be leading the team in usage and functioning as the primary distributor. The modern NBA is positionless, but it’s still hard not to look back at Booker’s prime and wish he had spent more of those years alongside a better ball handler and distributor.

Still, the roster around him as he prepares to turn 30 years old has something he can feed off of. Fire. Passion. Edge. And Booker still has the elite scoring ability to make all of it work. Now, if he can find his way back to shooting 38.3% from three as he has twice in his career, great things could happen in Phoenix.

Dillon Brooks

The Villain returns this season with a new extension under his belt, something he certainly earned after averaging 20.2 points per game last year, a number I don’t think many of us saw coming. What was more predictable was the attitude he brought and the way he helped forge the Phoenix Suns’ identity into one defined by toughness, grit, and edge.

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With Jalen Green hopefully healthy and Miles Bridges now in the mix, Brooks may take a step back in terms of production and offensive involvement. That doesn’t diminish what he brings to this team. The attitude, physicality, and competitiveness still matter, and they remain a major part of what makes this version of the Suns who they are.

Jalen Green

This is going to be an incredibly important year for Jalen Green. We’ve seen the potential. We’ve experienced the athleticism. We know the upside of the 24-year-old combo guard is high. At some point, though, upside has to become consistent production. That has always been the challenge with Green. His inconsistency in multiple areas of the game, whether it’s three-point shooting, finishing at the rim, or facilitation, has limited how high his ceiling can actually go.

Could this be the year he puts it all together? Could this be the season where, with the roster built around him, Green finally reaches that potential? If he does, the Suns suddenly have an elite backcourt. If he doesn’t, then you start looking at the open market and asking what you can get for him in return.

And now it’s your turn to complete the final SunsRank of 2026. We won’t touch these rankings again until the season is over. Then we’ll come back and see how everyone moved based on the difference between preseason perception and what actually happened on the court.

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I want to thank everyone who took the time to participate throughout the process, from placing players into tiers to ranking them individually through SunsRank. It’s an exercise I look forward to every year because it captures exactly how we view this team at a specific moment in time.

Now we get to see how right, or how wrong, we were.