2024-25 Season Discussion and Speculation Part II

[ChuckS]

I'll defer to CBA and cap experts, but even in the event we get Butler and lose him and KD for nothing eventually, will we not have over $40 Mil and the draft picks held up while in the second apron to keep us from some of the predicted long term doom? This might be a stupid question, but it is made in honest curiosity.

[Fo-Real]

Some of the unhinged ranting and insults to others on this board is insane at times. You have folks that I have read on here FOR YEARS, melting the **** down over opinions, people losing it to the point that they start throwing butthurt political opinions around for no reason at all and people insulting my very State for no reason! Compose yourselves, this is supposed to be adult ****. Some of you need a mental health break, from grudge **** every aspect of fandom pertaining to this team. Some of you make it completely toxic in here, the other boards reading you guys melting down has to be hilarious to them!!

[Saberestar]

Some of the unhinged ranting and insults to others on this board is insane at times. You have folks that I have read on here FOR YEARS, melting the **** down over opinions, people losing it to the point that they start throwing butthurt political opinions around for no reason at all and people insulting my very State for no reason! Compose yourselves, this is supposed to be adult ****. Some of you need a mental health break, from grudge **** every aspect of fandom pertaining to this team. Some of you make it completely toxic in here, the other boards reading you guys melting down has to be hilarious to them!!

Absolutely.

We all can have different opinions about the Suns but we are all fans of the same team and its an sport, it is a healthy hobby. Love and respect guys.

[sunsbg]

We all can have different opinions about the Suns but we are all fans of the same team and its an sport, it is a healthy hobby. Love and respect guys.

Only if you enjoy it, but otherwise agree.

[dremill24]

I'll defer to CBA and cap experts, but even in the event we get Butler and lose him and KD for nothing eventually, will we not have over $40 Mil and the draft picks held up while in the second apron to keep us from some of the predicted long term doom? This might be a stupid question, but it is made in honest curiosity.

Assuming your premise is Beal & those picks for Butler, and losing Butler/KD when their contracts expire at the end of 2025-26...

Yeah, in this hypothetical, this would result in the Suns having enough cap space for a max FA (assuming they didn't add any additional long-term salary between now and then) in the summer of 2026.

As far as picks, again assuming no other moves, they'd have late 1sts in 2026, 2028 and 2030 and no picks in '27, '29, '31. Their 2032 1st will be frozen/unable to be traded after this season and their 2033 would be the same after next season. If they continued to stay below the second apron for a couple of years after dropping KD/Butler, their 2032 1st would become unfrozen and able to be traded and would NOT be relegated to the end of the 1st round in the summer of '29, with the same occurring for their '32 1st in '30.

Whether these things lead to long-term doom or rising from the ashes depends on what specific things are done during this period and it's obviously subjective as to whether they'd have the tools to be any good. I think folks are most worried about the 2026-2031 period where there may not be a lot of talent or avenues to add it. It's also debatable as to how realistic it is for the team to just let those guys go for nothing at that point, as most indications are they'd sign these guys to extensions.

[Slim Charless]

What is your plan? You want to be a losing team in the lottery in hope we can get good draft picks? In the mean time not make a playoff run for 10 years? It just doesn’t make sense right now.

I remember 10 years of rooting for the Suns to lose so that we would improve our position in the draft. We got a lot of draft picks that were worthless and absolutely whiffed on choosing Ayton over Doncic.

If we get Butler, we will have the big three for three years. If they have limited success in the next two years they will all be traded after the 2nd year. All three will be gone after the third year and we will have tons of cap space to rebuild quickly.

I am with dcoop.

What should we do? We absolutely are not trading KD or Booker at this point. We are not going to blow it up.

Who is better for this team, now. Butler or Beal?

What we need is a closer and if Butler can bring that to this team. It could change everything. I have no zero confidence in Booker at this point.

You won't get anything for KD and Butler in two years. Every year their value depreciates with age. They also are declining in terms of impact. You might not particularly see it in the box score but it's there in the advanced metrics (the ones that teams use/base their own models off - EPM/LEBRON/DARKO) already and basically every team in the league has sniffed this out already.

Also Bookers value, while still significant, will not be quite as a high at 31 instead of 28.

The old blokes are also simply at an age where you can just fall off a cliff from one year to the next. Like you might not actually get three years. We could be a decent playoff team this year and then miss next year. That's how aging works - it's ever present, we know we can predict it, but we don't actually know how we will get "there".

Just thought I'd clear up some of these misconceptions regarding how players age. It's not that when you have a guy producing at 35 he is guaranteed to be good the next 3 years or age slowly. That can happen, but also what can happen just as often is that they evaporate into nothing. And eventually in their late 30s teams tend to not give up anything significant regardless of how well they are producing.

The likelyhood of a dropoff if you can picture it on a graph is like...increasing every year past age 29 until it hits 99.9999% at like x year in the late 30s. In general that's what the model looks like.

So yeah, if we are going into a future where we're expecting 3 years of contending, we just need to be clear that historically there's some pretty good odds that actually might not be the case.

[BobbieL]

I'll defer to CBA and cap experts, but even in the event we get Butler and lose him and KD for nothing eventually, will we not have over $40 Mil and the draft picks held up while in the second apron to keep us from some of the predicted long term doom? This might be a stupid question, but it is made in honest curiosity.

Assuming your premise is Beal & those picks for Butler, and losing Butler/KD when their contracts expire at the end of 2025-26...

Yeah, in this hypothetical, this would result in the Suns having enough cap space for a max FA (assuming they didn't add any additional long-term salary between now and then) in the summer of 2026.

As far as picks, again assuming no other moves, they'd have late 1sts in 2028 and 2030 and no picks in '27, '29, '31. Their 2032 1st will be frozen/unable to be traded after this season and their 2033 would be the same after next season. If they continued to stay below the second apron for a couple of years after dropping KD/Butler, their 2032 1st would become unfrozen and able to be traded and would NOT be relegated to the end of the 1st round in the summer of '29, with the same occurring for their '32 1st in '30.

Whether these things lead to long-term doom or rising for the ashes depends on what specific things are done during this period. I think folks are most worried about the 2026-2031 period where there may not be a lot of talent or avenues to add it. It's also debatable as to how realistic it is for the team to just let those guys go for nothing at that point, as most indications are they'd sign these guys to extensions.

My thing with wanting a Butler deal is predicated completely on this: I don't think he gets them past the 2nd round let alone enough to win a title. And if you aren't realistically able to compete to win a title, what is the best plan forward.

I don't think giving up a bunch of assets for Butler and extending him and Durant to the point they have minimal if any trade value combined with Bookers trade value continuing to decrease - -leads me to believe the best plan is to blow up

The new CBA is also part of the equation along with the lack of draft capital.

If this were just about trading Butler for Beal - Butler is better. But how many picks are you adding further diminishing your ability to add depth. Plus with three players making $175m total - the team really won't be able to improve

So if this is about just making the playoffs this year and next year - fine trade for Butler. If this is about winning a title - a realistic chance, I don't see it happening and your future is basically shot for ten years.

[Ghost of Kleine]

Read on Twitter

So if this happens and the Heat gets Fox with Butler going to Sacramento, What would be the best pivot for us to get involved here to at least get some pieces back or other assets as a facilitator?

[lilfishi22]

Right. What has he done wrong so far? No one knows. Everyone is guessing at this point.

Let it play out. Spend what you have to spend. You got players for 3 years. If it doesn’t work then blow it up. Open your pocket book and that 2031 isn’t going to be what people think

So far, two of his signature moves has yet to pay any dividends. We're deeper into the 2nd apron than ever, have by far the biggest total spend of any team in the league ($90m more than 2nd place), have fewer quality draft capital than before and despite a pretty soft schedule thus far, we've been hovering around .500 for most of the season.

The KD/Beal/Book experiment is already half way through the 2nd season and empirically, we're not even better than we were last season which most fans and probably Ishbia himself consider a disappointment.

If we can blow it up and get out of the 2nd apron then the 1st round picks we still have could be in the lottery so needlessly spending ungodly amounts of money to only lose in the 1st round or not even make the playoffs is an exercise in futility and insanity.

Booker will be 29 next season and should still have some value for a team that needs any kind of star power so I am all for moving on from him and KD if we can still find any takers for him at his age and huge salary.

As for Beal we will need to just live with Beal's terrible contract and see if all the losing will cause him to waive his NTC but if Book and KD are no longer on the team that might make it more palatable to him to be traded somewhere else.

I know why some fans want to trade Book but to me, he's in that Kobe category for me where we only trade him if he wants out. And not like we make it unpleasant or whatever for him to force him to want out but genuine mutual desire to part ways.

People don't seem to appreciate what he means for this franchise. He's in the top 10 in so many Phoenix Suns all time categories, he's soon going to be the #1 scorer and within the next few seasons, he'll have played more games than Suns legends Marion, Nash, DVA, Walter Davis and KJ. It's so incredibly rare to have a franchise guy like that these days where player movement is such a fundamental part of a players journey. It's year 10 for Book in a Suns uniform, the only uniform he's known, who's been nothing but a pros pro, represented the Suns in the best way and some fans want him gone?

I mean c'mon

[lilfishi22]

Would have been great for us with his physicality and versatility on Defense. Oh well, no point crying over spilt milk with this front office other than to say it's concerning fans on message boards know what's better for the team than the people actually in charge

We didn’t have a Chance to get Yabusele. Philly offered him a better deal and he ran with it.

He's on a minimum. We can't do better or match that?

Tyus on a min was a great get, credit where it's due.

I thought he could've gotten more than a minimum which is why we weren't in the market so I was surprised to see he only signed for the min which is less than his buyout. I'm guessing he was promised solid minutes and possibly saw the tea leaves that Embiid probably isn't going to play much and perhaps will have more of an offensive role.