The Phoenix Suns have undergone a gradual but brutal drop-off over the past few seasons. Suffice to say, going all-in on a core of Devin Booker, Kevin Durant, and Bradley Beal has not worked out according to plan, and this season, the Suns are in real danger of not just missing the playoffs, but even the play-in tournament. On Tuesday, their woes were compounded by a 133-123 defeat to the Damian Lillard-less Milwaukee Bucks, extending their deficit behind the Sacramento Kings for the 10th spot to 1.5 games.
There appears to be no recourse for the Suns moving forward other than to start over — perhaps by trading a few of their best assets, including Booker and Durant. They do not have the draft pick capital to add more pieces to their existing core, and Beal appears to be more than content to stay in The Valley, refusing to waive his no-trade clause.
Nonetheless, Booker, despite the Suns’ uninspiring 2024-25 campaign, wants to stick it out with the team that drafted him in 2015, as he believes that the purported greener pastures elsewhere may not be as green as initially expected.
“It’s not always greener on the other side. People always want to leave their situation and end up in a worse situation and then they go missing. You’ll never have the love like you have by the team that drafted you,” Booker told Logan Murdock of The Ringer.
Indeed, Booker is one of the most vocal fans and supporters of the late great Kobe Bryant, and Bryant endured his fair share of turbulence with the Los Angeles Lakers to stay as a one-team guy his whole career. While the Suns most definitely would want to keep Booker around, every Suns fan should hope that it doesn’t get to a point where trading away their franchise cornerstone is what’s best to preserve the team’s future.
Can the Suns find a way out of this mess without trading Devin Booker away?
One thing’s for sure, the Suns cannot continue on in this trajectory. They will have to hit on the late first-round picks that they will have in the coming years, and somehow find a way to convince Bradley Beal to accept a trade — two factors that may not ever come to fruition.
A Devin Booker trade becomes enticing then, since Booker should bring back one or two promising young players, as well as a plethora of first-round picks. The Utah Jazz’s haul for Donovan Mitchell provides a good starting point for the Suns in terms of what their demands in a Booker trade situation would be.
But the Jazz’s situation isn’t too promising at the moment either. They don’t have that blue-chip prospect/potential franchise cornerstone on the roster just yet after three seasons of rebuilding, and there’s no guarantee that every rebuilding team ends up being like the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Pivoting to a full-blown rebuild isn’t even an option for the Suns, unless they find a way to get their first-round picks back from the Houston Rockets, which by then may ask for Booker instead of Kevin Durant in a potential trade.
The straits are dire in the Valley, and Booker’s loyalty to the team will be tested in the coming years. Nonetheless, it seems as though Booker has the fortitude and patience to withstand whatever lies ahead; after all, he did play in four straight incredibly poor teams to start his career.
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