Royce O’Neale and Grayson Allen spent three seasons in Phoenix, and even as the Suns kept changing around them, both wings carved out real value. Now that they’ve been dealt to the Charlotte Hornets in the trade that brought Miles Bridges to Phoenix, their time in the Valley deserves a proper look back.
Allen arrived first, landing with the Suns less than six months after he was sent to Phoenix in the deal that sent Damian Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks and Deandre Ayton to the Portland Trail Blazers. O’Neale followed in February 2024 after the Suns acquired him from the Brooklyn Nets, reuniting him with Allen after the two had already shared a season together with the Utah Jazz.
From there, the two found themselves in very different but equally important jobs on three very different Suns teams.
Allen was asked to do a lot almost immediately. After coming from a Milwaukee roster that had the NBA’s best record and plenty of balance, he was pushed into a major role on a Phoenix team that didn’t have much depth beyond Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal, and Devin Booker. He started 74 games and posted career highs in minutes, points, rebounds, assists, and three-point percentage, while leading the NBA by shooting 46% from deep.
With Beal and Booker missing time here and there, Allen also got chances to show more of his playmaking. One of his best examples came in February 2024 against one of his former teams.
O’Neale’s first stretch in Phoenix came with similar expectations. He was quickly asked to take on a heavy load, mostly at the four, handling some of the toughest defensive assignments so the Suns’ stars could save energy on offense while also firing away from deep. In 30 games with Phoenix during the 2023-24 season, he attempted 157 threes and hit 37.6% of them.
That first Suns run ended without much of a playoff imprint. Allen was hurt, the team’s postseason was brief, and Phoenix was swept by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round. Still, after the Suns added Tyus Jones in free agency and with Booker, Durant, and Beal having another year together, the expectation was that the next season would look very different.
It didn’t.
Phoenix opened 8-1, then lost Kevin Durant to an injury in a November 2024 game against the Dallas Mavericks and never truly got back on track. The Suns finished 28-45 from there.
The problems weren’t on O’Neale or Allen. Allen missed 18 games, but O’Neale was producing a career-high scoring pace at that point.
This past season, though, is where both wings really cemented what they were for Phoenix: highly useful role players who could swing games in the margins. There had been plenty of talk about their futures as the Suns dealt with roster and money issues.
Phoenix drafted Khaman Maluach and Rasheer Fleming, and also traded for 23-year-olds Jalen Green and Mark Williams, which made both veterans look a little less certain in the Suns’ long-term picture. Even so, they kept finding ways to matter.
Allen’s biggest night came in the 11th game of the season, when he set a franchise record with 10 made threes and finished with a career-high 42 points against the New Orleans Pelicans. That win pushed the Suns above .500, and they stayed there the rest of the year.
He also delivered when Booker was sidelined. Allen scored 28 points against the Los Angeles Lakers in a comeback win that helped Phoenix close out a rough February with a victory over a top-six team. Earlier, on January 29 against the East’s top-seeded Detroit Pistons, he scored 24 points and went 10 for 10 at the line in a 114 to 96 win.
Even while dealing with lower-body injuries and missing nearly 40% of the season, Allen remained a steady presence, averaging more than 15 points per game as a reserve.
O’Neale took a different route. He started the season coming off the bench, but that didn’t last long once his shooting forced the issue.
He ended up starting 67 of 78 games and built on his career year with even better production in the 2024 2025 campaign. He averaged the most points and threes made per game of his career, and he did it while hitting nearly 41% of his threes.
His signature moment came in that same Lakers game when Allen scored 28. O’Neale scored the Suns’ final seven points and buried the game-winning three with less than a second left.
Different roles, different spots on the floor, same outcome: both players made themselves useful every time they stepped on the court. They weren’t the flashiest Suns of the era, and nobody is putting them in the top tier of Phoenix greats. But over those three seasons, O’Neale and Allen helped stabilize a team that needed it, helped push a playoff club back to the postseason after a down year, and helped rebuild some of the culture that had gone missing.
And from a personal standpoint, the respect they showed a young reporter in NBA locker rooms after wins and losses won’t be forgotten either. Best of luck to them both in Charlotte. They made an impact in Phoenix.
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