2023-24 Season Discussion and Speculation 5 - the calm before the storm

[Mulhollanddrive]

2 games ahead of Lakers and they have the tiebreaker.

If we finish 9th we should fire Vogel before the play in.

[Frank Lee]

FLakers with a statement…. Stock up.







Meanwhile… back in the desert

[Slim Charless]

Beal is just not a winner. All those years in Washington.

He made the playoffs 5x in Washington, 3x as the best player and one with horrible teammates. But when he had crap teammates after Wall declined/got injured, they traded Porter, etc, he was basically it. Similar to our team without Paul.

I mean, you can say the same thing about Book in his first 5 years or whatever..we were awful. It wasn't until we got Paul to lead our team that we got good.

He's played well overall...shooting better than Book from 2, 3, efg%, etc.

You really hate this guy. Unhealthy.

Stix has posted more times in the past 3 months about Beal then he has his entire time here. You'd go months without seeing anything from the guy. Now it's weekly Beal updates and complaints.

[Mulhollanddrive]

Beal is not Beal in our system though.

4 years ago he averaged 30 and 6, now it's 17 and 5.

I think we have a big 2 then Nurkic, Allen, Beal (in that order) as elite role players.

[Ghost of Kleine]

https://www.brightsideofthesun.com/24100971/phoenix-suns-roster-salaries-cap-space-draft-picks

Suns Roster, Salaries, Cap Space, Available Draft Picks and More
Your one-stop shop for Suns roster information.

By John Voita
@DarthVoita Mar 26, 2024, 6:00am MST

Capologist. Have you heard this term? Given the complexities of the NBA salary cap, full of terminologies like options, luxury tax, first and second apron, mid-level exception, and Bird rights, you may feel like you need a PhD to understand it. You don’t. You just need this page, you capologist, you!

Fear not. We are collaborating with SalarySwish to leverage their data to answer any and all questions you could have about the Suns’ roster construction.

So bookmark this page, because this is where you’ll find answers to all of your questions, updated in real-time, with context and updates as they occur.

Now, onto the info...

Phoenix Suns Roster, Salaries, Draft Picks, Cap Space and More
https://www.salaryswish.com/teams/suns
PHOENIX SUNS
CAP HIT Tooltip : $191,145,609
CAP ROOM Tooltip : -$55,124,609
LUXURY TAX ROOM Tooltip : -$25,851,609
APRON ROOM Tooltip : -$18,799,609
2ND APRON ROOM Tooltip : -$8,351,609
ROSTER SIZE: 15/15
TWO-WAY CONTRACTS: 3/3
GENERAL MANAGER: James Jones
HEAD COACH: Frank Vogel

Powered by SalarySwish.com

SIGNING EXCEPTIONS
Bi-Annual: $0 of $0 remaining
Mid-Level: $0 of $5,000,000 remaining

TRADE EXCEPTIONS

PLAYER EXCEPTION USED REMAINING START DATE END DATE
Isaiah Todd $1,836,096 $0 $1,836,096 Jul 11, 2023 Jul 11, 2024
Cam Payne $6,500,000 $0 $6,500,000 Jul 17, 2023 Jul 17, 2024
Toumani $1,119,563 $0 $1,119,563 Sep 27, 2023 Sep 27, 2024
Camara

FAQ
How much salary cap space can the Suns have this offseason?
In short? They can’t. Mat Ishbia has opened his checkbook and the Suns find themselves near the top of “most expensive roster” lists across the NBA. Noted above per SalarySwish, here are the important numbers to note for 2024-25:

The cap is projected to be $141 million next season
The luxury tax is projected to begin at $171.3 million
The first apron is projected to begin at $178.7 million
The second apron is projected to begin at $189.5 million
How much will the Suns pay in luxury taxes this year?
With those numbers in mind let’s look at what lies ahead for the Phoenix Suns in the 2024-25 season:

The salaries of Devin Booker, Kevin Durant, and Bradley Beal will combine for $153.8 million
Jusuf Nurkic, Nassir Little, and David Roddy are under contract (Roddy’s team option has been exercised) which combined for an additional $27.7 million
Drew Eubanks, Eric Gordon, Josh Okogie, and Damion Lee are all on player options. If all were to opt in, that would total $11.8 million
Therefore, those ten players under contract next season equals $193.3 million, which is:

$52.3 million over the cap
$21.9 million over the luxury tax
$14.6 million over the first apron
$3.8 million over the second apron.
They will still need to sign an additional 5 players.

How much will the Suns pay in luxury taxes this year?
As of right now, the Suns are slated to pay just over $73.1 million in luxury taxes. Due to their payroll of approximately $193.3 million being nearly $21.9 million over the luxury tax limit. The team is taxed on that luxury tax number ($21,941,267). Therefore, the team will pay $73,123,018 after standard and repeating tax rates. This number will rise as the team needs to add additional players to fill out their roster.

We could see the Suns offer contracts to both Grayson Allen and Royce O’Neale, both of whom will enter unrestricted free agency. The Suns have Bird rights on both, which means that they are eligible to re-sign with the Suns for up to five years and for any price up to their maximum salary (with 8% annual raises) , no matter how much cap space the team has or doesn’t have.

What draft picks can the Suns trade?

The Suns can’t currently trade any of their first-round draft picks, seeing as other teams hold rights to them or they are dependent and where other teams finish relative to standings.

Phoenix has a pick in the upcoming 2024 NBA Draft, which will be the worst remaining pick between Memphis, Washington, and the Suns. Once this is determined, the Suns can trade this pick.

The Suns can currently trade the following second-round draft picks:

2028 Grizzlies pick
2029 Grizzlies pick

*** I didn't list the cap tables info or the pick swap info from the swish.com website link because it would've made this article impossibly long and overtly complex. Just reference it via the link in the article or the article itself if necessary.

[Mulhollanddrive]

I reckon Jones draft day trades pick 16 (or similar) with Little, Roddy for the $8m player of his choice.

[TeamTragic]

I think we should pull a Bucks and just fire Vogel right now.

Why wait for what we all know is about to happen?

[lilfishi22]

I think we should pull a Bucks and just fire Vogel right now.

Why wait for what we all know is about to happen?

And replace with who? Bucks fired their coach before ASW, plenty of time/games to get acclimated to a new system. We have what.....less than a dozen games and less than a month to do all of that.

[sunsbg]

Lakers without Lebron beating Bucks is another blow.

Should have fired Vogel and gave a chance to the highest paid assistant to turn the season around. If not, fire him too.

[TeamTragic]

I think we should pull a Bucks and just fire Vogel right now.

Why wait for what we all know is about to happen?

And replace with who? Bucks fired their coach before ASW, plenty of time/games to get acclimated to a new system. We have what.....less than a dozen games and less than a month to do all of that.

Dude we just lost to the Spurs without Wemby. This is not the only pathetic loss which goes back to the beginning of the season.

What the hell are you talking about LF?

[bwgood77]

Beal is not Beal in our system though.

4 years ago he averaged 30 and 6, now it's 17 and 5.

I think we have a big 2 then Nurkic, Allen, Beal (in that order) as elite role players.

You can't have 3 guys taking that many shots. It's been good he's taken a backseat and started to focus more on different aspects of his game, driving and kicking, defense, spreading the floor to get nice shots.

The offense could be designed better for the three, but he is a guy that can step up when needed, but KD and Book are not the type of guys to take a back seat and not take as many shots.

If one is out, he can step up and be that guy.

The same thing happened with Harden in LA. He's isn't the same Harden, but is shooting the best 3pt% he has in his career, and taking fewer shots than he has since his OKC days. We need guys like Allen and Royce to get shots when they get hot...we can't always have 3 mid range studs taking a ton of shots every game.

[lilfishi22]

I think we should pull a Bucks and just fire Vogel right now.

Why wait for what we all know is about to happen?

And replace with who? Bucks fired their coach before ASW, plenty of time/games to get acclimated to a new system. We have what.....less than a dozen games and less than a month to do all of that.

Dude we just lost to the Spurs without Wemby. This is not the only pathetic loss which goes back to the beginning of the season.

What the hell are you talking about LF?

Ask you again

WHO are you replacing him with? How are you going to squeeze what should be a season worth of acclimating to a new system in.....4 weeks?

What you are talking about is doing something just to do it....with zero plans

[TeamTragic]

And replace with who? Bucks fired their coach before ASW, plenty of time/games to get acclimated to a new system. We have what.....less than a dozen games and less than a month to do all of that.

Dude we just lost to the Spurs without Wemby. This is not the only pathetic loss which goes back to the beginning of the season.

What the hell are you talking about LF?

Ask you again

WHO are you replacing him with? How are you going to squeeze what should be a season worth of acclimating to a new system in.....4 weeks?

What you are talking about is doing something just to do it....with zero plans

What cares at this point LF? This team still melts down in the fourth and we don't have a proper ball handler.

Now Vogel has an improved roster and he still does dumb **** like playing Eubanks.

[lilfishi22]

Dude we just lost to the Spurs without Wemby. This is not the only pathetic loss which goes back to the beginning of the season.

What the hell are you talking about LF?

Ask you again

WHO are you replacing him with? How are you going to squeeze what should be a season worth of acclimating to a new system in.....4 weeks?

What you are talking about is doing something just to do it....with zero plans

What cares at this point LF? This team still melts down in the fourth and we don't have a proper ball handler.

Now Vogel has an improved roster and he still does dumb **** like playing Eubanks.

I'm fine with moving on from Vogel in the offseason but at this point, we're so deep into the season with Vogel, firing him and replacing him with no one makes no sense whatsoever

[Ghost of Kleine]

Read on Twitter

[TeamTragic]

Ask you again

WHO are you replacing him with? How are you going to squeeze what should be a season worth of acclimating to a new system in.....4 weeks?

What you are talking about is doing something just to do it....with zero plans

What cares at this point LF? This team still melts down in the fourth and we don't have a proper ball handler.

Now Vogel has an improved roster and he still does dumb **** like playing Eubanks.

I'm fine with moving on from Vogel in the offseason but at this point, we're so deep into the season with Vogel, firing him and replacing him with no one makes no sense whatsoever

I would rather miss the playin then get embarrassed by either the Mavs, Rockets or Lakers.

[lilfishi22]

What cares at this point LF? This team still melts down in the fourth and we don't have a proper ball handler.

Now Vogel has an improved roster and he still does dumb **** like playing Eubanks.

I'm fine with moving on from Vogel in the offseason but at this point, we're so deep into the season with Vogel, firing him and replacing him with no one makes no sense whatsoever

I would rather miss the playin then get embarrassed by either the Mavs, Rockets or Lakers.

[TeamTragic]

I'm fine with moving on from Vogel in the offseason but at this point, we're so deep into the season with Vogel, firing him and replacing him with no one makes no sense whatsoever

I would rather miss the playin then get embarrassed by either the Mavs, Rockets or Lakers.

[garrick]

What cares at this point LF? This team still melts down in the fourth and we don't have a proper ball handler.

Now Vogel has an improved roster and he still does dumb **** like playing Eubanks.

I'm fine with moving on from Vogel in the offseason but at this point, we're so deep into the season with Vogel, firing him and replacing him with no one makes no sense whatsoever

I would rather miss the playin then get embarrassed by either the Mavs, Rockets or Lakers.

Nah maybe get in the play in and lose so you sort of have that playoff experience but you still get to draft in the lottery.

When we have Bol Bol as a key contributor off the bench you know your bench is bare and you need upgrades at each position besides SG.

[Iceman36]

I'm nearly done with our current team. Maybe my most unliked team as a Suns fan since '93.

Let' see if we get our sh*t together in this brutal closing stretch. If so, a deep playoff run incoming. If not, our season ends very soon. Could not be soon enough for me.