When the Phoenix Suns were in the process of being sold back in 2022, the NBA had become the wild west.
Since the luxury tax was implemented in 2001 up until 2020, the highest collective total of leaguewide payments was 2003’s $173 million in what appeared to be a “[expletive] around and find out” moment. But then a mindset flipped where the punishments were worthwhile, with a few organizations accepting the ludicrous payments in the mid-to-late 2010s that would add up later, building to 2022’s overall league figure nearly tripling the previous peak to $481 million, per Spotrac.
There was a clear advantage developing in a franchise being owned by someone willing to push beyond those limits when the roster warranted it, and at the time, the question was asked in this space if Phoenix’s new owner could be one of those gunslingers. In came double-holstering Mat Ishbia.
As he arrived, the west was getting wilder, to a degree in which the NBA clearly started investigating ways to contain it. The $481 million number from 2022 exploded to $635 million in 2023.
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A year later, the incredibly restrictive apron rules were set in place. The last two seasons have sat at $525 million and $466 million, so there hasn’t been a figure matching a steep adjustment just yet, but expect that to come. The Suns, who would have benefitted extremely from a high-spending strategy just a few years ago without all the limitations, paid a $152 million luxury tax bill this season, $60 million more than any other team.
Phoenix and Ishbia were effectively screwed more than any other franchise by the timing of these changes, given Ishbia only got one full offseason to operate under free reign before the second apron limitations came into effect.
And to make matters worse, there is another recent change that will affect the Suns’ new team-building philosophies under Ishbia, with this one having to do with the NBA Draft.
The early entrant list for the 2025 class includes 105 prospects, the lowest number since 2015, per ESPN’s Jonathan Givony. That is due to one thing and one thing only: NIL.
Marginal draft prospects, whether it’s on the first-round bubble or beyond, are getting far better opportunities financially from the collegiate side of things now. Remember when kids used to declare for the draft even when it benefited their development to stay in school another year, simply due to the fact that they needed and/or wanted the money the pros offered? No more of that now.
And it’s going to dramatically affect the caliber of prospect NBA teams can get from the 20s all the way to the undrafted free agent pool. That’s bad news for the Suns.
Ishbia and his front office have traded the next seven years of their draft picks to other teams. Phoenix has done so in a way where it is not completely disregarding the importance of the draft, as the Suns still have a handful of picks in both rounds coming over those years. It’s just that Phoenix’s recent tumble with more projected rolls down the hill to come has its own picks being far more valuable than the ones it acquired.
The Suns are looking at a future in the draft of picking in the 20s of the late first round. They will begin doing so in late June with the 29th selection, while future first-rounders in 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030 have the best odds for landing in that range as well.
That is now much more of a problem than it was five years ago. Here are the more defined numbers.
The 30th pick in the 2024 NBA Draft was Baylor Scheierman. The Boston Celtics, per league rules, gave Scheierman the exact allotment of a four-year contract worth up to $12.8 million. That includes a salary of $2.5 million as a rookie and $2.6 million the next year before back-to-back team options for $2.7 million and $5 million.
The 31st pick in the 2025 NBA Draft was Jonathan Mogbo. The Toronto Raptors negotiated a contract with Mogbo that makes him $1.7 million and $2 million in his first two seasons, respectively, before a team option of $2.3 million in the third and final year.
The 40th pick in the 2025 NBA Draft was Oso Ighodaro. He was signed by Phoenix to the standard second-round exception of four years and $7.9 million, with some team options sprinkled in there.
Better deals can come for second-rounders, such as Utah Jazz rookie Kyle Filipowski who got a four-year, $12 million deal that was the highest in a few years.
But the NBA is dealing with a new issue here, because some of those players are getting underpaid compared to their alternative options.
In the new NIL world of collegiate athletics, some NBA prospects now have expanded choices. As the dynamics of students getting paid continue to take shape, serious salaries are becoming more and more of the standard.
When discussing Colorado State guard Nique Clifford, who has no college eligibility left, ESPN’s Jeremy Woo made a note of something that will be a major talking point over the next month ahead of the NCAA’s May 28 deadline to withdraw from the NBA Draft.
He stands to benefit from what could be a thin mix of late-first and early-second-round candidates, with teams bracing for a wave of players in that range potentially opting to return to college for potentially major NIL earnings.
A perfect example is Michigan forward Yaxel Lendeborg, who recently entered the transfer portal out of UAB and committed to the Wolverines, all while remaining declared for the NBA Draft.
Lendeborg immediately became the best player available on the portal, with Michigan presumably paying top dollar to secure his services if he comes back to school. On3.com projects Lendeborg’s NIL value at $2.3 million, for what it’s worth, with these figures not being as publicly available like professional salaries.
The 22-year-old, 6-foot-9 forward became a trendy name on draft boards the last couple of months, going absolutely insane in the AAC Tournament with 24.0 points, 16.6 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 2.7 steals and 2.3 blocks per game over three contests to nearly get to the NCAA Tournament. The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie described Lendeborg’s 30-20-8-5-4 quarterfinals performance against East Carolina being as good of a two-way performance as any he’s seen this year. He’s got many modern wing traits that teams covet with some functionality as a smaller big as well.
Lendeborg went from a potential second-round pick to a potential first-round pick, the type of meteoric rise that would only matter in the NBA facet, but now it’s also about how much more he could get paid by Michigan next year.
And Lendeborg’s awesome story reflects why this is an extremely important life decision for him, and any kid with this choice for that matter.
Lendeborg only played two seasons of D1 basketball for UAB because he spent his first three years at Arizona Western in Yuma, a necessity after how quickly his development fell behind. When he was growing up, Lendeborg was unable to make even the middle school team. He then finally got the nod for his freshman team in high school, only to get cut midway through the season due to poor grades, per the Memphis Commercial Appeal.
He later told ESPN this was because he was more interested in video games than basketball for most of his life. Lendeborg didn’t even get his academics in order with that readjustment of priorities until his senior year when he only got to play in 11 total games (!).
An assistant out of the community college in southwest Arizona heard some buzz about Lendeborg after Lendeborg was invited to a small camp in New York his parents forced him to go to since he was afraid he’d embarrass himself. Lendeborg showed out, that assistant took the word of a close friend to convince his boss to offer Lendeborg Arizona Western’s one available scholarship remaining and here Lendeborg is five years later on the doorstop of the NBA or becoming one of college basketball’s next stars.
And Lendeborg very well could go to Michigan, have an All-American season and then get drafted in the same range (or even better) a year from now. The downside is if he stagnates or regresses, plus that extra year in college means it’s another year he’d have to wait before getting off his NBA rookie deal to an extension, where the real money starts.
It’s another complexity in the process for these kids, who rightfully are now less handcuffed by it with more options to consider. That freedom, however, is going to greatly diminish the amount of talent available in the margins of the next couple of drafts until the NBA makes a change to address this. That’s going to hurt teams who need to excel on the margins, like the Suns.
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