The 2016–17 Phoenix Suns season was the Phoenix Suns' 49th season in the NBA2016-17 Phoenix Suns Roster and Stats. (2017). Basketball Reference. https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/PHO/2017.html. and their 24th season in the Talking Stick Resort Arena. It was also the first season with a team-owned D-League affiliate, called the Northern Arizona Suns, which relocated to the nearby Prescott Valley. The Suns failed to qualify for the playoffs for the seventh straight season.
This season featured a remarkable performance from sophomore Devin Booker who scored 70 points during a game vs. the Boston Celtics in March 2017, becoming the youngest NBA player to do so at the age of 20.
Key dates April 19, 2016: The Suns removed the interim tag that Earl Watson was placed under as he signed a three-year deal worth around $7.5 million to be the team's newest full-time head coach moving forward. May 5, 2016: Former Senior Adviser and President of Basketball Operations Lon Babby steps down after six years of service with the team; assistant coaches Corey Gaines, Bob Hill, and Irving Roland, as well as assistant video coordinator Ross Geiger would not get their contracts renewed. May 17, 2016: The NBA Draft Lottery took place, with former rookie Devin Booker and Jenna Warren, a 16 year old Suns fan with Down syndrome, representing the team during the event, as well as the team's current vice president of basketball communications in Julie Fie taking part in seeing the very rare event of picks remaining exactly where they were at earlier in the season unfold in the lottery room for their selections. May 18, 2016: The Suns announced that former Portland Trail Blazers assistant coach Jay Triano would be the team's newest associate head coach. June 19, 2016: The NBA announces that the salary cap would increase from $70 million all the way up into $94 million, while the tax payroll for teams that would be forced to pay taxes for the amount they spend would be at $113 million and the salary floor would go up to $84.7 million. June 23, 2016: The 2016 NBA draft took place at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York; the Suns would trade their 13th and 28th picks of the draft (which were Greece's Georgios Papagiannis and Haiti's Skal Labissière from Kentucky University respectively), as well as Serbia's Bogdan Bogdanović (a player they drafted from the 2014 NBA draft) and the Detroit Pistons' 2020 second-round pick to the Sacramento Kings for their 8th pick in power forward Marquese Chriss from the University of Washington in a trade idea the team came up with in the morning of the NBA draft. In addition to Marquese Chriss, the Suns also selected the Bosnian-born Croatian forward-center Dragan Bender (who previously played for the Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel) with their 4th pick and Kentucky University's undersized, yet award decorated point guard Tyler Ulis with their 34th pick. June 25, 2016: The Phoenix Suns announced that former Suns player Tyrone Corbin would be one of the team's newest assistant coaches. June 27, 2016: It would be reported that the Suns would have two games being played at the Mexico City Arena in Mexico City, Mexico in January this next year. One of the games there would be against the Dallas Mavericks, while the other would be against the San Antonio Spurs. July 1, 2016: The NBA free agency period began; Jared Dudley would officially return to the Suns on a 3-year deal worth $30 million, being one of the few players from the team's last playoff run to return to the Suns. July 6, 2016: Another former Suns player, this time being Leandro Barbosa of the 73–9 Golden State Warriors, would return to Phoenix once again for the third time. This time, he signed a 2-year deal worth $8 million. July 7, 2016: The new July Moratorium Period begins, which means that players can now sign up with their new teams this season; the Suns also announced that the long-time NCAA Division I assistant coach Scott Duncan is going to be a new player development head coach for the team. July 17, 2016: Both rookie point guard Tyler Ulis and power forward/center Alan Williams would earn All-NBA Second Team Summer League Honors and All-NBA First Team Summer League Honors respectively during their 2016 NBA Summer League season in Las Vegas. July 20, 2016: It would officially be confirmed that the Phoenix Suns would play two games in the Mexico City Arena in Mexico City, Mexico as the home team there. Their first game would be on January 12, 2017, against the Dallas Mavericks. Two days later, they'd be playing their second game there on January 14 against the Tim Duncan-less San Antonio Spurs. The Suns would be the first NBA team to hold two NBA games at Mexico City during the same season, as well as hold this news under the 25th anniversary of the first NBA game that was ever played in Mexico. Both Mexico City games have tickets that would cost around 400 Mexican pesos together or 270 Mexican pesos apart from each other. July 27, 2016: Phoenix would officially announce that their newest assistant coaches/player development coaches for the season include Jay Triano, Tyrone Corbin, Nate Bjorkgren (who'd return from last season), former college teammate of Steve Nash, NBA player, and video coordinator/player development coach for the San Antonio Spurs in Marlon Garnett (as both assistant coach and player development coach, similar to Nate Bjorkgren last season), long-time college assistant coach Scott Duncan (for player development), and another returning assistant coach/player development coach in Jason Fraser, who's also for player development exclusively. In addition to them, the Suns announced that Chris Darnell would be the team's video coordinator with Long Beach State's Jason Tilton and video intern for the 73–9 Golden State Warriors and Team U.S.A. video coordinator Julian Mills being assistant video coordinators, as well as Michigan State's Quinton Sawyer joining up as the team's assistant athletic trainer and sports science coordinator.Suns Announce Complete 2016-17 Coaching Staff. (2016, July 27). NBA. https://www.nba.com/suns/press-release/suns-announce-2016-17-coaching-staff. August 2, 2016: The preseason schedule for the Suns gets revealed. August 11, 2016: The NBA announces every team's official schedules for the season. The Suns will have two nationally televised games on ESPN and two games on TNT this year. August 24, 2016: The Phoenix Suns announced that their training camp regime would return to Flagstaff, Arizona for this season after having their previous season be near the downtown region around the old Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum. September 1, 2016: Footage from a trailer released by NBA 2K17 leaked out a new court design for the Phoenix Suns, which showcased only a minor change on the out-of-bounds region, going from black to purple to represent the older colors of the team; Alan Williams would get the second year of his contract fully guaranteed for the rest of this season due to not only the consistent performances he had during the two Summer League seasons he played for and improving from last season to this season in terms of production, but also putting in the work to transform his body and his skill-sets while also taking a big part of team and community efforts throughout the season (even excluding the fact that his mom, Jeri Williams, had a recent promotion to being the Chief of Police for Phoenix now.) September 6, 2016: The Suns officially unveiled their new, updated court design featuring a purple out-of-bounds region similar to the old court design from the 1990s, only it also includes every other design choice from the Suns' previous season on the court beyond the color of the out-of-bounds region and removing the hashtag from the "WE ARE PHX" slogan; during a concert performance by rapper Drake at the Talking Stick Resort Arena, he gave the Suns' Kentucky teammates a shout out while wearing a black Civic Pride "PHX" Phoenix Suns jersey with Devin Booker's number on it. September 13, 2016: The Phoenix Suns announced a couple late, last-minute additions to their staff with former NBA Finals champion and All-Star power forward/center Mehmet Okur joining the team as a player development coach, as well as Jason Hervey (not to be confused with the actor) from the Minnesota Timberwolves (and the Washington Wizards and Detroit Pistons before that) as an advanced scout. September 15, 2016: P. J. Tucker has a low back microdiscectomy procedure done to him. He's expected to be out sometime between six and eight weeks, thus allowing T. J. Warren some time to potentially start for the season now that he's the only considerable candidate at this time to start at small forward for right now; the Suns also would announce some of their training came invitees for the season, one of which includes the undrafted freshman known as Derrick Jones Jr. from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. October 3, 2016: Head coach Earl Watson would confirm that the starting lineup for their first preseason game against the San Antonio Spurs (without Tim Duncan) would be the same starting lineup set for the regular season; their lineup would be Eric Bledsoe at point guard, Devin Booker at shooting guard (instead of Brandon Knight), T. J. Warren at small forward (even in the event P. J. Tucker returns to action), Jared Dudley at power forward over either one of the rookies (at this time), and Tyson Chandler at center over Alex Len. They would end their first preseason game with a 91–86 win over San Antonio. October 24, 2016: In a rather surprising move, the Suns decided to part ways with 2013 rookie Archie Goodwin despite having a fully guaranteed deal with the Suns this year, while also making sure they kept both John Jenkins and 2016 (undrafted) rookie Derrick Jones Jr. on the roster to start out this season. It was later on announced that the Suns were trying to trade Archie Goodwin at his own request before the season began, but could not find a good deal for him on time. October 26, 2016: The Phoenix Suns begin their regular season against the Sacramento Kings at home; it would also be announced before the game began by owner Robert Sarver that legendary sports announcer Al McCoy would enter the Phoenix Suns Ring of Honor on March 3, 2017, against the Oklahoma City Thunder. November 2, 2016: The Suns would win their first game of the season thanks to Eric Bledsoe hitting a game-winning, buzzer-beating three-pointer in a close 118–115 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers. November 3, 2016: The Phoenix Suns would announce their first transfer to the new affiliate Northern Arizona Suns squad out in the D-League, with latest addition Derrick Jones Jr. heading off to Prescott Valley in order to prepare for the team's first season under their new name. November 8, 2016: Rookie Marquese Chriss would gain his first official start of the season for the Suns. December 26, 2016: Rookie Dragan Bender would start earning more playing time moving forward into the season. January 6, 2017: The Suns decided to waive the non-guaranteed contract of John Jenkins after he managed to play only four games with the team this season. January 12, 2017: Phoenix would begin their two-game stint in Mexico City. January 14, 2017: The Phoenix Suns would end their stint in Mexico City with a 1–1 record by losing 113–108 to the Dallas Mavericks, but surprisingly beating the San Antonio Spurs by the final score of 108–105; Devin Booker would record 39 points in both games during that trip. January 25, 2017: Both Devin Booker and rookie Marquese Chriss would be named for Team U.S.A. in the Rising Stars Challenge for the NBA All-Star Weekend this year. January 27, 2017: The Suns would sign up veteran guard Ronnie Price for his third stint with the team under a 10-day contract.