Sitting at 35-43, the Suns find themselves in the 11th seed and out of a play-in spot. Bradley Beal has been riddled with injuries, Kevin Durant twisted his ankle and Devin Booker has had an up-and-down year. The Suns also lost their rights to their own draft pick until 2032, including this year's pick, which currently sits in the lottery and is in the Houston Rocket's possession. 

It's been a harsh fall for the Suns, who made the finals after acquiring Chris Paul in the 2020-21 season and had their best regular season record ever in 2022. What happened to this team that truly put them in this spot? Where do the Suns go from here? Is there a fix?

The Trade

In the 2022-23 season, the Suns decided to take a swing for the fences. In the dark of night, Phoenix Suns new owner Mat Ishbia pulled the trigger on a deal with the Nets that would land them superstar forward Kevin Durant. The price was steep, however, as they had to give up two promising wings in Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson, along with four unprotected first-round picks.

Adrian Wojnarowski set NBA Twitter ablaze with one tweet and plunged the basketball world into shock. It would take Durant some time to play, however, but the Suns had an 8-0 record in his first year with the team. They also had an interesting playoff run, where the combo of Booker and Durant forced the eventual champion Denver Nuggets to struggle. 

According to StatMuse, Booker put up 30.8 points, 7.8 assists and 4.7 rebounds in the six games, including a 47-point, nine-assist Game Three and a 36-point, six-rebound, 12-assist Game Four on 80% from the field. Kevin Durant also put up 29.5 points and 9.7 rebounds throughout the series before falling to the Nuggets in six. The Suns didn’t have enough pieces to get over the top, but the blueprint was set and a window to compete was open.

The Fall

What followed in the next offseason was where things started to change. The Suns moved off of Chris Paul, who showed signs of decline and health risk, along with Landry Shamet and four pick swaps to the Wizards for Bradley Beal. Suns fans liked acquiring a guard who, according to ESPN, put up 31.3 points per game the year prior, but many were unsure of the fit next to two ball-dominant players such as Booker and Durant.

Beal played 53 games in year one for the Suns and put up a solid 18.2 points and five assists, but it was hard finding ways for all three stars to get involved, and the lack of defense from Beal and Booker was a huge reason the Wolves went on to win the series, putting Anthony Edwards on the map.=

According to ESPN, this year, Beal has only played 48 games and has found himself splitting time between the bench, the starting lineup and being off-the-court with injury problems that he’s dealt with since his time in Washington. Beal was shopped at the trade deadline as the Suns tried to make a heavy push for disgruntled star Jimmy Butler. Due to Beal being one of only two players with a no-trade clause, along with him making over 50 million dollars annually, it was impossible to move him. They also tried to send Kevin Durant to Golden State to facilitate the move for Butler, but Kevin Durant shut down the trade, according to Brian Windhorst at ESPN.

The Beal trade also put the Suns well over the second apron, restricting the Suns in the trades they could make. They couldn’t put two players together in a deal and their trades had to match salaries unless the team they were trading with could take on the player involved. It put the Suns in a scenario where they couldn’t put together a full roster due to a lack of flexibility.

Beal has been a very solid player in his tenure with the Suns, but between being injury prone and the salary he’s making, Suns fans have grown bitter to Beal’s role on the team.

Another trade that led to the Suns being in the spot they are was moving center Deandre Ayton and 50th overall pick Toumani Camara for sharpshooter Grayson Allen, big man Jusuf Nurkic, Nassir Little and Keon Johnson in a trade that facilitated Damian Lillard going to the Milwaukee Bucks. On the surface, trading Ayton was almost a must. He showed a lack of effort on the court and seemed to not gel well with the stars. However, the issue was Camara and what they got back.

According to ESPN, Jusuf Nurkic put up 10.9 points per game and 11 rebounds but showed a lack of defense at times for their interior prescience, and shot only 51% at the rim according to Statmuse, which is low for an inside big. He also got beat badly in the 2024 playoffs by Rudy Gobert giving up 15 points and 11 rebounds to him throughout the series while he only put up 8.3 points and 7.8 rebounds on 50 percent shooting.

It only got worse in year two as Nurkic's stats dropped to 8.6 points and 9.2 rebounds on only 45% shooting. New coach Mike Budenholzer advised Nurkic to try and attempt more threes, which Nurkic only knocked down 32% on 2.4 attempts per game. Nurkic also had quotes during post-game press conferences that only brought further questions to the issues going on internally with the team after he stopped getting playing time during the season.

From a question from Duane Rankin about Nurkic’s relationship with coach Mike Budenholzer, he responded poorly. 

“We don’t have a relationship,” Nurkic said. “Work and stay ready for whatever might be, but there is no chaos or bringing it to that team, they already have plenty of it.”

This isn't the first or last time the Suns locker room had issues. After their playoff loss to Minnesota, a massive ESPN article came out saying how the players stopped listening to then coach Frank Vogel and how disconnected the locker room was with him. Near the deadline after a loss to the Thunder this year, Ramona Shelburne said the Suns locker room was “toxic” which was shot down by players shortly after.

The loss of Camara is something Suns fans will experience for years to come. The young wing out of Dayton showed flashes in the Summer League before being dealt and has only continued to blossom with Portland. His defense off the wings is something the Suns could desperately need next to Ryan Dunn. He is already one of the best perimeter defenders in the league and has helped lead the Blazer's young core to a quietly solid season. According to Statmuse, his 11.2 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.2 assists don’t seem like a lot, but he is still refining his offensive skill set while guarding the best player on the other team every night. If the Suns had Camara at their services, there may have been a better outlook for this team going forward.

These moves in conglomeration have made the Suns' outlook to the public one of the bleakest futures in the league with not a lot of room for improvement. So that begs the question, what do the Suns do from here?

The Future

There are two routes the Suns can take from here: a retool or blowing it up. In the retool scenario, you convince Durant to stay with the Suns and sign a two-year contract he is eligible for come the summertime. You trade off pieces like Grayson Allen for any bit of wing defense or capital you can find and develop Ryan Dunn and Oso Ighodaro into key contributors for next year. You retain guys who can fit next to the two stars such as Cody Martin, Royce O’Neale and Collin Gillespie. You use your pick this year from Cleveland to add an athletic wing or big man that can contribute immediately and you hope that all these pieces plus a likely new head coach can be the key to miraculously turning it around in the 2025-26 season for a deep run. 

There is an argument that the late stretch in the year with Ryan Dunn and Oso Ighodaro as starters could be a formula the Suns can use into next year and that Mat Ishbia seems to want to continue his all-in approach. It all hinges on what Kevin Durant wants to do. There are reports that Durant will request a trade once the summer hits, along with teams having interest at the deadline back in February, so you'd have to be able to talk him into this plan.

The other option is the nuclear option. Sun's management and ownership think and accept that this current iteration of the team is done for. Durant requests out and you ship him out in the offseason for whatever pieces you can muster to start the rebuild. This is where it gets a lot more murky. Does KD control where he goes? Does Houston want him to give us a few of our picks back? 

It also leads to an uncomfortable scenario where you think about moving off of Devin Booker. Booker has made it clear that he wants to spend his entire career here, but he also has the most value out of any player on our roster in a trade. Do you think you can retool around Booker and be competitive, or do you tank and get high value and young pieces? 

There is also the elephant in the room that is Bradley Beal. Will a team take on his salary and no-trade clause even if there are assets attached to the deal? The Suns do have tradeable first rounders, even if they don’t have their own but it is hard to say a team would take anything for another couple of years of Beal. 

This scenario would put the Suns under the aprons, giving them roster flexibility and picks that they can use to try and build up the team again, but it also gets rid of your franchise cornerstones and puts the Suns through another rebuild that will lessen fan interest. In both of these scenarios, Beal being here still makes it very difficult to improve the roster beyond what it currently is. 

Whatever the decision that Suns brass comes to the current situation is rather dark and not what the team envisioned after trading for Durant just a few years ago. Is there any coming back from this and if there is, will it be now, or later down the road? This summer will be very important in the next stages of Phoenix Suns basketball.