Ablett, who will miss the rest of 2016 with a shoulder injury, said the Suns should have focused on the basics to be more in line with Hawthorn and Geelong who are now dominating the competition.

"I feel early days we probably developed the boys the wrong way in terms of what we were teaching them on the training track and on the footy field," he told Channel 9.

"If you look at all the good sides (like) Hawthorn, Geelong – the teams that had success over a long period of time – they do the basics of football well, and I don't think we were training the right drills early days.

"I think we probably thought with games and experience it was just going to happen, and we didn't spend enough time on the training track training the basics of football."

The 32-year-old is preparing to undergo a second surgery on his troublesome left shoulder after injuring it earlier this month.

"I think obviously when I went through the first shoulder injury it (retirement) crossed my mind at the time," Ablett said.

"I was 31 at the time, I'd been playing for 14, 15 years and I was asking myself the question, 'Why am I still doing this?'"

Ablett is signed to the Suns until the end of 2018.