PHOENIX — Bradley Beal is still here. That’s not much of a surprise. The Phoenix Suns guard has perhaps the least favorable contract in the NBA, one that includes a no-trade clause. As Beal said weeks ago, he held all the cards. He was right.
Kevin Durant is still here. With the Suns unable to move Beal, they considered sending the 15-time All-Star to the Golden State Warriors in a possible attempt to land disgruntled Miami star Jimmy Butler. Only problem: Durant didn’t want to go.
Jusuf Nurkić is not here. The Suns big man, sentenced a month ago to the bench, where he sat each game with a hood pulled over his head, his trade value decreasing by the minute, was dealt along with a 2026 first-round draft pick to Charlotte for reserve forward Cody Martin, guard Vasilije Micić and a 2026 second-round pick.
It’s something.
The Durant era in Phoenix is the most puzzling and frustrating in franchise history, and it’s likely nearing its final chapter. The Suns need to get younger and more athletic. Hovering around .500, they need to pivot toward the future. With Phoenix above the second apron, a salary threshold that limits how high-spending teams can make deals, this wasn’t possible.
The Suns over the last month obtained center Nick Richards from Charlotte. They acquired three first-round picks from Utah, sweetener for potential deals. They moved Nurkić, who had become a distraction. But more is needed, and perhaps as a result, the countdown has started.
The Suns have regressed in their second season with Devin Booker, Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant as the franchise’s “Big Three.” (Christian Petersen / Getty Images)
It’s reasonable to think this is about to get worse. The Suns have a challenging second-half schedule, perhaps the toughest in the league. A team with the NBA’s highest payroll, one that began the season with title aspirations, could miss the playoffs. Entering Thursday night, the Suns stood 25-25 and in 10th place in the West. The teams behind them — Golden State and San Antonio — made major moves, the Warriors adding Butler, the Spurs adding De’Aaron Fox. Portland is surging.
The Suns are sinking. Over the last month, the league’s best teams, Cleveland and Oklahoma City, have run them off the court. Charlotte beat them. Atlanta beat them. Portland beat them twice in three days.
Before the deadline, Durant, 36, was asked about trade distractions. He dismissed them. Everyone understands the business, he said. You dive into the work and everything else takes care of itself. With the Suns trying to discard Beal and willing to part with Durant, this will be tested. Beal’s had his name in the news cycle for weeks. Durant, under contract through the 2025-26 season and due for an extension, was a franchise pillar one day, the league’s hottest trade candidate the next.
Some fans will likely direct venom toward Beal, accusing him of putting his own wishes ahead of the team’s. It’s not his fault. Upon trading for the former All-Star before the 2023-24 season, owner Mat Ishbia and the front office understood what they were getting. They knew Beal was owed $207 million over four seasons. They knew about the no-trade clause. About the injury history. They had to realize that if Phoenix underperformed, moving Beal would be difficult. They made the deal anyway, intoxicated by a trio of Beal, Durant and Devin Booker. It hasn’t worked.
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At this time last season, Phoenix was 29-21, below title expectations but far from a disaster. The Suns finished with 49 wins but were swept in the postseason’s first round by Minnesota. Over the offseason, the Suns hired Mike Budenholzer (the team’s third head coach in three seasons), improved the bench, signed a true point guard in Tyus Jones and drafted a future defensive specialist in Ryan Dunn. And somehow they’re worse.
Too often the Suns seem to take the court with an attitude that their collective talent will lead to victory — only to walk off surprised when it doesn’t. You can’t watch them and tell if they’re on a winning streak or a losing streak. They just play. Sometimes this produces encouraging stretches. Sometimes it produces baffling losses. Mostly it just confuses everybody. Why isn’t this team better?
Even Booker, 28, has regressed. Before the Durant trade, he was a killer. Booker took the Suns to the 2021 finals. The next year he led Phoenix to a franchise-record 64 wins and finished fourth in MVP voting. Since then, he has put up similar numbers, but he hasn’t been the same player. This season, Booker’s efficiency numbers are down. In Wednesday’s loss at Oklahoma City, a game in which the Thunder buried the Suns with a 20-2 avalanche that started before halftime and stretched halfway through the third quarter, he was an unfathomable minus-38.
This roster is flawed. The Suns lack size on the wings. Defense and rebounding are issues that have never gone away. Even so, a team with two top-15 players, future Hall of Famers, shouldn’t have to hold off Washington in the final minutes to escape as the Suns did Jan. 25. They shouldn’t trail Portland by 27, as they did late last Saturday.
The Suns have 32 games left, time to regroup and put the deadline drama behind them. They can celebrate Durant passing 30,000 career points, a milestone that could happen this weekend. But more than likely their problems will still be there this summer when Ishbia and the Suns try to find a different pathway to contention, one that likely will include trading Durant and ending an era that failed to reach expectations.
(Top photo of Kevin Durant: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)
