PHOENIX — By agreeing to a two-year, $16 million contract with Josh Okogie today, the Phoenix Suns are projected to have the NBA’s first-ever payroll exceeding $400 million in the 2024-25 season.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!According to multiple projections, Phoenix will be paying $223 million next season in salaries. In additions to the salaries, ESPN’s Bobby Marks projects Phoenix’s tax to be $198 million, while Cap Sheet’s Yossi Gozlan projects Suns owner Mat Ishbia to pay a slightly higher $205.4 million in luxury tax penalties.
With the luxury tax cap set at $170.8 million, the Suns are $52.2 million over this limit. Phoenix is also $34.1 million over the $188.9 million second-tax apron, which among other restrictions, means the Suns can’t sign incoming free agents to anything other than veteran minimum contracts. In terms of trades, the Suns are not able to take in more salary than they send out, include cash in deals, aggregate contracts or use a preexisting trade exception.
Record breaking numbers in Phoenix
The Suns are the first $400M team in payroll
Salaries: $223M
Projected tax: $198M
The Okogie signing is smart and gives Phoenix a $8M trade asset to use during the season.
Because of the rules of the 2nd apron, his salary cannot be… https://t.co/ryY70GvQqX
— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) July 12, 2024
From capsheets.com, this is what all of the Suns’ salaries and tax penalties amount to for the 2024-25 season with 15/15 players now signed or agreed to standard deals with the team:
In the 2025-26 season, this payroll grows to an insane $515.8 million (via Cap Sheets).
The Suns chose to navigate around some of these second-tax apron rules by giving themselves plenty of tradeable contracts. Okogie, Royce O’Neale, Jusuf Nurkić, Grayson Allen and Nassir Little are all making $6.75 – $18.13 million next season. Since the Suns can only trade one player at a time and can’t take in more salary than they send out, any of these players could garner more valuable assets via trade than if they made less money.
Ishbia said he was willing to spend big for the roster, and he is doing just that at a historic rate to help the Suns have what little flexibility they are allowed over the second-tax apron. He did all of this by achieving his goal of continuity this offseason with Phoenix only adding two incoming free agents (Monte Morris and Mason Plumlee) and two rookies (Ryan Dunn and Oso Ighodaro) on standard contracts. In addition to Okogie, the Suns also re-signed O’Neale to a four-year, $42 million contract, and Bol Bol and Damion Lee to veteran minimum deals.
It obviously did not come without a gargantuan price to pay, but Ishbia now gets to continue his promised all-in approach in his second full season with the team next year.
Reports: Josh Okogie agrees to 2-year, $16 million deal to stay 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
