Bradley Beal raises Suns’ ceiling, but here’s why Phoenix’s front office still has a busy summer ahead

No team in the NBA has made more major moves over the past handful of months than the Phoenix Suns. First, the team traded Mikal Bridges, Cameron Johnson, Jae Crowder, four unprotected first-round picks, and a 2028 first-round pick swap to the Brooklyn Nets for Future Hall of Famer Kevin Durant and T.J. Warren prior to the trade deadline in February. 

Durant’s addition greatly increased Phoenix’s firepower, but it also compromised the team’s overall depth, and that came back to haunt them in the postseason, especially against a deep, well-rounded team like the Denver Nuggets, who bested the Suns in six games in the Western Conference semifinals. 

When Durant’s addition resulted in a second-round exit for the second consecutive season, the Suns opted to part ways with head coach Monty Williams and replace him with Frank Vogel, who led the Los Angeles Lakers to a title in 2020. Vogel has ample experience dealing with star players, as he coached LeBron James and Anthony Davis in L.A., and he also has the championship experience that Williams lacked. Considering the team’s lofty goals, that could be a big boon. 

The Suns weren’t done there, though. The team continued to stockpile firepower — at the expense of depth — by trading four first-round pick swaps, six second-round picks, Landry Shamet, and Chris Paul to the Washington Wizards in exchange for Bradley Beal, Jordan Goodwin and Isaiah Todd. 

The move was an understandable one from Phoenix’s perspective. They landed one of the better scorers in the entire league for future picks and ancillary parts, and raised their ceiling as a team in the process. They now boast arguably the top trio in the NBA in Durant, Beal and Devin Booker. However, the move also left the Suns extremely thin and financially limited in their options when it comes to building out the rest of the roster. 

As it stands at this point in time, the Suns have a total of just five reliable contributors under contract for next season: Beal, Booker, Durant, Deandre Ayton and Cameron Payne. Star power is important, but it’s tough to push through a regular season — or make any real noise in the postseason — without a well-balanced roster, and Phoenix’s front office still has a lot of work to do in that department. How they’re able to fill out spots six through 12 on the roster will go a long way toward determining how successful the Suns are next season, and beyond. 

One possible avenue to improving overall depth is trading Ayton, who will make over $32 million over each of the next three seasons. The team could potentially get a couple of useful pieces back in such a deal, and Ayton has been frequently mentioned in trade rumors over the past few months. However, recent reporting suggests that the Suns plan to hold on to the big man, at least for the time being. 

It makes sense that the Suns would want to hang on to Ayton. He may have had his differences with Williams, but he has been a productive player over the course of his career, and they’ll need a serviceable big man to do the dirty work for their talented trio, and go up against the likes of Nikola Jokic and some of the other bigger bodies in the West. Plus, Vogel has a history of building very good defenses anchored by a big man, and Ayton fits that mold. Vogel got the best out of Roy Hibbert during his days in Indiana, and Phoenix is likely hoping he can do the same with Ayton.

If an Ayton deal if off the table, the Suns are going to have to fill out their depth with minimum or near-minimum deals. Luckily for Phoenix, guys tend to want to play with star players, or on teams that offer them an opportunity to pursue a championship. This is especially true of veterans staring down the barrel of their own athletic mortality. Don’t be surprised if a couple well-established familiar faces end up taking a pay cut to in order to sign with the Suns. The try-out process already started, as the team is set to work out the likes of Jabari Parker and Stanley Johnson this week. Other such workouts will likely continue throughout the summer. 

The Suns will also be able to re-sign their own impending free agents. That’s a group that includes Torrey Craig, Bismack Biyombo, Darius Bazley, Damion Lee, T.J. Warren, Josh Okogie, Jock Landale, Terrence Ross and Saben Lee. They obviously won’t be able to bring all of those guys back, but expect at least a few of them to remain in Phoenix.  

It’s often said that acquiring a star player is the most difficult part of team-building in the NBA, and the Suns have now done that three times over. That doesn’t mean the work is done though. Far from it. No team in NBA history has ever won a title with just six players, and Phoenix won’t be the first. How the Suns are able to fill out the roster behind their stars is one of the most intriguing storylines in the league to keep an eye on over the offseason.