As of May 8, the NBA Playoffs are heating up. There are eight teams left, all of which are competing for a chance to make the NBA Finals.
Where are the Phoenix Suns in this situation? Well, as stated, they were quickly eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.
This loss puts the Suns’ organization in a difficult situation. They gave up a lot of resources to build this roster and fully expected to make a championship-caliber run. Obviously, that didn’t happen.
Now, everyone involved needs to reflect. Some of the most significant reflections will involve the Phoenix Suns’ front office.
This season, they’ll look at the roster and ask: “Where do the Phoenix Suns Go from Here?” Here are some possible moves that could happen.
A New Addition?
This season, the Phoenix Suns’ offensive problems were apparent. This issue was a direct result of their big three.
Devin Booker, Kevin Durant, and Bradley Beal all are really good scorers. Each of these players all seemed to have breakout games. Here are some of those notable performances.
On April 1, Devin Booker had a 52 point-game against the New Orlean Pelicans. On Feb. 4, Bradley Beal had a 43-point game against the Washington Wizards. On Mar. 9, Kevin Durant had a 45-point game against the Boston Celtics.
Essentially, these players all had the ability to take a large amount of this scoring load. On the surface, that sounds great, but it developed another problem: predictable offense.
Because these players are scorers, it was easy to predict who was getting the ball at what time. Not every team could stop it, but the good teams would see through it quickly, making the offense one-dimensional.
To improve, the front office could try to get a pass-first point guard. Ideally, a pass-first point guard would add some diversity to their current offense.
In a perfect world, they could go after players like Tyrese Haliburton or Trae Young.
These moves aren’t impossible but likely won’t happen unless they give up something major.
More realistically, they could go after point guards like Tyus Jones and/or Malcolm Brogdon. They won’t have to give up as much and the offense would be much smoother, especially in clutch time.
This may not make them a championship caliber team, but it helps them make significant strides in becoming one. Overall, this is a decent route but not the only route the Suns’ front office could take.
Rebuild?
If the front office simply wants to hit the reset button, they could break up this big three as soon as possible. In concept, this may seem simple. They’d just trade away the big three and build a new team through the draft.
However, this process is much more complicated than simply trading all of them. These executives must find the correct trade, make sure all parties agree, and send the player(s) off to their new location(s).
This process gets more complicated depending on the caliber of the players being traded. Since all the big three are either Hall of Famers or border-line Hall of Famers, these trades are much more difficult to complete.
Take Kevin Durant for example. Durant is a great scorer, NBA champ, and an inspiration to many younger players.
With that said, other teams would love to have him but not for any package. Evidently, it would be difficult for the Suns’ front office to come up with a package that will match the value of Durant.
Another interesting case is Bradley Beal. He’s a really good scorer on a pretty expensive contract. In the event the Suns decide to trade Beal, many teams would be discouraged because of that contract, making the rebuild process much slower.
Fortunately, if the organization works hard enough, they’ll be able to overcome these issues. Yet, like most aspects of sports, success isn’t guaranteed.
The Future
Either way, this Suns’ off-season will be pivotal for the future of the Phoenix Suns. Once again, this team built this team to win it all.
Now realizing that they are far away from that goal, the Suns’ have difficult decisions to make this off-season. That could lead to them getting a few other additions to add to the big three or simply resetting the roster.
But, either way, the team will likely make a lot of changes to the roster. If they don’t, next season’s result will be worse or like this season’s result: getting bounced out in the playoffs.
Stay tuned for more NBA content, including midseason moves, contract updates, and more pieces about every team.
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