The Phoenix Suns may have grinded out a 113-110 overtime victory over the Orlando Magic on Saturday night, but it came at a huge cost, one that will likely disrupt their season. Dillon Brooks played just seven minutes after fracturing his left hand and is now out indefinitely. This is just days after franchise-leading scorer Devin Booker suffered an injury in a blowout to the San Antonio Spurs.

Booker is sidelined for at least a week. Losing a perennial All-Star and elite scorer in Booker looks like the headline hit for the Suns. He is the face of the franchise, but Phoenix has weathered the storm this year during his seven-game injury absence in late January. The team won four out of those games, which is just above average, but at least showing it can keep pace. It looks like Brooks’ absence will be the bigger blow for this reinvented team. 

The forward has been the main reason why Phoenix has been dangerous and an identity-driven squad again. The Suns are in earshot of a direct playoff spot. Last season, they scraped together just 36 wins and finished with one of the worst defensive ratings in the league — and that was with 16-time All-Star and future first-ballot Hall of Famer Kevin Durant on the roster. This year, the franchise has already matched nearly its entire previous season’s win total with 25 games still to play. The team’s defensive rating is in the top 10, and opponents are scoring just 112 points per game, joint sixth best in the NBA.

The catalyst was the bold, franchise-altering move this past offseason as the Suns went all-in, shipping Durant to the Houston Rockets in a blockbuster deal that landed them Brooks, Jalen Green, and future draft capital. The front office bet the house on a totally new identity, and the 30-year-old has been spearheading that.

But now that there is no timeline set for his return, the organization finds itself in a position it had dreaded at the start of the season.

Why Losing Brooks Hits Harder than Booker’s Absence

Brooks is posting a career-high 20.9 points per game on 44% shooting and also a joint career-high 3.7 rebounds per game this season. It’s been a significant leap; the star swingman has never come across as a 20+ point player in his career. He did average 18.4 points in the 2021-22 campaign, which was his previous career-high, but it was in a season where he played just 32 games.

This year, he has played 50 for the Suns, averaging 30.6 minutes per game and all from the start. But honestly, the scoring has been just the perk Phoenix is getting for its forward. Brooks, by reputation, is rash and a player who will constantly do the dirty work for his team by guarding the opposition’s best wings even at the cost of receiving a technical. He has already been suspended this month after receiving his 16th tech.

Head coach Jordan Ott has praised his impact this season, and while the Suns wanted a physical defensive presence, they got an added scorer that no one in the league was expecting when they made the addition during the offseason. When Booker missed stretches earlier, Brooks slid into a bigger scoring load and recorded 20+ point games in six of those seven games, including a 40-point explosion in a 114-96 win against the Detroit Pistons.

The Suns stayed competitive, and that Pistons win was one of back-to-back wins against two of the best teams this season, with the other being a 13-point victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers. It was looking as though the Suns would make the postseason this year after missing last season, but that has taken a bleak turn as their defensive identity, which has seen them almost match last season’s win total, is out.

The timing couldn’t be any worse in a tough Western Conference. The Suns are currently hovering around the playoff spot in the No. 7 seed and are four games above their closest followers, but any losing streak will see them fall deep below into the play-in spot and possibly out of it with a bigger losing record. 

The Suns aren’t a superteam; they have been riding on the coattails of Booker for decades, and while Durant was seen as a superstar who could help take them to the next level, it never worked. They had to mortgage the former MVP to get something new and it has been promising thus far.

The one thing that Brooks delivers that no other player on the Phoenix roster does is a brute identity. It has been Brooks’ posture against star opponents that has steered his team back into a winning direction. It has been his acceptance of being “the man” in some instances that has given him team some rah rah. Every team needs that kind of enforcer at some point along an exhausting season. That is the simplest reason why losing Brooks may be the toughest pill to swallow.

Phoenix will hope that Brooks’ injury timeline is short because the final stretch of the season will present a grueling challenge.