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After a shocking first-round sweep at the hands of the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Phoenix Suns head into the NBA offseason with more questions than answer surrounding their top-heavy roster that’s headed by Devin Booker, Kevin Durant, and Bradley Beal.
The Suns are locked into their top six players, but need to figure things out from there, per Shams Charania and Doug Haller of The Athletic.
Suns need to Devin Booker to lead and not play point guard
Said Charania and Haller, “The Suns now enter the summer planning to build around their top six players in Booker, Durant, Beal, Allen, Nurkic and Royce O’Neale. Allen signed a four-year, $70 million contract extension before the start of the playoffs, and Phoenix officials hope to retain O’Neale as a free agent this offseason. Booker remains at the center of everything, and will be tasked with continuing to embrace an enhanced role as a leader and a return to his usual assassin self once he’s being set up by a proper point guard again — two things the team considers musts for the 2024-25 season. The Suns could also look to bring in additional locker room presence, which was filled late in the season by Isaiah Thomas and Thaddeus Young.”
That all makes sense and is clearly what the Suns need. But the challenge will be making everything work under the NBA salary cap.
Suns are stuck in salary cap hell
The current cap projection for next season puts the second apron line at $189.5 million and the Suns owe their projected starting five a whopping $184 million, only $5.5 million under than that level. That means a huge tax bill will come due from just filling out their roster with minimum contracts.
All of this is due to the $150 million owed next season just to Booker, Beal and Durant. The salary of those three players is more than 14 teams’ total payroll in 2024-25.
Even more critically, the front office will have only a few methods to improve the roster in the offseason as teams over the second apron cannot use the midlevel exception or take on money in trades along with other restrictions in the new collective bargaining agreement.
Their first round exit exposed Phoenix’s lack of depth. The Suns will need to find creative ways to obtain players who complement their big-3. But it’s going to be difficult.
Because of the apron restrictions, Phoenix is not allowed to take back more money in a trade than it sends out. The Suns also cannot aggregate contracts to trade for a single player who makes more. For example, combining the salaries of supporting players like Grayson Allen, Jusuf Nurkic and Nassir Little in a trade is not allowed even if the Suns take back less money.
Allen is also not allowed to be traded at all until Oct. 16 because he signed an extension with the Suns. Phoenix also cannot send out cash in a trade, use the $5.1 million taxpayer midlevel exception or acquire a player in a sign-and-trade. The $6.5 million trade exception created in the Cameron Payne trade is frozen. If the Suns finish the 2024-25 season over the second apron, their 2032 first-round pick is not available in a trade.
It’s going to be a difficult turnaround for the Suns, with their financial hands tied and owing the Nets three first-round picks (plus pick swaps). Phoenix’s hands are seemingly tied. Perhaps the best they can do is run it back and hope that Booker, Durant, and Beal are able to stay healthy and play at an All-NBA level.
More must-reads:
- Timberwolves chew up Nuggets to force Game 7
- Interesting stat emerges after Timberwolves’ Game 6 beatdown of Nuggets
- The 'Most career 40-point playoff games' quiz
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