Phoenix Suns 2026-27 roster: a retooled contender chasing continuity under Jordan Ott

A first-round sweep by Oklahoma City ends a surprising season

Phoenix Suns closed the 2025-2026 regular season at 45-37, good for second place in the Pacific Division and seventh in the Western Conference, according to Basketball-Reference and confirmed by Fox Sports. That seventh-place finish sent Phoenix to the play-in rather than a direct playoff berth.

The Suns handled that step cleanly, beating the Golden State Warriors 111-96 to lock up the West’s No. 8 seed, per Olympics.com. Their reward was a first-round date with the Oklahoma City Thunder, the conference’s No. 1 seed. Oklahoma City closed the series in four straight games, a result confirmed by Wikipedia’s playoff bracket and by Olympics.com’s game-by-game recap, with the Thunder’s win pushing them into the West semifinals.

Addition by subtraction: life after Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal

The roster Ott inherited last season was already the product of a bigger break with the recent past. Owner Mat Ishbia had acquired Kevin Durant in a blockbuster trade shortly after officially taking over the franchise, according to a retrospective piece from SI.com. In June 2025, Phoenix moved on from that experiment, sending Durant to the Houston Rockets in a deal that brought back Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks and draft picks, per Arizona Sports and confirmed by NBA.com. Bradley Beal followed him out the door soon after: the guard agreed to a buyout with the Suns in the summer of 2025 and signed with the Los Angeles Clippers on a two-year, $11 million deal with an option, according to ESPN.

Losing two established stars in the same offseason could have read as a step back. Instead, it left Devin Booker as the roster’s unquestioned lead, and the two pieces acquired for Durant — Green and Brooks — are now key contributors in Phoenix’s projected starting five. Bright Side of the Sun’s breakdown of Brooks’ 2025-2026 season framed the shift in stylistic terms: Durant had taken 55% of his shots from mid-range in Phoenix and hit 52% of them, and the outlet noted the Suns’ offensive style has “radically changed” since his departure, in a piece framed around defense and a broader change in the team’s culture.

That reset shows up in the numbers, too. A stat posted by the NBA’s official account and by NBAStatsNation states that Booker has a higher win percentage playing alongside Brooks than he did playing alongside Durant. Paired with Brooks’ three-year extension and Green’s role in the starting backcourt, the Durant and Beal exits reshaped the roster around Booker, Green and Brooks.

Jordan Ott returns for a second season after outperforming expectations

Jordan Ott took over as Phoenix’s head coach in June 2025, hired away from a Cleveland Cavaliers assistant role despite having no prior NBA head-coaching experience, according to NBA.com’s account of his introductory press conference. It was a notable bet on a first-time voice for a franchise trying to reset its direction.

That bet is being extended into a second season. Wikipedia’s page for the 2026-2027 Suns lists Ott as head coach, and ESPN’s season preview references him directly as “second-year coach Jordan Ott,” noting he will be “challenged to juggle touches” between Devin Booker and Miles Bridges as the roster takes shape around them.

Ott’s first year exceeded what many expected from a team widely viewed as rebuilding. In fact, a Reddit discussion raised the point that Ott had led a team widely viewed as rebuilding to a winning record in his first NBA head-coaching job. Whether that framing holds up now falls on Ott’s ability to manage a deeper, more veteran roster than the one that snuck into the play-in a year ago.

The Miles Bridges trade headlines a summer of extensions

Phoenix’s biggest offseason swing sent Grayson Allen, Royce O’Neale and a future first-round pick to the Charlotte Hornets in exchange for forward Miles Bridges (28 years old), a 2029 first-round pick and a 2027 second-round pick, according to NBA.com and confirmed by ESPN. The move brought in a proven scorer while clearing out two veteran wings from the previous rotation.

Bridges arrives on the final year of his contract, set to earn roughly $22.8 million in 2026-2027 before hitting unrestricted free agency next summer, per BasketNews and Hoops Rumors. That timeline gives Phoenix one season to see whether the fit works before deciding on a long-term commitment.

The front office also locked in pieces already on the roster. Dillon Brooks agreed to a three-year, $73 million extension running through the 2029-2030 season, according to ESPN and NBA.com. Mark Williams, coming off restricted free agency, returned on a three-year, $38 million deal, per ESPN and Arizona Sports.

Collin Gillespie signed a four-year, $48 million contract that runs through 2029-2030, according to Arizona Sports and NBA.com, while Jordan Goodwin came back on a three-year, $19 million deal, per ESPN and Cronkite News. Williams and Goodwin’s new contracts both extend through the 2028-2029 season, according to AZCentral.

Projected starting five: Booker, Green, Brooks, Bridges and Williams

The Suns’ projected opening lineup pairs Devin Booker and Jalen Green in the backcourt with Dillon Brooks and Miles Bridges on the wings and Mark Williams at center, according to Gophnx and Yahoo Sports. It is a group built around scoring punch at multiple positions rather than a single dominant offensive hub.

Booker remains the engine, having averaged 26.1 points, 6.0 assists and 3.9 rebounds across 64 games last season, per StatMuse and ESPN. Green’s 2025-2026 was shortened by injury, but he still posted 17.8 points, 3.6 rebounds and 2.8 assists on 42.2% shooting in 32 games, according to ESPN and Rotowire.

Brooks, whose 2025-2026 numbers came with Phoenix, averaged 20.2 points and 3.8 rebounds on 43.4% shooting and 35.0% from 3-point range across 62 games. Bridges, still with Charlotte for all of last season before the trade, averaged 16.3 points, 5.6 rebounds and 3.0 assists on 46.1% shooting and 33.3% from deep. Williams rounds out the group as an efficient interior presence, having averaged 11.7 points and 8.0 rebounds on 64.4% shooting.

ESPN framed the touch distribution between Booker and Bridges as a challenge for Ott.

Bench depth: Kennard, Gillespie, Goodwin and a developing Khaman Maluach

Phoenix’s active roster for 2026-2027 also includes Jamaree Bouyea, Koby Brea, Ryan Dunn, Rasheer Fleming, Haywood Highsmith, CJ Huntley, Oso Ighodaro, Luke Kennard, Isaiah Livers, Khaman Maluach, Koa Peat and Pat Spencer, based on the team’s registered roster.

Kennard averaged 8.4 points, 2.3 rebounds and 2.2 assists with Phoenix, according to ESPN. Ighodaro was an iron man in his role, appearing in all 82 games with 24 starts, per Wikipedia and Fox Sports. Dunn played 70 games with 16 starts across 19.4 minutes, averaging 5.8 points and 4.2 rebounds, according to Wikipedia and ESPN.

Gillespie and Goodwin both logged extensive minutes as complementary guards. Gillespie averaged 12.2 points, 4.1 rebounds and 4.4 assists while shooting 41.9% from the field and 40.1% from 3-point range. Goodwin contributed 8.4 points, 4.6 rebounds and 2.0 assists on 41.9% shooting and 37.3% from deep.

The name to track long-term is Khaman Maluach, entering his second NBA season after arriving via the pick tied to Houston’s Kevin Durant trade, according to Yahoo Sports. His rookie-year raw numbers were modest — 1.7 points and 1.7 rebounds in limited minutes, plus 11 G League games with the Valley Suns — but his per-36-minute production told a different story: 11.4 points, 10.1 rebounds and 2.8 blocks, according to Bright Side of the Sun. That gap between box-score totals and per-minute impact makes him one of the more interesting development stories on the roster heading into camp.

Cap sheet: over the first apron, under the second

The extensions for Brooks, Williams, Gillespie and Goodwin came on top of the Bridges trade. Phoenix enters 2026-2027 above the first apron. The NBA set the 2026-2027 salary cap at $164.961 million, with the luxury tax line at $200.428 million, the first tax apron at $209.015 million and the second apron at $221.686 million, according to NBA.com and Spotrac.

Phoenix’s total cap allocations sit at $242,376,222, the sixth-highest figure in the league, per Spotrac. Spotrac’s own apron-space figures put the Suns at -$7,210,506 in first-apron space and +$5,460,494 in second-apron space — in other words, Phoenix sits about $7.2 million over the first apron while still holding roughly $5.46 million of space below the second apron.

Vegas odds: a long shot in the West

Sportsbooks have posted long odds on Phoenix. ESPN reported on July 24, 2026, that bookmakers had the Suns at 120-1 to win the 2027 NBA championship. By September 1, 2026, BetRivers had them at +15000 for the same title, according to Sportsbetting3.com.

Those numbers reflect a roster still working through fit questions — Bridges’ short-term deal, Green’s health, and a frontcourt anchored by Williams and a developing Maluach — even after a summer spent locking in continuity. How Ott balances those pieces through his second season will determine whether Phoenix can turn last spring’s sweep into a longer playoff run this time around.