Suns next steps: Making the case against complacency after feel-good season

 

Coming off arguably the most disappointing year in franchise history, the Phoenix Suns have every reason to tout their victories and celebrate this season’s success.

A team that was widely picked to finish near the bottom of the conference wound up winning 45 games and finished seventh in the West, earning a playoff spot as the 8-seed through the Play-In Tournament. Hardly anyone predicted a one-year turnaround like this, and despite being thoroughly outmatched, the Suns did what they did all year and fought until the very end.

“Off the cuff, we all can feel proud of what this team did, not only the course of the entire season, but tonight as well,” coach Jordan Ott said after Game 4.

What this front office cannot do, however, is get complacent or rest on their laurels after steadying the ship. Because make no mistake about it: The ship is no longer sinking, but it still needs a proper bearing to start heading in the right direction, and there are some murky waters to navigate this offseason.

Granted, the Suns have a lot more flexibility and optionality than they did last summer. Thanks to the roster construction of the Big 3 era and their complete lack of tradeable first-round picks, general manger Brian Gregory had to bite the bullet on a Kevin Durant trade that worked out better than expected, and a Bradley Beal waive-and-stretch that will silently haunt Phoenix’s cap sheet through 2030.

The Suns don’t have an abundance of options, but they do have a number of directions they could choose to pursue based on how the trade market shakes out. As an over-the-cap team, they could bank on a year of continuity, (hopefully) better health and internal development. That would be the most patient approach, which the front office could justify based on a 45-win season despite the team’s main trio of Booker, Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks only playing a grand total of 10 regular-season games together.

What the Suns accomplished this season in laying a new foundation was pleasantly surprising and exceeded almost everyone’s expectations. It’d be understandable for a front office that was in need of some good PR to hold this group up high for everyone to see as a shining example that they can build it the right way. Making drastic moves — or even moves that threaten to upset Phoenix’s newfound chemistry and identity — wouldn’t exactly help the perception that this front office can be reckless in its aggression to compete. 

So if complacency with some small tweaks is the path Phoenix chooses, the top priority of the offseason would be re-signing their own free agents in Mark Williams (restricted), Collin Gillespie (unrestricted) and Jordan Goodwin (unrestricted).

None of them should command an annual salary that exceeds $10-12 million, but even if that’s the case, re-signing all three would pretty much eat up Phoenix’s remaining cap room based on the players they already have under contract and dead money owed to Beal, Nassir Little and EJ Liddell. They’d still have the full non-taxpayer mid-level exception at their disposal, but whether they re-sign all three back or none of them, Phoenix will be limited to the MLE, biannual exception and vet minimums to pursue external free agents.

There’s certainly a case to be made for basically running it back and seeing what Jalen Green looks like in a full season next to Booker. It’d be understandable to give Dillon Brooks an extension after everything he brought to the franchise on and off the court, and there’s a natural curiosity about how high this group could climb without as many injuries (or career years that suddenly rammed into a brick wall).

Listening to Devin Booker repeatedly call it a “building block season” for the Suns after the Game 4 loss, it’s clear he’d value some semblance of consistency from one year to the next.

“It’s really been the test of most of my career,” Booker said. “I talked about stability, and I think the only time I’ve had a coach two or three years was Monty [Williams], and we built a chemistry quick and ended up having some big success. So just roll with the punches, continue to be a leader, and still blessed to be in this position. I don’t take it for granted, so I approach every day with a new chance mindset, and we did some good things this year.”

However, as much as this group took the NBA world by surprise, they’re still not properly constructed to ideally suit the franchise star. If the goal is contention, it’s hard to see how both of Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks fit around Booker. Both showed signs of being capable No. 2 options, but each comes with significant drawbacks.

For Green, it’s shot selection, decision-making and occasional bouts of tunnel vision. For Brooks, it’s shot selection, routine bouts of tunnel vision and irrational confidence, and all the antics that come with being a capital-V “Villain,” which occasionally came back to bite Phoenix. Brooks is 30, but he’d have a much more robust trade market coming off a career year, especially being extension-eligible with only one year left on his contract.

Green is the younger prospect with more upside, and it only takes one team being interested to get a deal done. But after missing 50 games with hamstring injuries and shooting 38.6 percent in his latest playoff series, this flawed 24-year-old probably isn’t netting Phoenix a significant return.

Either way, keeping them both for the long haul just doesn’t feel like a feasible path to postseason success.

The Suns have other, more straightforward decisions to make with some of their tradeable contracts. Grayson Allen earns $18.1 million next season before a $19.4 million player option in 2027-28, while Royce O’Neale will make $10.9 million and $11.6 million over the next two years.

Allen is the better player, and the Suns would want more value for him, but durability has been an issue, as he’s missed 18 and 31 games over the last two years. Because of this, and because of the insane volume Phoenix needed from him, Allen had a down year from 3-point range, making only 34.9 percent of his whopping 8.9 attempts per game (his prior career high was 5.9).

Still, Allen is a proven 40 percent 3-point sniper, and the Suns probably shouldn’t dump the shooting and driving that he brings to the table unless they’re getting a similar skill-set in return.

O’Neale would likely be easier to move given his team-friendly contract, especially coming off a year where he shot a career-high 40.8 percent from 3 on a career-high 6.7 attempts per game. Either way, bringing back both vets who are under 6-foot-5 just doesn’t seem tenable.

After all, one of the biggest sources of frustration watching the Suns play stemmed from a guard-heavy roster and all the smaller lineups that stemmed from it. Jordan Ott’s stubbornness about not giving Rasheer Fleming a look in the playoffs was frustrating, but clearing out some of that “6-foot-6-and-under” logjam would go a long way.

Assuming the Suns re-sign Gillespie and Goodwin (which, retaining their three key free agents should be a goal regardless of what direction they choose this summer, since team-friendly contracts are always movable later on), that would give them Booker, Green, Gillespie, Goodwin, Haywood Highsmith’s non-guaranteed deal and Jamaree Bouyea’s team option in that club. Keeping both Allen and O’Neale, on top of Dillon Brooks only being 6-foot-7 himself, is a recipe for another frustrating year where the Suns are simply too small.

More minutes should be in store for Rasheer Fleming to help with the size on the wing, but Ryan Dunn still has a lot to prove after a disappointing second season. The Suns need to put proper size, shooting and defense on the wing next to Booker, so just like with Brooks and Green, they should put out feelers to see what the trade markets look like for Allen and O’Neale, whose combined salaries could theoretically land them a $30 million player with the proper incentives thrown in.

Phoenix doesn’t have much to offer in that department. Fleming should be off limits, and guys like Khaman Maluach and Oso Ighodaro should only be included in trades for legitimate difference-makers in sure-fire, home run type of moves. Re-signing Williams, Gillespie and Goodwin to value contracts would make them movable down the line, but not this summer.

That leaves the Suns with Dunn and two tradeable first-round picks to consider dangling as sweeteners: a 2027 first-rounder (least favorable between Utah, Cleveland and Minnesota) and their own 2033 first-round pick. Both of these picks become trade-eligible on draft night.

After a feel-good season that restored the vibes and gave the Suns front office some reassurance that they did make the right moves to retool on the fly, it’s tempting to avoid rocking the boat. Falling back on internal development and another year for this core to jell under Jordan Ott wouldn’t be some catastrophic, short-sighted decision, especially since people around the league have taken notice.

“They’ve done a great job with their player development,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault told AZ Central’s Dana Scott after Game 4. “What they’ve done with Goodwin and Gillespie, Ighodaro, Fleming is impressive. So like I said at the beginning, I can’t say enough about my respect for Phoenix, Jordan [Ott], the whole thing.”

But as much as running it back with a few tweaks wouldn’t be some disastrous, impulsive decision, it could very well slam the door shut on any possibility of Phoenix getting back to contention before Booker’s prime is done. The trio of Booker, Green and Brooks just doesn’t fit, and this roster is too small and too redundant at several positions to complement the face of the franchise with what he needs to make one more legitimate playoff run.

So as difficult as it is to consider moving a player who helped redefine the culture like Brooks, young talent with upside like Green, or well-liked vets who have enjoyed career years in the Valley like Allen or O’Neale, the Suns owe it to themselves to leave no stone unturned in constructing the right roster around Booker.

This season bought the Suns some goodwill, but that doesn’t mean the work is done, or that this plucky group can eventually carry them to contention. That would require some insane injury luck and massive leaps from the youngsters. Fleming and Maluach should have more cemented roles next season, but the type of jump the Suns would need from them to resemble legitimate contenders seems like it’s still a few years away.

Outside of some miraculous, pie-in-the-sky Giannis Antetokounmpo trade, there isn’t really a no-brainer move to get the Suns back to title contention. They have to be meticulous, smart and careful about where they go from here.

But there’s a difference between caution and complacency, just like there’s a difference between recklessness and shrewd aggression. As fun as this season was, the OKC series showed just how far Phoenix still has to go. To that end, the Suns need to seriously explore deals to add wing depth, capitalize on the value of guys like Brooks, Allen and O’Neale, and put a better-fitting roster round Devin Booker before he officially enters his 30s in October.

For more of Gerald Bourguet’s Suns work, check back with Sports360AZ on a weekly basis, subscribe to his Patreon articles and podcast at Suns After Dark, or follow him on Twitter.