Where do the Phoenix Suns go from here?
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49 Comments
Just got a noti saying they might fire Frank Vogel…while watching this video lmao
They need to blow it up. trade Kd and book hope you can come off of beal if not they might need to do a buyout. They need to get a bunch of picks and draft well.
KD just wants to hoop bruh. Why you trying to force him to understand spacing and good offense?
Just crazy. It often seems like sports teams owners must be good at business bc a lot of them made a fortune in order to buy a team but then they go and do this dumb stuff.
Anyone with that amount of turn over from coaching and roster standpoints is screwed. Where do they go from here? Nowhere.
Clearly they have too many point guards, too many centers, too much defense, and not enough mid range shooting,
The only answer is to trade for Lavine or Derozan 💀
I really don't get why Durant doesn't shoot more threes. He's got one of the best shots in history and to even contest it you have to put one of your taller guys on the perimeter, clearing up the middle.
pistons point differential against them was -30 💀
FYI, the issue that a lot of players have with the corner catch and shoot roles is that it's hard to get into rhythm and get hot if you're expected to shoot after not having been on the bench and not having done much shooting beforehand. Worse to be blamed if you miss when you were put in that weird situation. Some of that doesnt apply to KD but i can understand the sentiment
Its funny because I say the same thing about superteams. Fit matters and you can’t let someone say “imma get two stars and run the table”. There has to be an identity and a certain way to play things. I was never upon board with any super team Russ joined or constructed (PG and Melo / AD and Lebron) because it never made sense what the team identity would be. So now KD is seeing it happen again.
years of crushing mediocrity at best
koffie content 🙂
Beal was not needed. Should have persued role players to fit Durant and Booker.
one must imagine Sisyphus happy bc this is so funny to me.
how did they get swept before the lakers of all teams, who people would say is worse than the suns LOL
KD asking one time ago how he isn't in the goat conversation and then this happens
Beal wanting to win a ring and then having a quote come out about never being swept…. and then just having a terrible night shooting and getting swept
SO MANY THINGS are funny about this and I cannot wait for this to keep going wrong
I liked how the suns were playing when beal was out. Once he came back, the offense was a mess and you didnt know who the #1 would be.
If they trade Booker and KD they could get around 5 firsts, or 3 firsts and 2 good prospects. Then trade Beal with 2 first's attached, for 1-2 year salary filler players and second round picks. Those would get them out of the hole they dug for themselves, they would be a bad team, but it wouldnt look hopeless until the 2030's.
Man I’m so glad the Suns imploded. No successful team should ever be constructed the way this year’s Suns were, and I’m glad we won’t have copycats trying to get a bunch of big names with no defense or depth hoping to win a title
Durant back to OKC for Picks? Idk how you make the salary work lmao
They created a roster as if we're in a video game, sat back, and said "Go. Do the basketballs". This is what they get.
To Cancun
Grayson has agreed a 70m extension.
I would've died a little inside if I had to watch another year of Suns basketball with Monty, geriatric CP3, and or Deandre Ayton, and I ended up dying inside in a whole different way. This is a new type of hell.
new early 2010s Nets
Roster construction is absolutely not on Vogel. The inability to make rotation adjustments (EG 40 minutes in game 4 guarding KAT ffs) and not getting the 3 max players to buy in is absolutely on Vogel. It was a problem for 82 games that Minny feasted on. He's a "championship winning coach" in the same way Doc Rivers is a championship winning coach.
Trading for Bradley Beal was the dumbest most disgusting thing any GM has ever done. Nothing that man had ever done had indicated he was secretly a key piece of any competitive roster. KD and Book probably coulda made the finals with Cam Payne, Nurk, & Bol Bol
How do you think this midrange heavy roster would have done in the pre-splash era of basketball? I reckon they'd have killed it in 2006
Now if only the Booker stans will, FINALLY, stfu😂🤦🏾♂️. He's a "better" Jordan Poole. A highly skilled, loser ball player. Deal with it lol
There is no success in the modern NBA unless you have rebounding and a consistent backcourt. The Suns sturuggled in both of those areas all season and they have to address that in the offseason.
Mike Conley is a really solid defensive PG still at 36.
Being stuck with Beal, and having no draft capital has gotta hurt. Plus they are kinda screwed because they need both a point guard, and big defenders. No such thing as a two-way PG big. The future looks dim for the Suns.
booker come home
At least it was better than cp3 n Ayton . I appreciate ishbia for the Durant move , its dope seeing him in the valley , they just made poor moves with Beal and nurkic . I still think it’ll be an exciting era of suns ball in the future
The bottom. Ain't no up from here. Unless they make it work next season, it's all downhill here.
Westbrook killed the triple double, Durant killed the super team. Only way to win more than 1 championship is to draft and develop talent.
the breathless coverage about mat ishbia the genius heroically riding in and snatching up KD is looking worse and worse in retrospect
Grayson Allen is signed for 4 more years @70M total, but yeah it looks terrible for em
even though the westbrook trade was similarly bad, i could at least see why it happened, i genuinely have no idea why the beal trade got the go ahead. arguably worse than russ overall because of the size of that contract still, and the fact they basically gave up a chance at drafting high in the entire 2020s for bradley beal?
the only thing i realised with all this is the wizards did actually win, the russ trade and the beal trade completely derailed two legit contenders.
Suns have 1 realistic option this offseason: call up Sam Presti and ask him how many 1sts they'd be willing to part with to bring the prodigal son home.
It actually makes sense for everybody – OKC looks like a potential dynasty in the making and adding even this version of Kevin Durant to that young core speeds up their timeline to title contenders to as soon as this upcoming season (and they have the draft capital to get the deal done without parting with anyone essential or semi-essential to their title window), plus they get the feel-good moment of bringing the team's first superstar back home to bring that whole storyline full circle. KD gets to come back and steal page out of Lebron's book and possibly hoisting a Finals trophy while shouting "Oklahoma! This one's for YOU!" which helps wash away the memories of him leaving town to join a dynasty somewhere else and then accomplishing fuck all at the next 2 stops where he got to be top banana, plus probably at least 1 title that isn't held against his legacy like the 2 golden state ones.
And phoenix gets at least 2 quality role players (I'm guessing just to match salaries it would have to include Lu Dort, Kenrich williams, and Josh Giddey) and the draft capital they get could be used to dump Bradley Beal for a couple of half decent role players, with enough left over to attach to Nurkic to get at least a minor upgrade at center. They're still a 1st round exit, but it's much less embarrassing than being a 1st round exit with 3 max salary players, and a 1st round exit is easier to sell to their fans if it looks like they're retooling in a younger direction around a younger star in Booker surrounded by a bunch of scrappy role players overachieving to even make the playoffs while they try to build young players up into stars next to Booker. Plus it would probably help Booker's confidence and development if he was once again the best player/biggest name on his own team again instead of either being outshined by KD or the talk around Brad Beal nit living up to his super max and how bad that trade was distracting from anything good he or the team as a whole accomplishes
Phoenix also can't blow it up completely and rebuild – Ishbia just bought the team less than 2 years ago and already forced the GM to trade/fire everybody not named Booker from the Finals team to try to make the team better. It's one level of embarrassment to admit the KD, Beal, and Ayton trades were mistakes and have to commit to a retool style rebuild this early into his ownership tenure, it's a completely different level of humiliation to commit to a firesale rebuild. Ishbia could maybe stomach the former, no new owner could stomach the latter.
To me, the Suns and (to an extent) the Lakers are the best examples of why you shouldn't be going all in without taking long enough to figure out if that player fits the team. Sure, the Nuggets don't have a whole ton of draft capital, but they're picking up the right guys for their team. The Suns saw a star and just went for it. The only contract worse is probably Zach Lavine maybe Jordan Poole.
what do you do about a problem like the Suns?
Sell the team
Love how your voice is cracking when you read Suns' future picks.
Superteams are grown, not bought on marketplace. This has been proven over last decade or so.
I dont understand how any GM coukd think this roster construction is a good idea. Like, youve got 3 players who fill the exact same role. Your roster is reduntant twice over.
KD was better off trying to stick it out with BK. Tht was a real big 3. Had they remained patient they probably the current defending champs rn. Tht Beal contract is literally meant for him to stay in DC. All those super maxes are designed for that star to stay for good. Most guys tht take the super max and get traded end up in worst spots. PHX traded for tht lol.
I don't know if you read the comment section, but here's some context and replies to points you made in the video, as a Suns fan who has closely followed the team.
Replying to some points you made:
– 4:30, You bring up Denver and say they only have one all star. But, all stars aren't created equally. It is one thing to build a championship team around a player who is best in the world caliber, like Jokic. It is another to build a team around one all star in Devin Booker, who is great, but not capable of being the entire engine of an elite offense. You can't really learn team construction from the Nuggets without grappling with the fact they drafted an all time great in the 2nd round during a taco bell commercial! That's not really replicable
– 7:08, You bring up Beal being on the team, and that it would've been better to just have role players. How would they have gotten those role players? They traded a clearly in decline Chris Paul and mediocre role player in Landry Shamet for Beal. Before the Beal trade, reports were that the Suns were going to waive Chris Paul just to get under the second luxury tax apron to get the taxpayer midlevel exception (which is ~$5 million) and sign someone, because no one was interested in trading for CP3. Does Landry Shamet and a $5 million contract player really make this team better than it would with Beal? I think both are bad, but Beal provides the higher ceiling, which you go for 10 out of 10 times when you have 35 year old Kevin Durant on your team and have no idea when age is going to catch up with him. You later acknowledge this at 8:15
– 9:55, You credit the timberwolves defense! I don't think enough people acknowledge the Wolves part in this. They are a team who has chemistry, a young star who can occasionally be the best player in a series offensively, and high defensive ceiling in a league that has stopped calling as many fouls as they did at the beginning of the regular season. A lot of people were saying the Suns were a bad matchup for them, but junking up the Suns actions is the Suns weakness, because they just default into isoing.
– 10:30 Their offense did not have a lot of pick and roll. According to nba tracking data, they ran the 27th most in the NBA. Whatever source mentioned that is wrong.
– 11:44 This is the issue with KD's mentality. If he really was mad at being relegated to the corner and the source Shams used isn't just stirring the pot, KD doesn't seem to understand his weaknesses. On-ball, teams just bring physicality and get in his space, and he becomes turnover prone. Booker and Beal both have better court vision than him too. He can run the occasional pick and roll with a big that can finish, but the Suns didn't have one of those. He also needs to rest on offense because of the importance of his weak side defense.
– 16:00 The Suns do have picks. 2024, 2026, 2028, 2030. They're pick swaps, but they'll still be first round picks they can trade or use in those years.
– 17:30 I'm hoping that this year is the year they need to learn to adjust how they play.
– 21:43 Allen just signed an extension through 2028. They also have Royce's bird rights (or early bird rights?)
TL;DR
The Suns team that went to the finals ran its course. They were no longer a championship team. Booker isn't a talent capable of being the first option on a championship team, especially with CP3 in decline. If look at how Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson played this year, do you really think they're capable of being #2 and #3 offensive options on a championship team? Ayton gave up in the playoffs 2 years in a row. They're probably running it back with minimal tinkering until the summer of 2026, when Nurkic and KD come off the books. They'll have their 2031 and 2032 pick if they want to use them, then retool and have a completely different team by the time Beal comes off the books the following year.
Home
I guess Wizards fans rejoice! (I'm not one of them, I am a fan of a mid team since 2011).
Kevin Durant to the Atlanta Hawks for Trae Young (along with Bruno Fernando and Garrison Mathews).
Bol Bol to the San Antonio Spurs, as a free agent.