Your weekly Inside the Suns analysis straight from the BSotS community who live and breathe the team.
Welcome to ‘Inside the Suns’, your weekly deep down analysis of the current Phoenix Suns team.
Each week the Fantable – a round table of Bright Siders – give their takes on the Suns’ latest issues and news. This week we’ve decided to focus on looking forward instead of looking back at the Suns quick playoff exit at the hands of Minnesota. While the Suns options moving forward are limited due to the new CBA, they do have options… up to and including the “nuclear” option of completely blowing up the team and starting a complete rebuild.
Fantable Questions of the Week
Q1 – Some Brightsiders have been down on Booker lately and have voiced the opinion that he should be traded this off-season. What are your thoughts on this?
GuarGuar: I am completely against trading Booker. He is the franchise. I understand we have fallen short the past few years. I understand he had a tough games 1-3 this series. But he has demonstrated he’s a top 10 player and that is super rare to have. He stuck through this franchise through its lowest points in history. He didn’t complain and leave. And just because he had a rough playoff series for the first time we should trade him? I don’t get it.
I understand we are very limited right now and have basically no assets. We don’t own our own picks going forward so trading him and tanking doesn’t exactly make sense. If he wants out that’s a different story. But I am vehemently against trading Book. It’s a bad look for the franchise if we do and will hurt our image going forward. I think we will run this group back another year and see what happens with some continuity.
OldAz: There has always been a contingent within the Bright Side community that is down on Booker, along with some who defend him to the bitter end. This year was not a good year for that latter group, but in my opinion trading him would be asinine. While he might command the most in return, trading Booker to get 2-3 good players and balance the roster leaves the Suns with an aging Beal and KD and little else. Booker is the heart and soul of this franchise at the moment, and lobbied to bring in these other great players. Now it is on him to lead those other players and make it work. Trading him away makes absolutely no sense.
Brrrberry: I can’t think of a more terrible idea at this point than trading Booker. Every great Suns player that’s played for us over the last half a century plus has ultimately come up short and no one has gotten any closer than he has. The Minnesota series was a disaster, we got outclassed and it was a major disappointment so it’s natural to want wholesale change. Trading Booker makes us worse now and in the future, I’ll be rooting for him ideally until the day he retires as a Sun. At this point I can make an easy argument he’s the best player in franchise history and that his best basketball is still ahead of him.
Rod: This would be a mistake in my opinion. Yes, it would net the biggest value return of any player on the roster but you’re not going to get more than a handful of fair to good players back and odds are that whatever draft picks the team gets as part of the deal would be late first rounders simply because Book is likely going to make whichever team he went to much better than it was. Late 1st round picks might be better than no 1st round picks but that really depends on how well you use them… and contrary to popular belief/opinion, the Suns do have 1st round picks in 2024, 2026, 2028, 2030 and beyond. Many are subject to possible pick swaps with other teams but for the most part those are with teams that will likely NOT want to swap unless the Suns trade Book, get worse and have their own future 1st round picks become more valuable.
To me it would at best be a gamble – and a big one – that trading arguably the best player ever to wear a Suns uniform could eventually turn this team into a championship winner. That is of course possible but I believe it’s just as possible that it could start the Suns down the road to another 10-year playoff drought and that’s a gamble I’m not yet willing to take.
Q2 – What would be your major move in free agency or through a trade to attempt to improve the Suns this off-season?
GuarGuar: I really want us to get a backup point guard. We need someone to run the offense when Book is on the bench. And sometimes we need someone else to handle point guard duties when Book is on the floor so we aren’t so one dimensional. Beal can’t run point guard, Minnesota exposed that. If Kyle Lowry is available to come here for the minimum I would look into that. He’d be a great fit here. We’re so limited in what we can do this offseason that it’s so hard to come up with a “major move”.
OldAz: I don’t think there is a “major” move to be made and I am on record that continuity is a benefit and the starting 5 are all under contract for next season with only one being really tradable. As for players, I would try to bring back Bol and Okogie. I am neutral on O’Neale after his playoff disappearing act, and I would be open to moving Nurkic if they could get a starting power forward in return that would allow KD to play more small forward. The moves the Suns make all need to be focused on getting longer and more athletic. I know a lot of people will want them to add a PG, but that just makes no sense to me when you have Book and Beal playing 70 minutes a night and Allen already signed so there really is only room for a backup PG anyway. As bad as this season was to watch I am not even a fan of ousting Vogel, but I would require him or one of the staff to lay out a clear offensive philosophy and game plan. To me that was one of the biggest things missing this season.
Brrrberry: I’d fire Vogel and bring in Dawn Staley or Jared Dudley as coach. Draft Mccain or Kolek, potentially trade the pick on draft night along maybe even along with our 2031 pick. If we’re trading first round picks we’re looking for someone who can bring the same type of impact that NAW had for Minnesota and ideally a talent that would exceed his type of impact but that’s unlikely as he played a major role.
Ultimately I think Kolek is the guy from this draft who brings what we need the most. I have Tyler Smith 6’11 lefty from G League Ignite as my sleeper with the most upside so I’d be thrilled if we got him but he’s gonna have some growing pains and may not mesh with being all in like I think is the approach we gotta maintain. Run it back with Beal, KD with a coach who’ll hold them accountable. Staley or Dudley would make a huge difference with this squad but I don’t quite trust the head decision makers to bring in the coach whose going to be able to change the entire culture around like I know Staley or Dudley would.
Rod: Being over the 2nd tax apron (or even the 1st) severely limits what the Suns can do in free agency so we can pretty much count that our as a way of improving the team. Vet minimum FA signings are all they can do there with the exceptions of re-signing Royce O’Neale and Bol Bol which they hopefully can do.
Making a significant trade without sending out Book, KD or Beal is also difficult but I really don’t believe we’ll see any of them being shopped over the summer. Once the 2024-25 season gets started, depending on how it goes I won’t yet count out a mid-season trade of one of them though. Once you get past those three, Nurk is the Suns’ highest value trade chip (but perhaps not the best one). His $18 mil salary could bring back some useful assets but it would probably necessitate an overall downgrade at the center position. If the Suns could find a willing trade partner and get back at least one, preferably two, useful rotation/bench players, I would likely pull the trigger on that trade. Just a reminder, while the Suns can no longer aggregate players in trades, this restriction does NOT apply to other teams aggregating salaries in trades with the Suns. The restriction is on the Suns, not them.
Grayson Allen is possibly the Suns’ best trade chip but I would hate to lose him. His $15.6 mil salary would be very tradable and would likely bring back a better return than Nurkic but he can’t be traded until 6 months after the date on which he signed his contract extension which would be sometime in October. That pretty much relegates him to the group that could get traded during the season but probably not before the season begins.
Nassir Little is the next best dollar value ($6.75 mil) contract the Suns could trade this summer but I don’t see him having enough on the court value to bring back much in return. In fact, the best return value I could see for his contract might be a trade exception if someone was willing to take him on for very little in return… which might be possible. David Roddy’s salary is just too small to count on being valuable in bringing back a good player and I don’t even want to speculate on all of the minimum salary players with player options who might or might not still be with the Suns after this season.
To sum it up, without trading Book, KD or Beal, trading Nurk is likely the only option for getting back any truly useful player/players this summer but even that would likely be a gamble.
Q3 – With only the 22nd pick in the draft, do you believe that the Suns can draft a player that might actually provide on the court value as a rookie?
GuarGuar: If we stick with James Jones I fully believe we will draft a rookie who played 3-4 years in college and is ready to contribute immediately. I can’t imagine drafting a project given the state of this team. I’d expect a wing or big man who is older and ready to contribute right now. Our timeline doesn’t line up with taking a project or a raw player.
I would like to draft a point guard if possible. I am not familiar with this draft class and I’ve heard mainly bad things about it. But having a young point guard would be nice and hopefully could develop as our future backcourt mate with Book (i.e what Haliburton should’ve been).
OldAz: I can’t even pretend to be an expert on college basketball prospects, but I did skim a few mock drafts for this question. I had heard that this was a down draft, so I am not sure how much we can expect from the 22nd pick, and I have no idea the rules involved with trading that pick for a player since the Suns cannot aggregate salaries. I was struck by how many 19 and 20 year old freshman are being projected in mock drafts, as that again offers little hope in the short run for the Suns. I would stick to James Jones’ tendency to prefer upper classman, and I certainly wouldn’t be sad if Devin Carter from Providence fell that far. More realistically, I would be good with either Zach Edey as the Suns new backup center, or Tyler Kolek as a backup PG option.
Brrrberry: Addressed this in question 2. Tyler Kolek from Marquette is a 4 year PG who I’m expecting to have a similar impact to what JJJ and Podz had for Miami and GSW. The fact he plays PG makes him about the perfect ROOKIE fit for a team that’s all in on winning. He’d make a huge difference. Mccain, the combo guard from Duke would be a nice fit long term and Tyler Smith from G League Ignite is my no1 sleeper in this draft but despite his sweet shooting stroke at 6’11 with plus athleticism he’s still pretty raw and likely doesn’t have the impact we’re needing out of that asset this upcoming season so probably not the right fit for 2024/25 season unfortunately. All the same I don’t expect he’ll be available at 22, think he’ll be a late riser and someone who really scoots up the draft boards during the pre-draft process.
Rod: I think the Suns can find a player in the draft that could play a useful role on the court in his 1st NBA season but but it won’t be easy to find more than a useful bench piece at 22. At the moment, I believe the Suns should be considering either a point guard or a center with their pick. If they do wind up trading Nurk (see my answer to Q2 above), then Zach Edey would be my choice if he’s available. While there are doubts about his ability to defend in space, I have my own doubts as to whether he’d be worse than Nurk at it plus he looks to be an improvement in many other areas, especially rim protection and scoring in the paint. If the Suns could trade Nurk for a reasonably good backup PG, I would go this route… but of course the draft is going to happen before the Suns will have a real opportunity to make that trade so they would have to take Edey with the assumption that they can somehow find a useful PG somehow later on.
If Edey is gone when the Suns draft, they might go with drafting a PG and my personal preference would be Tyler Kolek. Are there better PGs in this draft? Yes, but none of them will likely be available when the Suns pick at 22 and Kolek may be the best pure assist man of the bunch (7.7 assists per game). Why isn’t he likely to go before 22? Much of the reasoning behind him not being taken earlier is his age. He’s a 23 year old senior… which could be a plus for the Suns considering he would likely be needed to mostly just play a backup role and because of his maturity and extra college experience. He’s also considered just average athletically but can score (15.3 ppg, 38.8% from three), has active hands on D (1.6 steals pg) and fits the profile of the type of player JJ likes to draft. It’s not considered likely that he’ll become a great starting PG in the NBA but should become at least a quality backup which would be a solid get for Phoenix in the Draft.
As always, many thanks to our Fantable members for all their extra effort this week!
Last Week’s poll results
Last week’s question was, “Can the Suns win this playoff series without stealing either game 1 or game 2 in Minnesota?”
53% – Yes.
47% – No.
A total of 261 votes were cast.
Suns Trivia
Devin Booker’s 49 points in Game 4 against the Timberwolves set a new postseason career high, besting his previous high of 47, which he had done three times. It was also his eighth-career 40+ point game in the postseason, the most by any NBA player since the start of the 2021 NBA Playoffs. Booker’s 49 points also moved him past Walter Davis into 3rd on the Suns’ All-Time leaders list for career playoff points scored (1,315) and he became the ninth player in NBA history to score 1,300+ career postseason points in 47 games or fewer, joining Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Allen Iverson, Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlin, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor.
This week’s poll is…