Winning the NBA Draft lottery is exactly the boost the Suns’ bizarre rebuild needed

The Phoenix Suns, deep into a stuttering rebuild project, finally have a real exit strategy. After missing out on a top-three pick after each of their previous two hideous seasons, the Suns won the 2018 NBA Draft lottery thanks to the worst record in the league. This was a damn good lottery to win, too.

There are two consensus options for the No. 1 pick Phoenix will make on June 21. Both have loose ties to the organization. Luka Doncic is a Slovenian wunderkind considered the best prospect to ever come out of Europe. Doncic’s national team coach — who led Slovenia to EuroBasket gold last summer — is newly minted Suns head coach Igor Kokoskov. Bahamas-born Deandre Ayton, meanwhile, spent the last two years of high school at Hillcrest Prep in Phoenix and spent his one year of college ball playing at the University of Arizona.

Either should be a brilliant fit for the Suns. Phoenix needs a lot of help, and has so many question marks beyond Devin Booker. Kokosov has a promising resumé and backstory, but you never know how first-time NBA head coaches will pan out. But if Phoenix takes Doncic or Ayton, and that player pans out like just about everyone believes they will, the Suns will have two legitimate stars in the making to build around.

That gets you out of a long rebuild. That’s exactly what the Suns need to do.

Phoenix really began rebuilding once Amare Stoudemire left in free agency in 2010 and Steve Nash exited via a sign-and-trade three years later, but a shockingly competitive 2014 season threw everything out of whack. Believing in a team built around Goran Dragic, Eric Bledsoe, and the Morris twins, Phoenix got off track.

After a couple of bizarre seasons and some interesting free agent chases and win-now trades, the Suns had to start their rebuild all over again. Luckily, general manager Ryan McDonough had struck gold in the late lottery with Booker. Results higher up the draft board have been mixed if not straight-up bad.

Winning the lottery in a year with two clear-cut No. 1 talents makes messing it up less likely. (Of course, almost everyone thought Markelle Fultz was a no-risk prospect a year ago. Remember what Socrates told us: all we know is that we know nothing.) McDonough has been forced to make tough decisions with challenging draft picks in shaky years. There’s more certainty this time around. That should be a boon.

What’s often lost in modern critiques of the Phoenix Suns, especially as related to bewildering boss Robert Sarver, is that it has been one of the most well-run, successful franchises since it was founded in 1968.

The Suns won 48 games in their third season (and missed the playoffs because seeding was truly and absurdly broken back then). They made the NBA Finals — and almost won them — in 1976. Phoenix had long runs of success led by Paul Westphal, Larry Nance, and (after the 1987 drug scandal took its toll) Kevin Johnson, before Charles Barkley arrived and carried the Suns back to the NBA Finals. The 1990s finished off strangely, but with consistent playoff berths. The 2000s soon brought historic advent of Mike D’Antoni and Steve Nash’s partnership. The unraveling of that era led right into Phoenix’s current mess, which constitutes the longest and saddest playoff drought in franchise history.

The Suns are rarely held up with the NBA’s titans because the Suns have never won a championship. But Phoenix has the seventh-best franchise winning percentage among non-defunct teams. The ineptitude we’ve witnessed for the last half-decade is rare in the franchise’s history. Over the course of time, the Suns usually somewhere between good and great.

This lottery win may be just what the franchise needs to slide back into that familiar position. Luck couldn’t help Phoenix find an answer to its woes in recent years, but you really only need that sort of providence once. The Suns received it on Tuesday. Now it’s up to the team to make good use of it and turn this franchise back around.