2015–16 Phoenix Suns season

Minnesota's first round pick (which had lottery protections this season) was traded to the Boston Celtics, where Phoenix got center Brandan Wright in exchange.

Players Brandan Wright, Gerald Green, and Marcus Thornton; as well as the returning Earl Barron all became unrestricted free agents as of the end of the 2014–15 NBA season.

Small forward Danny Granger was also considered a candidate for unrestricted free agency, but he ended up exercising his player option to take on his final year of his contract for the rest of this season on June 17, 2015.

However, unlike the other players that had team options with the Suns, McNeal was waived four days before his contract was guaranteed, on July 17, 2015, during the Summer League, due to his less than stellar performance there.

The signing of Tyson came in conjecture to the Suns' personal meeting with Portland Trail Blazers free agent power forward LaMarcus Aldridge as well for the chance to lure him over to Phoenix.

Four days after the July moratorium ended, the Suns' Marcus Thornton, who they got after their trade with Isaiah Thomas signed a one-year, veteran's minimum deal with the Houston Rockets.

After that, on September 25, 2015, center Earl Barron signed a training camp deal to play with the Atlanta Hawks Basketball Club after former Suns player Jason Richardson announced his retirement due to an injury that he feared put his health at risk, although Barron played for the Fubon Braves in Taiwan on November 17, 2015, after failing to make their regular season rotation.

[13] Five days afterwards, the Suns also decided to add former Philadelphia 76ers center Henry Sims and former Brooklyn Nets power forward Cory Jefferson towards their training camp roster as more likely potential additions to the team,[14] as well as former Nevada Wolf Pack and Ratiopharm Ulm point guard Deonte Burton.

On November 25, 2015, the Suns signed Tucson, Arizona native Bryce Cotton to a one-year deal as insurance in the event either Ronnie Price or Eric Bledsoe were out of commission.

Furthermore, after waiving DeJuan Blair from the roster, the Suns decided to sign former Dallas Mavericks shooting guard John Jenkins to a 3-year contract (two years non-guaranteed) on February 24, 2016.

To replace Weems, though, the Suns decided to sign former Indiana Pacers and Arizona Wildcats forward Chase Budinger for the rest of the season on March 8, 2016.

Furthermore, on the same day, the Suns signed former Qingdao DoubleStar Eagles and California–Santa Barbara Gauchos center/power forward Alan Williams (a Phoenix, Arizona native) to a 10-day contract to replace Humphries in case either Alex Len or Tyson Chandler got injured again.

Before the start of the season, both Markieff and his twin brother Marcus Morris were subject to many problems both on and off the court, from behaving poorly in front of (now former) head coach Jeff Hornacek to getting multiple technical fouls (some of which occurred in costly situations that season) to calling out the team's fanbase for not stepping up properly to even having an upcoming court case involving a former mentor of theirs named Erik Hood.

In an attempt to help cool down the problem earlier on before this season began, the Suns decided to trade what was considered (at the time) the lesser-talented twin brother (Marcus) alongside their influx of small forwards in Reggie Bullock and Danny Granger to the Detroit Pistons on July 2, 2015, in exchange for a 2020 second round draft pick in what was seen as an effort to open up cap space to lure LaMarcus Aldridge away from both the Portland Trail Blazers and the San Antonio Spurs.

Furthermore, it was revealed that on August 3, 2015, both of the Morris twins failed to show up for the pretrial conference that was set for them on that date, which forced the judicial system to delay the case until September 16, 2015.

[17] The twins' trail continued well beyond this season, and to the next when they requested a new grand jury,[18] and then having the trial be further delayed to gather evidence on the text messages sent between Eric Hood and Thomasine "Angel" Morris, the other victim in question.

Four days later, he stated his preference to play for either the Houston Rockets (Marcus' original team) or the Toronto Raptors, but he wouldn't mind any other location like the Washington Wizards as well.

Despite that notion, he remained adamant about his decision by posting out on his Twitter account that his future would not be in Phoenix, just a day after the Suns wished Markieff a happy 26th birthday, and continued with the attitude a week later saying he won't accept any apologies from the team.

While Markieff suggested that he had learned from the mistakes he made during the summertime, he continued to have problems with the team and even struggled with his performance after his first ever injury as a player in the middle of November.

Markieff also ended up lasting longer than Hornacek and two of his top assistants, Jerry Sichting and Mike Longabardi (the latter of which won the 2016 NBA Finals championship later on in the season with the Cleveland Cavaliers).

It also caused the Suns to stop playing Markieff altogether for a good amount of time, only relenting with all of their power forwards starting to get injuries during the month of January at certain points.

To replace him, the Suns decided to use their traded player exception to sign John Jenkins to a three-year contract (with the second and third years being non-guaranteed) for the league minimum.

On December 27, 2015, a day after losing to the Philadelphia 76ers (who before playing Phoenix had only one victory at that time and ended up with only 10 victories all season long), it was announced that both Earl Watson and Nate Bjorkgren were being promoted to full-time assistant coaches, while both long-time assistant coaches Jerry Sichting and Mike Longabardi were fired (although Longabardi was later hired by the Cleveland Cavaliers, eventually winning the 2016 NBA Finals six months later, while Sichting was reunite with Jeff Hornacek and Corey Gaines on the Knicks the next season).

Andrew Harrison Jon Leuer 2020 second round pick Markieff Morris ^ a: While Cory Jefferson initially signed with the Suns when he was the only training camp invitee to become a part of the team earlier in the season, he was waived after the January 7, 2016 game against the Charlotte Hornets, thus earning only a partially guaranteed salary in the process.

Former All-Star small forward Danny Granger, continued to heal from the injury he had back when he was with the Miami Heat and was waived by the Pistons before the start of the season because of it.

^ j: Marcus Thornton originally signed a one-year deal to play with the Houston Rockets as a result of them making it to the Western Conference Finals the previous season.

However, because of the aforementioned problems involving the team's power forwards during the stretch of January 20–30, 2016, Jefferson returned to the Phoenix Suns a day after he signed his original contract with the Jam.

However, Cotton soon left the Spurs to play with future NBA draft prospect Zhou Qi and the Xinjiang Tianshan Rural-Commercial Bank Flying Tigers in the first-tier Chinese Basketball Association on January 30, 2016.

After the Flying Tigers were eliminated from the 2016 CBA Playoffs by former Phoenix Suns player Hamed Haddadi and the eventual champion Sichuan Blue Whales, Cotton returned to the NBA on April 1, 2016 for a ten-day contract with the very shorthanded Memphis Grizzlies, and signed signing with the Grizzlies for the rest of the season on April 11, 2016, although he wasn't able to play for Memphis in the playoffs due to league regulations.

^ o: When Orlando Johnson finished his only 10-day contract with the Suns, he returned to the Austin Spurs after the All-Star Weekend before making a brief stint with the New Orleans Pelicans late in March.