👋 GOOD MORNING

Happy Friday! We made it through another week! I hope you’ve got some solid plans, because this is likely to be the final beautiful weather weekend for quite some time. If you haven’t looked at the weather for next week yet … well .. you should hold off on that for a bit and just enjoy the outdoors before summer begins to creep up.

Maybe find a patio somewhere and check out tomorrow’s Final Four action! I think it’s crazy all four teams are the top seeds (how boring), so you can forget about any upset watch. Personally I find it a little more engaging when there’s a Cinderella story to fawn over, but alas, we’re stuck with the blue bloods.

If you need a joke to get you through to the weekend, here you go: Why couldn’t the sailor learn the alphabet? He always gets lost at C!

Let’s run it back next week. On to the show!

Has Devin Booker’s Best Playmaking Season Yet Been to the Suns’ (and His Own) Detriment?

Welcome to a sneak peek.

PHNX Suns reporter and podcast host Gerald Bourguet wrote a fantastic article on how Suns star Devin Booker is having the best playmaking season of his career, yet the Suns’ record has suffered overall. Gerald’s articles are incredibly well-informed, well written, and just overall fun to read, and I thought it would be nice to give all of our readers a chance to read an excerpt from his most recent post.

For all of our amazing Diehards, you can check out ​his entire article right here​. If you’re not a Diehard, what are you waiting for?! You get free stuff, exclusive offers, and incredible content — when ​you do sign up​ make sure to give your favorite PHNX accounts a shout on X, and bask in the love that’s received.

Check it out!

Bourguet: Has Booker’s Playmaking Been a Detriment to his Scoring?

Devin Booker often talks about taking the temperature of the game and feeding the hot hand, and on most nights, it’s no surprise that the person with the hottest hand is Kevin-Freaking-Durant. But when Book reflects on this lost season, hopefully his main takeaway is that there’s room for him to be more aggressive. No one knows what the future holds for Durant this summer, but whether he’s still on the Suns next year or Booker goes back to being their certified alpha, Phoenix needs him to force the issue more than he did this season.

Over that first nine-game stretch of high-end playmaking that started on March 12, Book averaged just 20.9 points per game on 42.8 percent shooting, including 29.8 percent from deep. Unfortunately, his recent return to form on the scoring front hasn’t mattered either. Book’s put up 33.5 points per game on 53.1 percent shooting over the last two contests, but it’s the smaller sample size, those numbers came in double-digit losses, and most of the fanbase has already embraced the “too little, too late” aspect of it all.

For those who are still dialed in and wondering what the future holds for Booker, it’d be easy to attribute his return to form over the last two games to Durant’s absence. Resist the urge: KD played the first two-and-a-half quarters of the Houston Rockets game where Book went off, and blaming Booker’s off shooting nights on Durant’s mere existence is lazy anyway.

Looking ahead to a future with or without Durant, Devin Booker has to get away from possessions where he’s deferring or looking to pass before even applying pressure on the defense with the threat of a drive or a pull-up. He also has to find a way to reinsert himself back into plays after getting off the ball when he’s doubled.

Catch ​all of Gerald’s article​ at gophnx.com, where you can keep up with all of your favorite Arizona teams!

3 Days. 6 Picks. 100 Names.

It’s almost NFL Draft month!

What are the Cardinals going to do? Mock drafts have lacked consistency in terms of who the Cardinals may select, so the PHNX Cardinals team of Bo and Johnny, along with ALLCITY draft expert Fran Duffy, have made it their personal mission to keep you as well-informed as possible. Boy, did they ever come through.

• Check out the Top 100 prospects that can address the Cards’ needs.
• Don’t waste time cycling through mock drafts – it’s all in here!
• Impress your friends when comparing players like Kentucky’s Deone Walker to Jordan Phillips. Bo and Fran will let you take all the credit.

Catch Up:

• Bo and Johnny chat about the ​players ranked 51-100​.
• Bo and Johnny ​chat about the Top 50​ and the Cardinals’ Cam Skattebo conundrum.
• Bo and Johnny look at ​what the Arizona defense​ is capable of.

Musings From Around (and Sometimes Beyond) The Valley

McBride’s McMillions: Cardinals tight end Trey McBride signed a four-year contract extension that made him the highest-paid tight end in NFL history, keeping him in The Valley through the 2029 season. The deal is reportedly worth $76 million — $43 million guaranteed — a nice reward after he caught 111 passes for 1,146 yards and two touchdowns last season.

Cross-State Showdown: The No. 24 ASU baseball team hosts the Arizona Wildcats this weekend at Phoenix Municipal Stadium, marking the first time the two clubs have met as Big 12 opponents. Sunday’s series finale will be broadcast on ESPN2 (5 pm), and it’s a big series for both teams, who boast similar records (ASU is 20-9, UA is 20-8).

Right Back to it: The D-backs may have had their three-game winning streak snapped yesterday, but they still took two of three from the mighty Yankees en route to their 4-3 record. Arizona wraps up its six-game road trip in Washington this weekend before returning home for six straight at Chase Field.

Feeling Lucky?: The Suns have a huge weekend ahead of them, playing in Boston (56-20) tonight and New York (48-28) on Sunday — not an easy stretch. The games are as critical as ever as Phoenix continues its pursuit of a postseason play-in spot, where it is one game behind the Sacramento Kings with a game in hand. Kevin Durant will miss both games with a sprained ankle, making the task at hand even more difficult.

Runnin’ Into the Condors: Speaking of critical games, the Tucson Roadrunners are up against arguably their most important weekend series of the season, hosting the Bakersfield Condors for a two-game set tomorrow and Sunday. Tucson is just one point up on Bakersfield in the race for the Pacific Division’s final playoff spot, but the Condors have two games in hand. A weekend sweep would sure go a long way!

🧢 Tip of the Hat

This is going to be quite the event!