By Connor Moreno, Cronkite News
TEMPE — Hundreds of players from varying basketball backgrounds gathered Saturday at the Tempe Sun Devil Fitness Complex, hoping to become part of a new era of Phoenix basketball.
The Valley officially adopted a new hoops darling – the G League Valley Suns – in February and open tryouts commenced with Phoenix Suns general manager James Jones among those in attendance.
“Phoenix at its core is a basketball town,” said Brendan Sabean, the new team’s general manager. “So to add another entity, and team in general, to the Valley will bring a cool environment for people to come watch games and watch some good hoops.”
Suns owner Mat Ishbia planned to bring a G League team back to the Valley when he bought the team in February 2023. The Suns, then owned by Robert Sarver, sold the Northern Arizona Suns to the Detroit Pistons in 2021 to become the only NBA team without a G League affiliate.
“Adding a G League team creates another area for us to compete to be the best,” Ishbia said in February, when the acquisition of the team was announced. “Just like the Suns and Mercury, our G League team will serve as a community asset and make a positive impact on and off the court.”
The Valley Suns didn’t take long to make a tangible impact on the community. Notable local players and Suns fans alike had the opportunity to try out for the team. Skill, background and notoriety varied across the 114 participants.
Among the participants was Holland Woods, who played collegiately for Arizona State University and Grand Canyon University. Having even the slightest opportunity to make the team means a lot to the Phoenix native.
“I’m from Arizona, so it would be a dream come true to play for this organization,” Woods said after the tryouts. “To be given the opportunity to come here and show what I could do, that’s all I could ask for.”
The addition of the Valley Suns is not only beneficial to the community but to a Suns organization that hasn’t had a G League affiliate in three years. Having a traditional G League team is integral to the development of an NBA team’s rookie and two-way players.
Valley Suns coach John Little believes that translating G League development into NBA production is paramount.
“First and foremost, we want to compete,” Little said. “If (our players) learn how to compete, then that development is going to come with it. The biggest role of the G League is how we develop our guys and how it translates to the next level.
“From terminology to the things we’ll do on the floor, we’re going to try and be seamless with our integration from the Suns to the Valley Suns.”
Little, a former professional basketball player, was an assistant coach for the Milwaukee Bucks’ G League team, the Wisconsin Herd, from 2019 to 2023, and the associate head coach for the Maine Celtics, Boston’s affiliate team, last season.
In Milwaukee, Little was a member of new Suns coach Mike Budenholzer’s staff. Sabean said that the connection Little has with Budenholzer is integral to the connection the Valley Suns will have with the parent club.
“We’re going to be a team that creates a lot of alignment, both on and off the court,” Sabean said. “We’ll play a fun style of basketball that aligns with coach Bud and his system.”
A new era of Phoenix basketball begins Nov. 8 when the Valley Suns visit the Santa Cruz Warriors, and local fans will get their first chance to see the team in person on Nov. 11 when the Stockton Kings visit Mullet Arena on the Arizona State University Tempe campus.
