Rumors that the Houston Rockets were interested in trading Kevin Durant and Devin Booker sounded silly just before the NBA Draft, but will stay in the back of people’s minds who follow the NBA.
The Suns have shown no intention of calling their bets on the Big Three a sunk cost at this point.
Trading one of their stars now sounds like a conspiracy.
But John Hollinger’s story for The Athletic about the most underrated NBA moves this offseason paints a picture of Why we can expect to hear from Houston again when the Suns reach the point where they dismantle the roster.
Hollinger, a former Memphis Grizzlies executive, points out that the Rockets’ involvement as the third team in the trade of Mikal Bridges from Brooklyn to New York this offseason will tie Houston to Phoenix for years to come.
We won’t get into the confusing pick swaps and future trades that were exchanged in the deal that made Bridges a Nova Knick, just know that the Nets gave the Rockets some of the draft capital Brooklyn received from the Suns in the 2023 Durant deal.
Hollinger writes that the Rockets could be the Suns’ salvation in getting out of salary cap hell in the future.
… the Rockets started with an unprotected first and an unprotected swap from Brooklyn and ended with two unprotected premieres from Phoenix and two exchanged.
What makes this so cool for Houston is that despite their underrated trade this summer (for Tyus Jones), the Suns are quickly heading toward doomsday. Maybe not this year, maybe not even next… but it’s imminent. Owning the Suns’ draft capital from the last decade is great business.
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Counting on paying back those two picks and a few other extras to get Devin Booker and give the Suns a fresh start in two or three years may still be an outside bet, and a lot of water will flow down the drain between now and then.
Such an idea was floated in less clear terms in rumors about the Rockets’ interest in Durant and even Booker this summer.
There is no doubt that Houston has been sending signals through reporters this season that they are ready to go full throttle and enter the competition, whether through a trade with the Suns or otherwise.
A trade with Phoenix could be within reach for the Suns if they fall short this year. And things like the departure of point guard Tyus Jones after just one season – see below – will affect the talent level of the roster going forward.
As we saw this offseason, the Suns may have finally found their spending limit.
According to Hollinger, Phoenix saved about $40 million in taxpayer money on Wednesday by terminating the contracts of Nassir Little and EJ Liddell (after the David Roddy trade). And that was at the cost of not being able to fill a 15th roster spot.
Hollinger describes the signing of Tyus Jones from the Suns as a greatly underrated move
By all appearances, the Suns’ signing of point guard Tyus Jones to a minimum contract in a dried-up player market was a matter of luck and the ability to convince him of the situation.
They made up for the lack of money with a family atmosphere, which Jones said played a big role. And of course with the opportunity to field three of the league’s best scorers: Durant, Booker and Bradley Beal.
But how much of a bargain was that for the Suns in financial terms? Hollinger put it this way when he called Jones one of the league’s most underrated offseason transfers:
On a roster where the only other options were the brittle and less offensively powerful Monté Morris (himself a steal on a minimum contract earlier this summer) and “let’s see how another year of point booker works,” Jones is basically manna from heaven. Despite being a very late addition, he’s good enough to really matter in a tightly packed race out West where two or three wins could be the difference between third place and the play-in tournament…not to mention a playoff series.
Sure, Jones is dead next summer and they’ll have to try to fill his spot, but for a team in “win now” mode, the “NOW” part seems to me to be the more important element. The endgame at the end of the decade in Phoenix certainly looks brutal. But whatever Phoenix’s 2024-25 ceiling ends up being with Mat Ishbia’s absurd all-in, burn-all-draft-picks approach, the Suns are much more likely to reach it with Jones’ signing.
Hollinger’s BORD$ metric, which evaluates a player’s performance in dollars, gave Jones a talent value of $14.2 million.
Phoenix’s minimum offer for the veteran, the only contract they could offer the 28-year-old Jones, is $2.1 million.
Jones is coming off his best NBA season, averaging 12.0 points, 7.3 assists and 49% shooting for the Washington Wizards.
In case you’re wondering, the chances of Jones returning to the Suns after the 2024-25 season are close to 0%.
This year he has to prove himself, and Phoenix’s salary cap doesn’t allow the club to offer him much more than a modest raise, which would still leave Jones tens of millions of dollars below his true value.
