The 2016–17 NBA season was the Phoenix Suns' 49th season in the NBA 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.