Mat Ishbia's Big 3 truth bomb again blows up Suns trade rumors
07/18/2024 12:53 PM
Kevin Durant and the Phoenix Suns might be in the most unenviable position in the entire NBA heading into the 2024-25 season, as the team is nowhere close to championship contention and has absolutely zero prospects for its future. The Durant-Devin Booker-Bradley Beal experiment was an utter failure a season ago, and the Suns will be forced to run it back with that same group this year due to the contract situations of its three star players.
Following Phoenix’s sweep at the hands of the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round of last year’s playoffs, many fans thought that Suns owner Mat Ishbia and company might opt to take drastic measures, including potentially trading Durant himself, for whom there would understandably be many suitors around the league.
However, Ishbia has maintained his stance that the team he has built is compatible to compete for championships, and he echoed that sentiment in a recent appearance on the NBA Summer League broadcast.
“We didn’t put our team together for a one year try. We put our team together because we love those three guys,” said Ishbia, via Duane Rankin of AZ Central on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter.
“…1st year, we didn’t to where we wanted to be. 2nd year, we’re going to see,” said Ishbia.
The Suns’ Summer League team of course isn’t filled with many prospects for fans to be excited about due to the treasure trove of draft picks the team was forced to give up when they acquired Durant a year ago at the 2023 NBA trade deadline
Can the Suns compete for a championship?
It would not appear so.
While there is no denying the individual talents of Durant, Booker, and Beal (actually, there probably can be some denying of the individual talents of Beal at this stage of his career), the three of them have so much overlap in their respective games that they at times seem to cancel out each other’s strengths and not cover for each other’s weaknesses.
The biggest issue is that the gigantic contracts of each of the three stars have made it so that the Suns have some of the worst depth in the league, relying last year on players like Eric Gordon, Josh Okogie and Royce O’Neal to make plays when they simply aren’t able to.
Phoenix hasn’t had many available routes to fix that issue heading into next season, where they are going to be very far down the list of championship favorites when things get underway. It’s also important to consider that Durant will be 36 by the time opening night for 2024-25 rolls around, meaning that a decline in production could be on the horizon, if it’s not here already.
Making matters even worse is the fact that several teams around the Suns in the Western Conference have gotten substantially better this offseason, including the Sacramento Kings and New Orleans Pelicans, and obviously there were already several teams ahead of them to begin with.
In any case, the 2024-25 season gets underway in October.
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