It wasn't just that they were losing, but mostly all the terrible mgt choices they made, which I guess is probably why they were such a terrible team.

First they trade Shawn marion in his prime for washed out shaq whose game no longer meshed with how the NBA was played.

Then they basically just let Amare walk for nothing,

Then they trade nash for what at the time appeared to be a bunch of crappy picks, (surprisingly ultimately led back to them getting Mikal bridges, so in hindsight wasn't as bad, especially with nash's career ending injury with lakers next season, but at the time seemed weak).

then continue with blunder after blunder of crappy picks (devin booker at 13 was only thing in hindsight that looked good), rotating gm's, rotating coaches.

the way they handled the dragic/bledsoe/thomas debacle, trading for brandon knight (who?), morris twins publicly ripping on fans, this team was basically unwatchable.

then sarver made the most brilliant move of his career (probably just got really lucky) in signing james jones, who has had an amazing philosophy, gets lucky with #1 pick to get ayton, makes great hire in Monty Williams, makes brilliant move to trade for bridges, makes brilliant move to trade down for saric and cam johnson, signs cam payne, then goes out and gets chris paul and jae crowder, and instantly suns are one of the best teams in the league.

The turnaround happened so quickly, it would be hard to be a happy fan today and not feel like a fair weather fan.