Both teams are likely to have rough seasons moving forward, but the Suns have more to look back on in regret than the Bucks do because Milwaukee has a trophy.
It was just four years ago. The Phoenix Suns and Milwaukee Bucks were tussling it out for the Larry O’Brien Trophy to conclude the 2020-21 NBA Season. While the Suns came up short, the future felt hopeful in the Valley because of what the team displayed: optimism that the run wasn’t a fluke, and that the chance to win a championship and do what the Bucks had just done was still possible.
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Since then, both have done whatever they could to return to the NBA Finals, making trades for superstars and giving up nearly every draft asset both teams have. However, both are nowhere near contention anymore. While they both still have their foundational player from their Finals runs — Devin Booker and Giannis Antetokounmpo — the surrounding casts around both players are much worse than it was.
Even before Damian Lillard went down, the Bucks lacked the defensive ability and three point prowess they once had, and Phoenix is absent the size, depth, and defense that anchored them in 2021.
The similarities are staggering.
While both team’s futures are bleak, the Bucks have nothing to say sorry for, they got their hardware. Even though the Lillard trade hasn’t worked out the way that they thought it would, they will always be able to look back at this era knowing that Giannis Antetokounmpo led them to the end goal.
It’s a make-or-miss league; the Suns missed.
The trades for Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal that mortgaged the franchise’s future draft capital and young players have to be viewed differently because of the results (more than the lack thereof) that they reaped. If that wasn’t the case, then people wouldn’t ridicule the Brooklyn Nets for going all in on Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving and them being a failed trio, or the Los Angeles Clippers continuing to struggle to since they traded Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and a bounty of draft picks to convince Kawhi Leonard to come to California by acquiring Paul George.
Outside of the Los Angeles Lakers trading for Anthony Davis and the Toronto Raptors trading for Kawhi Leonard, no superstar trades have resulted in a championship in recent years, and the Suns getting Durant has not.
Phoenix still has a chance to get something in return for Durant, who is likely to be traded this offseason, unlike the Clippers did for George, who left last summer. However, the door appears completely closed for the Suns to win it all for the foreseeable future.
If the expectations weren’t heightened because of the Finals run and the 64-win season they had the next year, then perhaps Monty Williams would still be coaching, Deandre Ayton, Mikal Bridges, and Cam Johnson would still be on the Suns, and James Jones would still be the GM. But as we’ve seen of late, with the Denver Nuggets firing Mike Malone less than two years after they won a title and Frank Vogel leaving the Lakers less than two years after he won one coaching them, success changes perspectives, and the Suns got close to the mountain top, but never achieved it.
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