Raise your hand if you picked the Phoenix Suns to be the Western Conference champions before the season started.
Yeah, didn’t think so.
But it wasn’t unreasonable to doubt Phoenix. After all, the Suns entered the season as perpetual cellar dwellers who had gone 121-280 (.302) in the previous five seasons and hadn’t made the playoffs since 2009-10. They have been objectively worse than the Charlotte Hornets in recent years. But despite that dismal track record, the Suns made the NBA Finals this year. Let’s look at Phoenix’s template for success and how it matches up with the Hornets current rebuild.