What to Expect From the PHNX Suns Beat

It’s been a while since I’ve had to introduce myself for a new job, so bear with me on this.

Some of you might know me from my NBA writing over at FanSided or my Suns features at The Step Back. Others may recognize me as the host of the Valley of the Suns Podcast, and still others know me as that Suns guy whose Twitter account got hacked by an amateur Fortnite streamer and then started tweeting in Arabic for six weeks.

But for those of you who don’t know me, and even for those of you who do, my name is Gerald Bourguet, and I’ll be leading up the written Suns content here at PHNX.

I guess a little background is in order. I’m an Albuquerque native who has loved NBA basketball since I was old enough to watch Grant Hill Sprite commercials and Michael Jordan highlights on VHS. I grew up playing basketball, but at some point in high school, you realize you’re not quite good enough to play in the league yourself. So, under the influence of that one English teacher who cultivates your love for the written word, you realize that if you can’t play in the NBA, writing about it would be the next-best thing.

That led me to the Walter Cronkite School back in 2009, and I’ve been out here in Phoenix ever since. I graduated from ASU in 2013 with a Bachelor’s and Master’s in journalism (go Sun Devils), I started writing about the NBA in my final semester at college and I’ve been covering Suns games as a credentialed media member since 2015.

I won’t lie to you: After the initial honeymoon phase of covering professional basketball wore off, writing about the Suns wasn’t always easy. Yes, I was living my dream. But the “professional” part of “professional basketball” was open to interpretation, because Phoenix was a steaming dumpster fire for the better part of a decade. I’ll never forget the Morris twins talking shit about their own fans, the 48-point massacre on opening night in 2017, Eric Bledsoe’s nail salon tweets, the endless wave of players forcing their way out of Phoenix or the unshakable cloud of losing that hovered over this franchise and constantly put players and coaches on edge. It was hard to write about the same thing over and over, and even harder to ask the same unanswerable questions over and over. That relentless cycle of misery almost tarnished the joy of what I was doing.

Then came the last two seasons, and everything changed. It’s not an exaggeration to say the Bubble Suns were one of the lone bright spots that helped get me through 2020. I also don’t have to describe the sensation of last season’s NBA Finals run to long-suffering Suns fans. The Valley was simply ALIVE again. Phoenix has always been a Suns town, but I hadn’t seen the city buzzing like that since the team’s Western Conference Finals run more than a decade ago, and even then … it didn’t feel like this. This was something different, for me personally and professionally, as well as for Suns fans everywhere.

Which brings us to this exciting new chapter, both for the Suns and for my career. PHNX with the fellas. Where I can narrow my gaze from all sports and the entire NBA to JUST Suns basketball. In the past, I didn’t always have the time or energy to produce as much quality Suns content as I wanted, to attend all the practices and shootarounds, to really dive into anything and everything Suns.

That all changes today, and I couldn’t be more excited to embark on this new journey together.

From reported stories and analysis articles to video breakdowns and quirky, out-of-the-box ideas, I want to make the Suns beat more fun, creative and informative than it’s ever been. I’ve always tried to cover the team objectively, but sports are also supposed to be fun, which means I want every article, video and podcast I make to reflect that and to enhance your experience of being a Suns fan. I love this game and this league, and I hope that enthusiasm shines through in my coverage. I want everyone following along to know and love this awesome team just as much as we do, because it truly hasn’t been this fun being a Suns fan in a long time.