Where Are We Going? Phoenix Suns
In the series finale of one of my favorite TV shows of all time, the network that airs the fictional TV show "Sports Night" is being sold to an unknown bidder. At the same time, the show's executive producer has been drinking in a bar and talking with a character played by Clark Gregg, who can seemingly predict the future. (Mostly because he is secretly the guy who is bidding to buy the network, and he knows who she is and what she's worried about and why.) As they talk about the company and her problems and the future, he decides to give her a piece of advice.
Every so often, I like to ask myself this question as it relates to teams in the NBA. I feel like it's a good exercise to check in on what, exactly, certain teams are doing and, well, where they think they're going in the near- and long-term future.
All of which is to say, let's talk about the Phoenix Suns, shall we?
Congratulations are in order to the Suns for ducking the luxury tax and saving Mat Ishbia untold millions of dollars. What an amazing accomplishment that is. I can't wait to see what that means for them on the court this season. It should help a lot.
In all seriousness, I am confused not just by what the hell it is the Suns are doing these days, but by what they think they're doing.
They can't possibly think that they're contending in the West. That is wildly unrealistic to begin with given the state of the roster, but beyond that, if you think you're contending, you don't trade Kevin Durant and/or buy out and then waive and stretch Bradley Beal. You keep those guys and make another run at things.
But they also can't possibly think that they're rebuilding. They are wildly over-leveraged in terms of future draft assets and can't really take advantage of their own ineptitude if they wind up being really bad. But beyond that, you don't trade multiple picks for Mark Williams if you think you're rebuilding, after having already drafted a center at No. 10 overall. You just let that lottery pick play and learn from his mistakes.
If you're reading this newsletter, you're undoubtedly familiar with the famous "two timelines" strategy the Warriors said they wanted to employ down the stretch of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green's careers. One timeline where they compete at a high level for the remainder of those guys' primes, and another where the young players they drafted during the years those guys got hurt, ascended to heights great enough to take over the reins and continue inner-circle contention for years to come. The paths of those timelines were supposed to overlap so that the team never experienced a drop-off. Alas, like most of those types of plans, it didn't really work out, and the Warriors are now basically all-in on the right-now timeline once again after several years of unsuccessfully trying to chart multiple courses at once.
Amazingly, I think the Suns have a zero-timelines plan.
The Right-Now Timeline is D.O.A. I'm not even sure how this version of the team is supposed to work on the court. They still don't really have a point guard. They don't even have much in the way of shot creation at all outside of Devin Booker. (You can count Jalen Green if you want. I like the shots that players create to be of higher value and to go in the basket more often than the ones that Green creates.) They don't have reliable interior defense. They have shaky shooting that depends on Dillon Brooks maintaining his gains from last year, Royce O'Neale staving off age-related decline, and Grayson Allen.
They went 36-46 last year, they got worse, and the rest of the West got a heck of a lot better. It seems a whole lot more likely that they finish worse than the 11th in the West that they stumbled to last year, than that they finish better. Jordan Ott has his work cut out for him, to say the least.
And again, the Building For The Future Timeline isn't really feasible either. They have no draft assets. Their young core, such as it is, consists of Khaman Maluach, Oso Ighodaro, Rasheer Fleming, Ryan Dunn, and maybe Green... but only if they decide to keep him and only if he doesn't opt out of his contract if he performs to the level that the Suns deem him worth keeping. And if he does do that and they still decide to keep him around, they're going to be paying him a lot more money. Which plays into...
They can't really add a ton of talent to the roster over the next couple years unless they dump some salary and/or let guys like Williams and Green walk for nothing in return. They're currently not set to have any cap space at all until 2029. They could possibly get there a year or two earlier, but they'll have any of their wiggle room sliced by over $20 million per year thanks to the Beal buyout.
That latter issue is a problem not just on the books, but on the court. $20 million can get you a quality starter or it can get you two or three mid-rotation guys. For a team like the Suns that needs all the talent it can get, that's a big deal. Instead, they'll be paying Beal to play for the Clippers or some other team.
There are three ways they can extricate themselves from the Zero Timelines Plan.
The first is for some of the young guys to wildly outperform expectations. Green suddenly becomes the player the Rockets thought they were getting in the draft and turns into a significant bargain over the next two years and then re-ups for a max deal that is also a bargain because he's just that good, and he and Booker are the foundation of a contender for the next 5-6 years. Your mileage may vary on that possibility, but I'm not buying it.
Or maybe Ryan Dunn turns into a plus shooter and strong secondary creator, while Khaman Maluach is quickly a foundational defensive star and Rasheer Fleming becomes an elite three-and-D guy. Could one or more of those things happen? Sure! Would I bet on all of them happening, and in such short order that the Suns quickly coalesce into a contender? I would not.
The second way to extricate themselves is to really nail some moves on the margins. Grayson Allen and Royce O'Neale could have some value to other teams, and maybe you can get something for them that allows you to build for the future, and maybe you hit it big with whatever those assets are. The problem with that is that both of those guys are under contract for three more years, and those contracts are not necessarily positive-value. (O'Neale's might be in the short term but almost certainly isn't down the line. I don't think Allen's is at all unless he has a Malik Beasley type of season.) So you probably won't get much for them.
If you can't get anything for those guys, then maybe you spin Green and/or Dillon Brooks into some real assets and forge a new path that way. Brooks is on an affordable deal and, if counted on to play a specific role, can be a viable and even positive force in the playoffs. (Just don't give him too much offensive responsibility is all.) And maybe else someone talks themselves into the theory of Green as a scoring star. How much can you get for those guys? I guess we'll see.
Maybe you can draw an inside straight and really hit on undrafted or two-way guys and have them turn into real rotation players. It has happened before. But it's highly unlikely and not remotely something you can count on.
So of course, the last way to extricate from the Zero Timelines Plan is to go all in on rebuilding and trade Booker. There are, however, issues with that path.
The first is that he doesn't want to go anywhere. He's talked very openly about wanting to stick it out with the Suns and be a one-team guy for his whole career. Trading a player as good as he is, when he doesn't want out, is the kind of thing that gets your fan-base to revolt against you. And I'd imagine that Suns fans are pretty close to revolting to begin with, given the state of things.
The second is that, again, the Suns don't control their own draft picks. Unless they got those back in a Booker deal (which is NOT happening), they'd be in the wilderness like the Nets were after the Kevin Garnett/Paul Pierce/Jason Terry trade, unable to capitalize on their own awfulness and turn the ship around with any degree of quickness. They have to hope that whatever team they traded Booker to falls flat on its face, or that they can turn whatever assets they get in such a deal into better future assets than those are likely to be. Either way, the Trade Booker To Plan For The Future Plan is hindered by the lack of draft picks to begin with (they'd really only be getting back to around even, if that, and not accumulating extra picks) and by the Beal buyout.
And the third is that Ishbia would never trade away a guy who is from Michigan. That's an important aspect of team-building.
It's crazy that this team is where it is. They were in the NBA Finals three years ago. And they just... did some stuff that was crazy on its face, several times, and now here they are. With no plan, and no path. It's a sad state of affairs.
