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Mat Ishbia is a confident guy. That has not always worked out for him or the Suns.

Mere moments after taking control of the organization in 2023, Ishbia authorized a deal to land Kevin Durant in exchange for sending four first-round picks, two first-round pick swaps, Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson to the Brooklyn Nets. Then he mashed the new owner YOLO button with glee once more and shipped four first-round swaps and six second-round picks to the Wizards for Bradley Beal. 

It was a disaster. The Suns won 36 games last year and missed the playoffs. Then they traded Durant to Houston and waived and stretched Beal. 

But hey, you can't keep Ishbia down. Less-resilient owners would have slinked into the background and licked their wounds. Avoided the spotlight. Kept quiet. Not Ishbia. He stayed in the foreground and said what he had to say with his whole chest. This offseason he went on social media to basically go "nuh-uh" when a fellow basketball scribbler predicted the Suns would finish this season with the worst defense in the NBA. He proclaimed on an Arizona radio show that the Suns would be "competitive" and promised to field "a team you're gonna be proud of." And, perhaps most notably, he took umbrage with preseason predictions that were unkind to the Suns, insisting he was "not too worried about what the so-called experts think."

Our so-called experts right here at CBSSports.com did not think much of the Suns coming into this season. All eight of us had them outside the play-in in our preseason predictions. I had them 14th in the West. I thought that was generous. 

Considering we're roughly a quarter of the way into the season, it's probably too soon to have the last laugh, but Ishbia will be forgiven if he's chuckling to himself nevertheless. Because as pleasant Western Conference surprises go, Phoenix has to be right at the top of the list. And pretty much no one saw it coming. Or if they did, they were a lot quieter about it than Ishbia. 

The Suns are 14-10 and one game behind the Timberwolves for the six seed in the West (a team they just beat in Minnesota even though they were short-handed and Anthony Edwards went for 40 points). They're nearly top 10 in offensive and defensive ratings. Rookie head coach Jordan Ott has them bombing away from deep, where they're eighth in 3-point attempts and sixth in makes per game. They're also sixth in offensive rebounds. But the secret sauce might be how pesky they've been defensively, where they're second in both opponent's turnover percentage and points off turnovers. Only OKC has been better in those opportunistic categories. When you're keeping up with the Thunder in those specific departments you're doing something right. 

Phoenix has been without the services of Devin Booker for the last week while he recovers from a groin strain. (He's listed as questionable for Wednesday evening's NBA Cup quarterfinal clash against OKC.) The Suns have also been without Jalen Green for much of the season. Green was absent for the first eight outings, then promptly hurt his hamstring in his second game back. He's played a grand total of 30 minutes this season. 

As a consequence of missing key personnel, Ott has gone deep into his rotation and has nine players averaging at least 20 minutes per game. (Incidentally, Ott should get at least a perfunctory whisper in the Coach of the Year conversation.) Mark Williams -- acquired from the Hornets during the summer for two first-round picks -- has settled in as the starting center and shown flashes of what made him theoretically attractive to the Lakers before that trade was awkwardly unraveled last season. Royce O'Neale and Grayson Allen have been fixtures in the starting lineup. And the Suns might have stumbled onto something in Collin Gillespie, who has made himself indispensable and is averaging career highs in minutes, points, rebounds, assists and steals while shooting 42.9 percent from deep.

But perhaps the biggest boost to the Suns unexpected good fortune has been Dillon Brooks averaging a career-best 22.1 points on 45.3% shooting. Of course, he's also taking 7.4 3s per game and hitting just 30.6%, but it's all part of the Dillon Brooks Experience. Everyone expects him to annoy and frustrate the opposition, but I'm not sure anyone anticipated he'd be this involved in the Suns offense. There has been so much Dillon Brooks that even Dillon Brooks might say well hold on a minute that might be too much Dillon Brooks. Just kidding. No one loves a supersized serving of Dillon Brooks more than Dillon Brooks. 

Brooks' usage rate is a whopping, career-high 29.7. Without Booker on the floor that number spikes to a comical 38.1. If you're thinking that kind of heavy engagement has probably resulted in some ugly offense and inadvisable shots, you are correct. 

In previous seasons, with other organizations under normal circumstances, I'd watch whatever that was and think it serves Brooks' team right for empowering him to that degree. Except this is not previous seasons, and the circumstances he's operating under in Phoenix have so far worked out for him and the Suns. And so we've all been treated to a fair amount of no-no-no-yes offense from Brooks that shouldn't work but somehow has on more nights than not. 

Eventually folding Booker and Green back into the mix should shrink some of Brooks' overinflated usage. And having all three of those guys on the floor at the same time might not be workable. But at the very least finding out figures to be fun. 

That last word is not one I thought would get deployed much in relation to this Suns team. Slog. Grueling. Unbearable. Things of that nature, maybe. Instead, the Suns traded one of the best players in NBA history and are somehow playing better and putting a compelling product on the floor. None of which absolves the Suns front office of previously and repeatedly detonating their future. But this season, right now, they have gone from being close to unwatchable to competitive and entertaining on most evenings. Aside from Mat Ishbia, who would have predicted that?