The Phoenix Suns assembled a “Big Three”, in theory, and yet only got worse. Much worse.
In the 2021-22 NBA season, they were legitimate title contenders. The Suns’ 64-18 record was good enough for the first seed in the Western Conference, and although they lost in the Conference semifinals in seven games to the then-Donciced Dallas Mavericks, they were a force to be reckoned with. They even were better than they were in their NBA Finals run of 2020-21, when their 51-21 record in the pandemic-shortened regular season was good for only the second seed.
At the February 2022 trade deadline, however, the Suns made a deal for Kevin Durant. And they have not threatened since.
To be clear, Durant is not the reason for their decline. He is timeless, aging about as well as a player can, cementing his legacy as a surefire Hall-of-Famer with season averages of 26.4 points, 6.2 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game in what is remarkably his 18th NBA season. Rather, it is everything around him that is at fault, and particularly the lack of assets with which to upgrade and/or rejuvenate the team. Be it in terms of cheap productive young players, draft picks or financial freedom, the cupboard is very bare.
Acquiring Durant emptied much of the cupboard, yet it was the follow-up trade for Bradley Beal that fully drained the accounts. Unlike Durant, Beal has not enjoyed a fruitful back nine to his career, and the supposed “Big Three” simply has never been. Because of the two trades in tandem, but particularly the Beal one, the Suns now have very few draft picks, one of the worst asset situations in the league, no spending money, and a 32-37 record that might not even make the play-in.
To that end, change must be forthcoming. Another season like this, when things have shown no signs of changing, would achieve nothing. The common assumption around the league – backed up by the heavy rumors of it nearly happening at last month’s trade deadline – is that Durant will be moved.
But what if it was Devin Booker that was traded instead?
Such a possibility has been raised in light of a report by Duane Rankin of the Arizona Republic on what such a deal may yield. Rankin reported that trading away Booker could net the Suns four first-round picks, replenishing much of the empty cupboard, albeit at the cost of one of the league’s better guards.
To be clear, nowhere did Rankin say that a trade Booker should or will happen; he merely inquired as to what a hypothetical one may yield. Indeed, owner Mat Ishbia has come out and said that a Booker trade will “never happen”, which would be an emphatic article-ender if NBA team owners always did what they said they would.
Phoenix’s situation however is suitably dire that these are questions they should be asking, too. It therefore merits a discussion as to which teams would be willing and able to acquire Booker, and for what. Booker says he will not ask for one, which is noble, but best business practice might involve doing it anyway, depending on the Durant offers.
There follows a look at possible trade destinations for Devin Booker, should the Phoenix Suns decide to trade him this summer.
The Pistons’ resurgence after a long and dark time in the doldrums has been one of the better stories of the season, and it has been headlined by the breakout performance of former No. 1 pick Cade Cunningham. In his debut All-Star season, Cade is averaging as-near-as-is 25 points and 10 assists per game, flanked by good contributions from fellow youngster Jaden Ivey, Ausar Thompson, Jalen Duren and Ron Holland.
However, much of Detroit’s 2024/25 success is down to their crop of veterans. Malik Beasley, Tim Hardaway Jr and Tobias Harris are three of their Top 5 scorers, all good shooters who can work off of Cade’s presence and fill the gaps on the court. Booker would do the same, with the added benefit of a much more diverse three-level scoring bag, immediately raising the team’s floor beyond the amount Beasley et al have already raised it.
To put together a package, all the non-Cade young players should be considered packageable, and the Suns may well be more enamored with the Kawhi Leonard-esque vibes of Thompson than a quantity of as-yet-unrealized picks. Alongside any player package, the Pistons are relatively neutral in terms of their draft capital, and have by far the lowest payroll in the league, which can offer massive financial relief to the cap-strapped Suns, who have by far the highest. These are not Robert Sarver‘s Suns any longer, yet Sarver’s stinginess was a choice, rather than something necessitated by punitive aprons that are preventing Phoenix from adding much-needed talent. If money-saving is important, then Detroit is well-positioned.
As has been documented at length, the Thunder have somewhere in the region of four billion future draft picks that they can use to get into the bidding for whichever player they want. The question with them is not whether they can win the bidding war. The question is always, which bidding war will they enter?
Oklahoma City are already title-contenders, with the best record in the Western Conference by a country mile and an ever-improving superstar in the form of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. They are so good that it is difficult to find a realistic deal that improves them; tinkering could do far more harm than good. In this instance, though, it could make sense.
Aged 28, Booker is on an appropriate timeline for the Thunder’s title aspirations. They can theoretically get him without much touching the rotation that makes them who they are, and upgrade on the minutes currently shared by Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins with an elite scorer who will put their offense on the same level as their defense. This is said with no disrespect to Joe and Wiggins, good NBA players fulfilling their roles well; it is instead merely to highlight that the Thunder can make the good parts of their rotation great, for the cost of assets that they do not really have roster room for anyway.
Like Detroit above, Houston chose to briefly bottom out before consciously up a level or two, and are a year or two further along the process. A seven-game winning streak has kicked them onto a 44-25 record at the time of writing, good enough for a share of the second seed in the Western Conference; they have gone through the gears of rebuilding, from the bottom through the mid-range, and are now looking for one more infusion of immediate stardom with which to truly compete before Fred VanVleet gets too old.
Crucially, Houston – who have reportedly had interest in Booker for a long time – hold two useful pieces in negotiations. Several of the picks that Phoenix gave to Brooklyn for Durant were retraded to Houston last summer in an unusual deal of purely future picks in which Brooklyn got their picks earlier in exchange for a potentially more lucrative back end; as a result, the Rockets now have control of both Phoenix’s 2027 and 2029 first-round picks, as well as potentially the right to swap in 2025. If Phoenix decides they need control of their future again, they will need to deal with Houston, who own much of it. And the Rockets have made it clear what the price of doing any such business will be – Booker.
Having done much of their own cupboard-emptying in their trades for OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns, the Knicks are not in the strongest position from an asset point of view to land Booker. They will however be one of the teams most determined to find a way.
Adding Booker to that trio plus All-NBA point guard Jalen Brunson is a tantalizing prospect, and with the third seed in the Eastern Conference, the Knicks are operating with title contention in mind. Booker’s age chimes very nicely indeed with those of Towns (29), Bridges, Brunson (both 28) and Anunoby (27), and would give the Knicks a top-quality starting five all on the same timeline, with Josh Hart as a quality reserve.
The result, then, would be ideal. But the process is much harder. How to get a deal done is hard to imagine when talking about a team like New York who is already short of depth of both players and picks.
If nothing else, matching salaries will be the hardest part – Booker’s $53,142,264 salary for 2025/26 would have to be matched in accordance with apron rules, and although Towns is set to earn an identical amount, trading one for the other would not achieve the desired result. And trying to assemble packages using Hart, Mitchell Robinson and whatever else they can pull together comes up woefully short in a bidding war, especially if Oklahoma City decides to enter it. The Knicks, though, will surely do all that they can to get in on this.
