The Suns are two games into the playoffs, down 0-2 to the Minnesota Timberwolves, and takes are already flying about what they should do in the offseason.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!On the latest, “The Bill Simmons Podcast,” Bill Simmons threw out an idea of the Suns trading Devin Booker to the New Orleans Pelicans.
Simmons says that Suns’ owner Mat Ishbia should call New Orleans Executive VP of Basketball Operations, David Griffin, and say, “CJ McCollum and Trey Murphy, and throw us 2 future picks, and you can have Booker.”
Bill Simmons throws out an idea of Phoenix potentially discussing a Devin Booker trade with New Orleans
"CJ McCollum and Trey Murphy, and throw us 2 future picks, and you can have Booker."
(h/t @NBABeyondCourt )
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) April 24, 2024
This is certainly a bold take with the Suns haven’t even playing a home game yet in the series.
Suns’ color analyst and legend Eddie Johnson responded to Simmons, who is a big Celtics fan, offering a trade involving Jayson Tatum to the Atlanta Hawks.
😂😂. That’s your mission is to break up the Suns? The Celtics need to trade Tatum for Trey Young and Jalen Johnson if he does not win a title this year instead of paying him 300 M then Bill🤣🤣 https://t.co/SXGDv6ocMG
— Eddie A Johnson (@Jumpshot8) April 24, 2024
Booker has been the franchise cornerstone of the Suns for the last nine years, so why would the Suns do this? Even more so of the fact of why the Suns would even consider trading Booker is that a package of McCollum, Murphy and two first-round picks is not good enough for Booker, who will be playing is his second Olympics this summer and is a four-time NBA All-Star.
Phoenix has all five of its starters locked up until at least next season, as well as Nassir Little and David Roddy. Four other players have player options. The Suns are really limited being over the second-tax apron, so they would have to trade away one of their big moneymakers in the starting 5 for a star or borderline star-caliber player.
There have been no reported problems in the locker room all season, it’s just the fact the Suns are so inconsistent that it’s hard to make judgements on what they should do.
At the same time, if the Suns make drastic changes every single year, how will they ever win against teams with established chemistry?
The Suns will have some questions to answer when they get to the offseason, and Ishbia has shown he will go all in.
However, there is an argument to be made that no matter how the Suns finish this season, they run it back with the same starting 5 next season while trying to upgrade their depth instead of swinging for the fences.
Game 3 is on Friday in Phoenix at 7:30 p.m. MST, as the Suns will look to get their first playoff win in front of their home crowd for the first time.
Charles Barkley sticks to his take of what is wrong with Suns
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Brendan Mau is a senior writer covering the Phoenix Suns and more for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on X via @Brendan_Mau
