“Why the Phoenix Suns Need to Act Quickly to Salvage the Kevin Durant Trade Deal”

Phoenix Suns fans are in despair after the team’s playoff exit at the hands of the Denver Nuggets. This must be bitter for the Suns fanbase, who helped fuel a Cinderella run to the Finals last season. The Suns were seen as legitimate title contenders when they traded Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, four unprotected first-round picks, and a 2028 pick swap to the Brooklyn Nets for Kevin Durant at the trade deadline.

The hope was that the addition of Durant would make them unbeatable, but it wasn’t to be. The Suns were eliminated from the playoffs in the second round, and the NBA world saw the Brooklyn Nets, the team that traded Durant away, surge to the Eastern Conference Finals.

What’s next for the Suns? How can they save their franchise? My advice would be that the Suns need to make some big picture pivots, starting with addressing the team’s weakness on defense. The team needs a lot of upgrades, and they don’t have any draft picks to trade to get them.

One suggestion is for the Suns to trade Chris Paul, who missed the last four games of the series with a groin strain. Chris Paul turned 38 years old during the series against the Nuggets, and he just can’t be counted on to finish a playoff run at this point in his career — his injury in this postseason isn’t an outlier, it’s a trend. Paul has two years and $60.8 million left on his contract, which is partially guaranteed for $15.8 million in the 2023-24 season and fully unguaranteed in 2024-25. His big salary number would give Phoenix a way of matching contracts to acquire multiple players, and the team on the other end could just cut him after next year to open up cap space.

Another pivot the Suns need to make is addressing their need for fast players if they want to build around their superstar pairing of Durant and Devin Booker. Therefore, they need to get some more zip in their offense whether CP3 is on the team or not.

The Suns need to reload the roster around Durant and Booker, and there are no easy answers for how to do this. The team has to have a plan in place to address their need for a more efficient offense along with better defensive play. Therefore, they need to consider the example set by the Denver Nuggets, who added Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Bruce Brown to upgrade their roster, where the Suns need players with similar skill sets around Durant and Booker.

It’s hard to find the solutions, but the Suns must focus on building up their depth, which Phoenix lacks. They had too many holes in their eight-man rotation that they couldn’t fill in-season after the KD trade. They better do it this offseason, or their title window could close quicker than anyone thought possible.

In conclusion, the Suns made a valiant effort this season but failed to deliver the results their fans deserved. They need to focus on addressing their weaknesses on defense, and it might be time to bring fresh faces to the team. The Suns can still be a championship contender, but they need to make some big pivots first.

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