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Ranking players before the season seems to be all the craze this summer. So to take a break from analyzing team needs, fits, strengths, and weaknesses - the combination of SB Nation Arizona and the guys at Bright Side Of The Sun ranked the 25 most important faces for the Phoenix Suns coming into this season. Of course we had a little fun with it.
The criteria is pretty simple, who do we, as individuals, fell is the most important person in the franchise this season.
If you look at most franchises there are people that are extremely pivotal to the success of the year and others that are just there. Sure, someone will come out of nowhere and surprise us showing that they are more important than originally anticipated, but, until then, this is our ranking and we are sticking to it.
Our esteemed panel consisted of Jim Coughenour, Alex Laugan, Jacob Padilla, Leiland Tanner, the 7footer, and of course myself -- Kristofer Habbas.
We now enter the Top 20 into the teens with Suns Rank:
20. Jermaine O'Neal (20.33)
First Year With The Suns
Position: Forward/Center
What can I say about Jermaine O'Neal? No, really, what can I say? Dude's playing on a one year veteran's minimum contract. If he can be a serviceable back up, that's pretty good bang for the buck. Forgive my cynicism regarding suspected hyperbole with respect to Dudley's "five years younger" report, but I'd be fine with healthy. Then let Nelson start doin' work to keep him that way. Not to hate, but I'd really rather Frye played well enough to keep O'Neal bench bound. - Jim Coughenour
19. Lon Babby (19.33)
Third Year With The Suns
Position: President of Basketball Operations
Babby forms the brains portion of the Suns bifurcated cognoscenti. While he has proven to be a luminary in the fields he pursued prior to his present role, he has not yet shown that his exceptional talents will translate to success in this field. His dichotomic behavior with respect to personnel decisions has proven to be quite unsettling. After the "sun, moon and stars" (Nash) rhetoric, the "extremely disappointed" (Hill) spiel and the "quite likely to match" (Lopez) balderdash, it would appear that a vote of confidence from Babby is akin to the kiss of death. Speaking of kisses of death, it's a contract year Lon... - Jim Coughenour
18. Kendall Marshall (18)
First Year With The Suns
Position: Point Guard
Apparently management couldn't decide who they wanted as the point guard of the future, so they added two taking all the pressure off K Butters as a rookie. Instead of finding the "right" point guard for the teams future they created an avoidable controversy at the position that should make for some strenuous decisions for Coach Gentry. - Kristofer Habbas
17. Sebastian Telfair (17.16)
Second Year With The Suns
Position: Point Guard
Bassy is the little engine that could. People love the little guy's hustle but he was only valuable when his 20-foot jumpers started falling. - Alex Laugan
16. Ann Meyers-Drysdale (16.16)
Sixth Year With The Suns
Position: Vice President/Color Announcer
I know as much about Ann Meyers-Drysdale as I do about dancing (more on that later), but that doesn't stop me from making shallow, snap-judgments based off of nothing but what I see on the surface. What I do know is that Ms. Meyers-Drysdale will be taking over as a Suns announcer in the place of Scott Williams, who was the bane of my existence last season. So chalk one up for Ann. Plus, her last name is Drysdale... that has to count for something. - 7footer
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Is that five actual players -- the guys on the court that make a difference in wins and losses -- in the bottom ten? Oh boy.
What do you think of the list so far? Were we unfair to those listed? Is your favorite player, coach, or Suns personnel member not listed? Well, that is a good thing because the list is in reverse order going from 25-1, remember?
Keep up with the rankings: 25-21 (9/17) 20-16 (9/18) 15-11 (9/19) 10-6 (9/20) 5-1 (9/21)