PHOENIX — Devin Booker paused, agreed, and then briefly paused again before giving his answer.
The Phoenix Suns shooting guard and face of the franchise was asked on Tuesday if one of his mantras of always learning can be applied to a miserable 35-45 season that effectively ended on Wednesday when his team was eliminated from making the postseason.
Are there lessons to carry over into next year?
“Um… Yeah. I would say… Kind of the opposite of what we’ve been doing.”
That sums it up.
Phoenix will be making giant changes all across its organization this summer, changes that could be coming very soon. The top of the roster, coaching staff and front office are all on the table.
The only certainty is that the Suns will not trade Booker. A story from ESPN’s Tim MacMahon served as a large neon sign of owner Mat Ishbia declaring as much in one of his rare in-season interviews on the state of the basketball team.
Everything else? Get your seatbelts fastened.
Suns want Bradley Beal gone — how?
Arizona Sports’ John Gambadoro has been reporting he expects Beal to not be on the roster next season.
That will not have a pretty ending.
For a league that continues to prove no one is untradable, Beal’s no-trade clause sure put that theory to the test at February’s trade deadline. Whatever trade value Beal had prior to this season is absolutely nonexistent now thanks to his most injury-plagued season, full of little nicks that had him spend 11 separate stints of time out of action that has in turn made him largely ineffective compared to his previous form.
Even with first-round picks attached, assets Phoenix can’t really afford to let go, suitors aren’t really out there unless the Suns take on another terrible contract.
There is the nonsensical waive-and-stretch, a move that would put $22 million of dead money on the books for the next five seasons. Booker would be 34 years old when that would run out. The Suns, however, cannot even legally do that. PHNX Sports’ Gerald Bourguet explains that only 15% of a team’s total cap for a given year can be dead money. Since Beal’s number is right around there and the Suns are still paying Nassir Little and E.J. Liddell when they did the same thing, that’s past the allotment.
But there is a loophole to get that done, which still seems foolish, even though the cap will be going up a whole lot in the next few years so the weight of that $22 million will lighten up in the last few years of this decade, and this would be the most functional way for the Suns to duck under the second apron.
ESPN’s Bobby Marks joined Arizona Sports’ Bickley & Marotta on Monday and pointed out that any chunk of the contract Beal agrees to be bought out of comes off the cap. So, in turn, the waive-and-stretch could sneak under that 15% if Beal cooperates. He, uh, hasn’t cooperated yet so I wouldn’t hold your breath for now.
The most cost-effective maneuver is bringing Beal back next season and hoping he salvages some bit of value during a season that will at best see the Suns flutter around the play-in line. If he does, perhaps he can be the key salary number as an expiring in a multi-player trade. It he doesn’t, Phoenix can’t fool itself into thinking his departure would be the difference between contending or not next year anyway. Just eat it. Own your mistake and show brief patience.
But in what has been a consistent theme of Ishbia’s tenure and will continue to be, he is a man of action. If he wants Beal gone, Beal will be gone. Seems like that’s going to get done, one way or another.
Kevin Durant trade coming… ?
A lot can change in a short amount of time.
Going off all the different reporting throughout the first 50 games of the season, Phoenix went from steadfast on keeping its core together, to seeing how December would pan out, to heavily pursing a Beal deal for Jimmy Butler in January while not wanting to trade Durant, to considering trading Durant in the first week of February and then pretty much agreeing to send him away before Durant’s lack of interest in a Warriors reunion shut that down.
The way that series of events unfolded and the Suns’ spiral led to more reporting after the trade deadline that a Durant trade in the summer is more or less inevitable, something Phoenix and the forward will work on together.
Did the two sides change their minds a few months later? All indications prior to the deadline were that Durant wanted to stay in Phoenix, and he said as much. This was not a disgruntled-superstar-asking-out situation.
The Suns could twist themselves around and get lost in a maze of believing that something else is the primary reason this has failed spectacularly (again) besides a team led by Durant and Booker not working. That could be Beal, coaching or the decision-makers. There are chunks of the fanbase still in this camp.
What if Durant would still re-up and take that two-year extension?
Phoenix, however, cannot trick itself again. This does not work and it will not work. Booker and Durant on the floor together this season yielded outscoring teams by just 0.5 points per 100 possessions, per NBA Stats. Soak that in for what you rightfully expected out of this duo.
All this is not a way to target blame on Durant. If the age/contract situations were flipped and Booker was 36 years old on an expiring deal, he would be the one that would have to go. The Suns have to get the proper value on Durant they still can before it dwindles even further.
As for what to expect in trade talks, there are three categories Phoenix can choose to divvy up in a return: draft picks, young players with upside and proven players. A mix of the first two seems wise and that does not sound like the direction this will go.
Ishbia told MacMahon a “pivot and reload” could be the direction the Suns take. That would mean prioritizing established veterans for Durant, or at least younger players who are certified rotation players. Don’t expect too many draft picks coming back.
Is Mike Budenholzer back?
It is legitimately baffling that we could be at the point where the Suns would be paying four different head coaches next season, if not for the Detroit Pistons taking care of the Monty Williams money. But Budenholzer deserves a fair amount of blame for how this season has panned out.
With better defensive personnel than last season, the Suns’ defense cratered from a surprising mark last year, tied for 12th in defensive rating, to 27th this year. That includes absolutely horrific and abhorrent effort from February on, a 10-23 stretch where Phoenix has the worst number in the NBA. Worse than the Philadelphia 76ers, who are 5-28 over that span.
Budenholzer was known just as much for his defensive pedigree as he was for offense but none of that has carried over, unlike Frank Vogel at least getting something out of his group in his specialty. While Budenholzer had a reputation for a decent level of accountability, he clearly has failed like Vogel did in connecting to his group and shaping continuity that shows on the court.
Instead, it was a second straight year of rather lifeless basketball. With the repetitive nature of this theme, that is more on the players than the coach. Budenholzer, though, was the man in charge for it. And as far as his perception from afar, he did himself no favors with tone deaf after tone deaf press conferences that embodied the complete lack of spirit his own team showed on the floor all year.
Budenholzer’s past criticisms for his in-season and in-game adjustments came to the forefront as well.
Rotations were an issue. It took far too long for players like Tyus Jones and Beal to see reduced roles for how ineffective they were, as was the shift offensively into primarily running the initiating through Booker. Rookie Ryan Dunn was having a breakout start to the season when injuries piled up, but when guys got healthy, his playing time inexplicably shrunk and stagnated his development.
Durant has been right in pointing out that his animated conversations with Budenholzer on the sidelines throughout the season are a normal occurrence. It also speaks to the frustration with the adjustments taking too long, some of which were easy enough to dissect with postgame remarks. Durant, for example, was quick to point out when Phoenix’s defense saw the most success in a switch-first scheme.
There is also the question of if Budenholzer is even the right type of coach for a complete refresh of establishing a culture and identity, tasks he failed at tremendously in his first season.
Most coaches in his position, one year into a five-year deal, would not be in jeopardy. But with Ishbia’s aforementioned propensity, he’s having dreams featuring Ken Jennings.
Front office shakeup?
General manager and president of basketball operations James Jones was stuck in the unenviable position of holding his positions during an ownership change.
Suns president and CEO Josh Bartelstein was brought in a month after Ishbia officially bought the team, adding another head decision-maker alongside Jones and Ishbia. ESPN reported at the time of the Durant trade that Ishbia was heavily involved immediately. His hands-on approach has been one where Ishbia speaks on a collaborative experience with all the big choices for a front office to make, trusting the experienced basketball folks who grind all the specificities, but it still inspires speculation for how much say Jones has had since the swap.
In an example of the opposite, the Luka Doncic trade was one where the Dallas owner blindly trusted general manager Nico Harrison, a move attributed to Harrison and Harrison aloe. All of this is to say that Jones seems like he could be gone and we can’t speak with certainty how many of the moves in the last two years were ones he could own like Harrison will own the Doncic trade.
What is certain is Jones’ roster-building principles that completely reshaped the franchise and got it to the NBA Finals in 2021 have caught up to Phoenix, with raw physical tools and attributes serving as a major gap the Suns have to overcome in nearly every matchup this season. A roster makeover this summer prioritizing those traits has to be in order, giving Booker the type of team he wants with pace, and that does not align with what Jones would typically prefer to target.
Then again, Phoenix’s only path to salvaging this with Booker is through the draft, and Jones’ record is exceptional. Have you seen Ty Jerome and Toumani Camara this year?! He should stay, but the odds do not feel in his favor.
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