Your weekly Inside the Suns analysis straight from the BSotS community who live and breathe the team.
Welcome to Inside the Suns, your weekly deep down analysis of the current Phoenix Suns team.
Each week the Fantable – a round table of Bright Siders – give their takes on the Suns’ latest issues and news.
Fantable Questions of the Week
Q1 – According to Shams Charania, at least 5 teams (Minnesota, New York, Houston, Miami and San Antonio) have an interest in trading for KD this summer and KD has at least some interest in playing for all 5. If a trade could be worked out with the Knicks, would you insist that getting Mikal Bridges back be a part of the trade?
GuarGuar: I would definitely insist about getting Mikal back if we traded KD to New York. I don’t care if in hindsight it looks bad given we traded Mikal and Cam and picks for KD and then we get Mikal back years later. He was a huge part of our winning culture and is a very very good player who complements Booker extremely well. He’d be one of my top targets if we dealt with NY.
OldAz: Getting Mikel back in this proposed deal would be a sentimental choice rather than a basketball move. The cap rules make any deal complicated and limit what the Suns can get back, especially if the other team is also over one or more of the caps. However, just looking at players on the Knicks, I would rather get OG Anunoby and Robinson in a deal from the Knicks, but I suspect the Knicks interest is more media driven than real.
Rod: Mikal was one of my personal favorites and I don’t doubt that he would be an asset to the team if he returned but I wouldn’t insist that he be included in the trade. Although the jury is still out on just how good Ryan Dunn will eventually be, having the two of them on the Suns’ roster would sort of be like having both Booker and Beal together, another duplication of skills at another position. I see Mikal as the better offensive player but I give Dunn a slight nod as the better defensive guy, otherwise they’re not that different. The Suns need more size and adding another 6’6” wing isn’t going to help in that area. Plus, Bridges is actually a two months older than Book which doesn’t really help the Suns get younger.
I’m certainly not against him returning but I wouldn’t insist that he be included in the trade. Purely for basketball reasons, I’d be more likely to insist that OG Anunoby be included in the trade than Mikal. And the Knicks are pretty poor in draft picks they could trade back to the Suns which would put them way down on my list of potential trade partners anyway.
Q2 – Devin Booker recently restated his desire to spend his entire NBA career in Phoenix. Should this matter at all in a decision to possibly trade him”?
GuarGuar: If Booker doesn’t ask out, we should not deal him. He’s stuck with us through the low of lows and made this franchise relevant again single handily. He’s recruited MULTIPLE stars to this team because they want to play with him. Sure, some of them haven’t worked out like we thought but him having this recruitment level skill is a massive plus. We can retool around him. Also the optics of trading our homegrown star when he didn’t want to leave would be terrible for the future of the franchise.
OldAz: It should, because over the long haul sports is about legacy and history. Children bond with players and teams that they will remember a lifetime later, with or without championships. Some of the greatest players are associated with teams even without ever winning it all (Tony Gwynn in Baseball, or Dan Marino in football to name a couple). I am pessimistic that trading Booker away gets the Suns back to competing for championships within the span of Booker’s career anyway, so I think it should matter that he wants to be here, at least until an actual competent front office is overseeing all of the Suns basketball decisions (see question #3).
Rod: Yes, it should be a factor but not a reason to not consider trading him. Some want to trade him because he’s not a “superstar” and I won’t argue that point but he is still a great player in his prime and that would be hard to replace. He’s currently 11th in points and 13th in assists in the NBA and there are only three other players who rank ahead of him in both of those stats (Jokic, Doncic and Cade Cunningham) and all of them turn the ball over more often than Book does. There are more positive stats I could add here but the point is that he’s damn fine player with plenty of good years left in him and is loyal to the team/city that drafted him. That’s not someone you trade away unless someone makes you an outrageously good offer.
While some put forth Book should be traded because he’s not a leader. While there’s something to that argument, I’d suggest that instead the Suns should focus on getting a leader for the team. CP3 was a good one and Book played some of his best ball following CP3’s leadership. I think he’s most comfortable following than trying to lead so at least attempting to bring in a proven leader would by far be my preferred option rather than trading Book.
Q3 – If the Suns were to decide to start a full rebuild this summer (trading away both Book and KD), how long do you think it would take for them to possibly return to being a playoff team?
GuarGuar: I think it would take 5+ years because we have none of our own draft picks. Even if we did it probably would take that long. It took us 10 years after Nash left. I’d expect it to take 6-7 if we dealt Booker and Durant before we were a constant playoff team again. We have dealt ourselves a major hole.
OldAz: The Suns are in such a mess compared to just a couple years ago that I find this hard to answer. They are old, slow, and unathletic and have nothing but very late draft picks to work with at rebuilding (they are last in line of a bunch of swaps for almost every pick, and one of those teams is likely to be good). The problem is that every other team also knows this and at this point we are only hoping that the Suns get good value back in those hypothetical deals. Nothing in their recent history suggests that would be the case. Matt Ishbia’s open wallet so far has also come with rash moves to “compete now” and a stated philosophy to compete every year. These are not the ingredients for any type of rebuild over any length of time. If Ishbia will put in place a better basketball leadership and get out of their way, then a quick return to relevance is possible, but that is a lot that needs to happen before any major moves are made.
Rod: I’d say that the Suns might start sniffing at getting back into the play-in games in maybe 5-6 years. Sure they might get lucky and have a season in there like the 2013-14 Suns (48-34) but that wasn’t sustainable and the West is still a brutal conference. And to get back into the playoffs without having to go through the play-in games (6th seed or better)… be prepared for a very long wait. Unless they can somehow get some of the 1st round picks back that they traded away, I don’t believe that could happen in under 8-10 years
Unless they were lucky enough to draft the next Giannis (picked 15th), Butler (picked 30th), Brunson (picked 33rd) or Jokic (picked 41st) in the next few years, a full rebuild is truly going to be a long-term project. Any way the Suns go about it, a rebuild is going to be a gamble and there won’t likely be any quick fixes through the draft.
But if they can find someone dumb enough to agree to a horrible trade for them (like the LAL/Dallas one), then I believe it might be worth taking the chance on a full rebuild.
As always, many thanks to our Fantable members for all their extra effort this week!
Rookie Report
Ryan Dunn – 18.3 mpg, 6.4 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 0.7 apg, 0.5 spg, 0.6 bpg, 0.5 TO, 2.2 PF, 42.9% FG%, 31.1% 3P%, 42.9% FT%
- Last Week – 27.1 mpg, 4.7 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 1.0 apg, 0.7 spg, 0.0 bpg, 1.0 TO, 3.3 PF, 27.3% FG%, 14.3% 3P%, 0.0% FT%
Oso Ighodaro – 16.4 mpg, 4.0 ppg, 3.6 rpg, 1.1 apg, 0.4 spg, 0.4 bpg, 0.6 TO, 1.7 PF, 61.3% FG%, 0.0 3P%, 58.3% FT%
- Last Week – 24.3 mpg, 8.7 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 1.7 apg, 0.3 spg, 0.0 bpg, 0.0 TO, 2.0 PF, 86.7% FG%, 0.0 3P%, 0.0% FT%
Statistics courtesy of NBA.com.
Injury Report
Kevin Durant (Ankle) – Expected to be out until at least Apr 8.
Last Week’s poll results
Last week’s question was “Should the Suns pay Bol Bol more than the vet minimum if that’s what it takes to keep him on the roster?”
33% – Yes.
67% – No.
A total of 154 votes were cast.
Suns Trivia/History
On April 7, 1969, as a new expansion franchise, the Suns took part in their first ever NBA draft. The draft is mostly remembered because Phoenix lost the historic coin toss between them and Milwaukee which gave the Bucks the right to draft Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar) with the first pick. What is not widely known is that the Suns went on to draft a total of 22 players during the 20 rounds of that draft! The last player they selected was Jim Plump in the 20th round with the 216th pick. Back in those days, there was no set limit as to how many rounds the draft would last and teams could just keep picking players as long as they wanted.
Most Points Per Possession On Post Ups In The 2024-25 NBA Regular Season (Min. 40 Total Post Up Possessions) :
1. Devin Booker — 1.35
2. Jabari Smith Jr. — 1.27
3. Kristaps Porzingis — 1.20
4. Daniel Gafford — 1.18
5. Joel Embiid — 1.14
5. Harrison Barnes —… https://t.co/Y432srIcDK pic.twitter.com/8nCUApSjVF— Stat Defender (@statdefender) April 5, 2025
Quote of the Week
“It’s tough. I’ve said I didn’t think I’d be in this situation (again), but it’s part of it. It’s part of the journey. It’s part of the story. We’ve built it up before. We’ll do it again.” – Devin Booker
Important Future Dates
April 13 – NBA Regular Season ends
April 14 – Rosters set for NBA Playoffs 2025 (3 p.m. ET)
April 15-18 – Play-In Tournament
April 19 – NBA Playoffs begin
May 12 – NBA Lottery
June 25-26 – NBA Draft
This week’s poll is…
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