The Official 2025 Offseason Thread Part 1

[Revived]

Is there any update on if the Suns will have an actual new GM that controls basketball operations? Or is Ishbia still not willing to do that so he can have his “yes men” and still run the team?

[Saberestar]

Duane Rankin

Sources have informed The Arizona Republic the Suns likely will look to add someone to the front office to work on basketball personnel decisions.

Sources say decisions regarding the front office will be made before the Suns hire a head coach, a timeline that falls in line with what Ishbia said during the news conference.

[BobbieL]

Duane Rankin

Sources have informed The Arizona Republic the Suns likely will look to add someone to the front office to work on basketball personnel decisions.

Sources say decisions regarding the front office will be made before the Suns hire a head coach, a timeline that falls in line with what Ishbia said during the news conference.

Thanks Sabre!

I wonder if Ishbia has talked to Bob Myers

[Ghost of Kleine]

As for Beal, I don't believe Chicago would give us Williams AND Vuc AND Ball. Williams would be the main part if it meant getting off Beal. A longer bad contract for a shorter one.
Maybe they would do Beal and 2 first (Cavs) for Williams and Vuc? Otherwise, maybe remove a first, and remove Vuc.

Then if you can do KD for 2 of our picks back, and fillers, I think we'd be in a better place.

Goal this summer should be cleaning up the Beal/KD mess. Start over with a little draft control back along with getting under the 2nd apron.

Good points man!
For my part though, I'm not doing the trade and taking back P Wills' long term money without at least the inclusion of Ball and Vucevic! They are key to my roster construction plans and without them, I'd rather just look elsewhere.

And this is from someone who believes that P Williams can still be salvaged in a new environment/ situation.

I think one thing the Suns process of this rebuild if you will, would be to try to get a good amount of cap space in 2027. Knowing that if you do NOTHING with Beal, you have his contract off the books. Now, if you can add O'Neale &/or Allen and trade them for expirings in 2027 (Grant Williams)- that will add more salaries that expire. I understand players will be signed so it wouldnt be the truly $85m of cap space in 2027 if you can move Grayson and Royce for epxirings and let Beal walk - but maybe you can somehow get to 40m to sign a good player or two

hear what you're saying! And it's a great point. But you actually should get to well beyond though that by virtue of letting Beal expire and come off the books man.

Beal expiring ( coming off the books) in 27' means you'd have 57 million ON TOP OF whatever space you build through trading KD and most likely Allen and O'neale too.

Trades that I've mentioned IF the ultimate goal (while still being competitive over the next two seasons),

1- The KD to Denver trade for Porter Jr/ Nnaji/ Braun/ Holmes/ Tyson.

** Porter Jr expires for 40 million in 27. Now add that to Beal's 57 million and you'd have upwards of 97 million. So even if you take around 30 million away from that, you'd still have 67 million for 27 free agency.

2- KD to Orlando for Isaac/ KCP/ Bidatze/ Harris (7 million expiring)/ picks.
** KCP represents 21 million expiring in 27, and Bidatze expires for 8 million. But the picks acquired will be key to adding cost controlled pieces to fill out our roster too.
Altogether with KCPs' 21 million and Beal's 57 million, you'd have 78 million.

But even if you spend 30 million to fill out the roster with 2 yr deals you'd still have around 48 million left for 27' free agency.
*** I didn't add Bidatze because I expect that we'd bring him back.

3- KD to Minnesota for Randle/ Conley/ Di Vincenzo/ Shannon Jr/ DET 25' 1st/ MIN 32' 1st. Randle, Conley and DiVincenzo coming off the books for 27' free agency would cumulatively give us around 51 million. And $108 million when combined with Beal's 57 million expiring too.

OR

KD for McDaniels/ Di Vincenzo/ Conley/ Dillingham/ Minott/ DET 25' 1st, / MIN 32' 1st.
All of Di Vincenzo/ Conley/ Minott would be off the books by 27' and Dillingham would be traded for draft picks. So that'd generate around $28 million in cap flexibility for 27' free agency.

.

[Rebound Mound]

It all begins with a good coach who runs a good system (even a bad one) that the players buy into.
For example, when you look at the Pistons roster, you find Cunningham, then a myriad of players that other teams rejected and a couple of fairly limited and quite short centres.
But the fact is that they defend, make up for each other, nobody does the things that does not know to do and everything is thought to maximize their stronger points.

So let's have a GM that we can trust, him (or her) being JJ or a different one, then let's have a coach with a good team of assistants (not that the assistants are better then him or in a high number, as sometimes happens) and then we can go from there.

Improving our defense and running an intelligent offense with players that have a desire to win, aim effort and commitment have to be found.

[BobbieL]

Good points man!
For my part though, I'm not doing the trade and taking back P Wills' long term money without at least the inclusion of Ball and Vucevic! They are key to my roster construction plans and without them, I'd rather just look elsewhere.

And this is from someone who believes that P Williams can still be salvaged in a new environment/ situation.

I think one thing the Suns process of this rebuild if you will, would be to try to get a good amount of cap space in 2027. Knowing that if you do NOTHING with Beal, you have his contract off the books. Now, if you can add O'Neale &/or Allen and trade them for expirings in 2027 (Grant Williams)- that will add more salaries that expire. I understand players will be signed so it wouldnt be the truly $85m of cap space in 2027 if you can move Grayson and Royce for epxirings and let Beal walk - but maybe you can somehow get to 40m to sign a good player or two

hear what you're saying! And it's a great point. But you actually should get to well beyond though that by virtue of letting Beal expire and come off the books man.

Beal expiring ( coming off the books) in 27' means you'd have 57 million ON TOP OF whatever space you build through trading KD and most likely Allen and O'neale too.

Trades that I've mentioned IF the ultimate goal (while still being competitive over the next two seasons),

1- The KD to Denver trade for Porter Jr/ Nnaji/ Braun/ Holmes/ Tyson.

** Porter Jr expires for 40 million in 27. Now add that to Beal's 57 million and you'd have upwards of 97 million. So even if you take around 30 million away from that, you'd still have 67 million for 27 free agency.

2- KD to Orlando for Isaac/ KCP/ Bidatze/ Harris (7 million expiring)/ picks.
** KCP represents 21 million expiring in 27, and Bidatze expires for 8 million. But the picks acquired will be key to adding cost controlled pieces to fill out our roster too.
Altogether with KCPs' 21 million and Beal's 57 million, you'd have 78 million.

But even if you spend 30 million to fill out the roster with 2 yr deals you'd still have around 48 million left for 27' free agency.
*** I didn't add Bidatze because I expect that we'd bring him back.

3- KD to Minnesota for Randle/ Conley/ Di Vincenzo/ Shannon Jr/ DET 25' 1st/ MIN 32' 1st. Randle, Conley and DiVincenzo coming off the books for 27' free agency would cumulatively give us around 51 million. And $108 million when combined with Beal's 57 million expiring too.

OR

KD for McDaniels/ Di Vincenzo/ Conley/ Dillingham/ Minott/ DET 25' 1st, / MIN 32' 1st.
All of Di Vincenzo/ Conley/ Minott would be off the books by 27' and Dillingham would be traded for draft picks. So that'd generate around $28 million in cap flexibility for 27' free agency.

.

My numbers were very conservative. But yes, the goal is to get some good cap space in 2027

[Ghost of Kleine]

As far as I'm concerned, if HOU is willing to send all three of our picks back, they can send us whatever contracts they want in exchange for KD.

If they would only give us our picks back for Booker, then sure, insist on Cam Whitmore. But the bottom line is that this franchise can't move forward unless we get those picks back. There's just no point drawing a line in the sand when the alternative is basketball purgatory.

Booker to HOU for the picks and Whitmore
KD for picks and whatever

Talent, shmalent. There is no hope without the tank.

But that is still drastically underseelling Booker's value in a Houston trade man! At minimum, it should be some combination of 2-3 young athletic core players AND the 3 1sts back! Maybe only two 1sts IF the 25' Houston pick jumps into the top 3. Not getting back Ameeen Thompson or Sengun is understandable. But Booker's current consensus value is around 2-3 promising, exciting, young, athletic, high potential talents, and 3-4 quality 1sts (at least two solid lottery of the 4). Don't let anyone mislead or convince you that it's less.

Suree the picks are very important, but the pick swaps that Jones imbecilically gave away like freakin "Oprah on her talk shows" make it eextraordinarily difficult if not nearly impossible to initiate a proper rebuild in even years, as multiple other teams hold control over our picks. UNLESS we do one of two things:

1- We accumulate young talent/ fillers (trade assets) towards either acquiring other teams' picks for the 26' and 28' draft??? This is still difficult as we'd have to try and accurately project a team's likelihood of collapse, resulting in a premium pick outcome. But if Ishbia hires the right legitimate GM and front office personnel, we should be able to do it. Also, pouring money into the acquisition of top-tier scouts and actual talent consultants. In successfully utilizing this strategy, we'll not only sidestep the poorer " least of" late firsts by drafting from the other teams' acquired premium 1sts, but those late "Least of" 1sts can be used to target supplementary depth or utility pieces.

2- We make sure we actually do get some combination of young, athletic core players on cost-controlled contracts to build out our roster around Booker and then utilize the accumulated cap space from the KD trade, etc to add higher value free agents now and espeecially in 2027. Or possibly even trading some of those acquired pieces for key players/other draft assets (for even years, to offset those pick swaps while additionally working towards being more competitive in the process??

... Yeesh. You made me look again at the swap rights we conveyed in the non-Houston years. We're, like swapped to extinction in 2026. 2028 I think is just a WAS/PHX swap from our perspective but then, 2030: Wow. We'd have to be worse than WAS AND MEM to keep that pick.

If you think Booker/Whitmore/Smith is a good foundation, ok, I guess.

Any solution that nets us greater control of our future would be a step in the right direction.

Yeah, but remember that it wouldn't only be a Booker/ Jabari Smith Jr/ Whitmore core alone. I moving KD and taking back those much cheaper cost controlled contracts, we've also generated significant cap flexibility. Smith Jr and Whitmore only make a combined 15 million.

Then you have to consider trading Allen and O' neale possibly generating upwards of $50 million from also declining Milicics' money and buying out Martin's contract. So invariably we could add some legit impact free agents around the core of Booker/ Jabari Smith Jr/ Whitmore/ Dunn and Ighodaro.

But the big fish would be in the summer of 27, so we'd just have to add enough to stay competitive UNLESS we take back that package and our 25' 1st ( which we could trade back in the draft to another team that has a 26' 1st and now we have a pick in 2026 and a later pick in the 25' draft to still make two selections.

Ideally, we'd take back D Brooks/ Smith jr/ Sheppard/ Landale/ Whitmore/ PHX 25' 1st/ PHX 27' 1st. Because this way, we'd get some really great young core prospects, and Landale is a solid Plumlee replacement that can actually shoot the three. And D Brooks who can be our tough, edgy, defensive agitator.

And in getting the 25 1st and 27' 1st, we can set ourselves up via the draft and get back on track by 2028. But even apart from the picks, we'd get a roster of:

Booker/ D Brooks/ Dunn/ Smith Jr/ Richards.
Sheppard / Allen/ Whitmore/ Oso / Landale.
Gillespie / Trent Jr / Draft / Bol Bol / Draft.

** Again, I'd probably trade the 9th pick back to a team in the late teens to (early- mid 20s).
For a 26' 1st and a pick in the mid 20s. Giving us both 2 1sts , a 2nd and a pick in 2026. So our core around Booker should be much better and more competitive whilst also returning draft assets in 25, 26, 27.

25' 1st
- 2 firsts.
- 1 2nd.
- 26' 1st.
PHX 27' 1st.
And then by 2027 we can flip more assets for another team's 1st in 2028 AND use Beal's 57 million expiring coming off the books to load up on another big name or multiple quality free agents/ starter/ rotation level players/ depth pieces.

[Ghost of Kleine]

Read on Twitter

Lol!

[Saberestar]

The NBA's official draft tiebreakers have been completed, with the Suns' first-round pick owed to Houston now placing 9th over Portland in 10th in the pre-lottery order. Both teams were 36-46.

Official 2025 NBA Draft Lottery odds:

UTA: 14.0% chance at #1 pick
WAS: 14.0%
CHA: 14.0%
NOP: 12.5%
PHI: 10.5%
BKN: 9.0%
TOR: 7.5%
SAS: 6.0%
HOU (via PHX): 3.8%
POR: 3.7%
DAL: 1.8%
CHI: 1.7%
SAC: 0.8%
SAS (via ATL): 0.7%

[lilfishi22]

I know heat culture is a bit of an overused trope, but the level of effort Miami is playing with compared to the Suns this past season is day and night. They look like they're legitimately going to give the number 1 seed in the east a hard time in the first round despite their lack of star power.

Culture is not a myth.

Sports culture is proven.

Spurs proved it and proves it... sure they've had a bad 5 years but they are about to be dominant again for the next 15 with the moves they've made and are making.... they have picks galore, 2 cornerstone players, young up and comers and space.

Suns, I thought, was building one whe they had Crowder, CP3 leading the young, with Booker, Ayton, Cam Johnson, Mikal and so many first rounders coming up. Back in 2021 literally other teams envied the Suns. Laker fans were pondering of trading Davis for Ayton, filler and picks, the Suns were legit one reliable veteran leader off the bench from winning championships... I say that because of CP3... he tends to break down come playoffs but a veteran playmaker leader type off the bench as backup would have carried the team over.

Monty alienating Crowder and Ayton started the downfall, but it could have been salvaged by getting another coach. CP3 and Crowder together were immense locker room leaders, should have given Crowder another year of starting and just eased his minutes gradually so he could have gotten another secured contract. But Monty had his ways...

Trading for KD was a bad decision, but again could have been salvaged with Vogel fixing the Ayton issue, but before game 1 of the season, the team traded Ayton and Toumani for pretty much nothing. Let's not mention CP3 trade..

Certainly helps to land a generational talent in Wemby

[bullsaficianado]

Read on Twitter

Lol!

if any GM in the league deserves to be fired it's Nico Harrison.

[lilfishi22]

VanVleet had a crap game too. I had him in a 5 way parlay to hit 2 threes. At one point he was 1-9 … he made it, but Sengun came up one RB short for my ticket to pay. He had like 2 boards in the second half. wtf

One of those games where they shoot better they likely win. 6/29 from 3 and 11/20 ft? Whitmore with a dnp

Clear tho, when GState clamped down, their O was stagnant. They win that game with KD instead of Green don’t you think?
Part 1 of Slim’s scheme complete

Reed Sheppard and Cam Whitmore out of the playoffs rotation. They have been IN and OUT all season long, so no surprises here.

Reed Sheppard...is he gonna be a bust or is he gonna the next big time PG? #3 in the draft and he isn’t playing, but he has shown great things here and there during his rookie season.

I would try to get him. It's risky because the Rockets are gonna value him really high on a trade and his salary is already over $10M per year...but if he is really good we would have an starting PG for years and years to come.

The guy looks superskilled and his shooting is unreal...but the same was said about Fredette. His physical limitations are there...but the same was said about Nash, Curry and Trae.

All in all...I want him in any trade with the Rockets. I would prefer him over Tari Eason, for example. Eason is 24 years old and is a nice glue-guy but he doesn't have any All-Star potential. Sheppard has a higher ceiling.

And watching Ty Jerome lately makes it easier to think that Sheppard can be really good in this league.

Would love to get Reed but he's likely closer to an untouchable than a likely trade candidate. Too much potential to be given up on after a season. After all, rookies aren't usually playing in the playoffs (given most teams with talented rooks are usually not making playoffs) so to give up on your #3 pick after a season where he hasn't done anything dramatically wrong/bad would be quite the overhaul. This season he's having to split time with a vey savvy and still productive vet in FVV, Green is also playing part time PG and Holiday is another vet who's been alright in back up minutes so he's having to squeeze in whatever minutes is left over. They have a pretty full rotation so I don't think they were anticipating he would play a ton of minutes unless he somehow surprises everyone.

But there is also a pretty clear pathway to getting more minutes next season with Green likely getting traded and at least one of Holiday/FVV likely won't have their options picked up.

At the end of the day, you're right, you want the highest potential player in any trade for KD and he fits that bill more so say, Eason as you've mentioned or even Green imo.

[lilfishi22]

As for Beal, I don't believe Chicago would give us Williams AND Vuc AND Ball. Williams would be the main part if it meant getting off Beal. A longer bad contract for a shorter one.
Maybe they would do Beal and 2 first (Cavs) for Williams and Vuc? Otherwise, maybe remove a first, and remove Vuc.

Then if you can do KD for 2 of our picks back, and fillers, I think we'd be in a better place.

Goal this summer should be cleaning up the Beal/KD mess. Start over with a little draft control back along with getting under the 2nd apron.

I know we're not in a position to demand anything with Beal but giving up 2 picks to move on from him and to get back another rough contract in Williams is tough in my books. Maybe we just don't have a choice but I probably would prefer that over a stretch and waive scenario and having $20m or whatever in dead money in our books.

[lilfishi22]

Read on Twitter

Just 3 more losses to go for the Rockets to wake up to the reality of desperately needing KD at nearly any cost.

We need more people writing about this in the national media to push this narrative

[lilfishi22]

Duane Rankin

Sources have informed The Arizona Republic the Suns likely will look to add someone to the front office to work on basketball personnel decisions.

Sources say decisions regarding the front office will be made before the Suns hire a head coach, a timeline that falls in line with what Ishbia said during the news conference.

"add"

Does not really mean Jones is getting replaced though?

I wouldn't actually mind keeping Jones if he's relegated to drafting. I think he's done a pretty good job with late picks and virtually everyone he's picked has become an NBA player. Obviously picking someone like Jalen Smith was a mistake over someone who we all thought was a no-brainer in Hali but he's still an NBA player. But beyond that, Cam Johnson was a hit, Camara was a hit, getting some good assets to trade down and still get Oso/Dunn were good moves. I think he does have an eye for draft talent, especially in terms of getting guys with the right mindsets for the NBA, it's just been largely overshadowed by the Hali/Smith blunder and other moves he's made that isn't directly draft related.

Given the next few years we'll need to absolutely hit on talent later in the draft, I think he's well placed to make those calls.

[lilfishi22]

Read on Twitter

Lol!

I think my mother who knows absolutely nothing about the NBA and has never heard of Luka would probably tell you it's a bad idea if you just lay out the high level context of the trade to her.

[SunsRback4Good]

Read on Twitter

Lol!

[lilfishi22]

Read on Twitter

Lol!

if any GM in the league deserves to be fired it's Nico Harrison.

When Nico gets fired, I don't think he'll be given another opportunity to be GM again. Retrospectively (of course hindsight is 20/20) I would argue it would've been the smarter move to resign in protest than just do what the owner tells you to do. He's now the scapegoat and I think his career (at this level at least) is probably ruined whereas he probably could've recovered if the narrative post resigning is that he didn't believe this was a good move etc and I think his record of prior moves he made as GM have mostly worked out in his/Mavs favour.

[Ghost of Kleine]

As far as I'm concerned, if HOU is willing to send all three of our picks back, they can send us whatever contracts they want in exchange for KD.

If they would only give us our picks back for Booker, then sure, insist on Cam Whitmore. But the bottom line is that this franchise can't move forward unless we get those picks back. There's just no point drawing a line in the sand when the alternative is basketball purgatory.

Booker to HOU for the picks and Whitmore
KD for picks and whatever

Talent, shmalent. There is no hope without the tank.

But that is still drastically underseelling Booker's value in a Houston trade man! At minimum, it should be some combination of 2-3 young athletic core players AND the 3 1sts back! Maybe only two 1sts IF the 25' Houston pick jumps into the top 3. Not getting back Ameeen Thompson or Sengun is understandable. But Booker's current consensus value is around 2-3 promising, exciting, young, athletic, high potential talents, and 3-4 quality 1sts (at least two solid lottery of the 4). Don't let anyone mislead or convince you that it's less.

Suree the picks are very important, but the pick swaps that Jones imbecilically gave away like freakin "Oprah on her talk shows" make it eextraordinarily difficult if not nearly impossible to initiate a proper rebuild in even years, as multiple other teams hold control over our picks. UNLESS we do one of two things:

1- We accumulate young talent/ fillers (trade assets) towards either acquiring other teams' picks for the 26' and 28' draft??? This is still difficult as we'd have to try and accurately project a team's likelihood of collapse, resulting in a premium pick outcome. But if Ishbia hires the right legitimate GM and front office personnel, we should be able to do it. Also, pouring money into the acquisition of top-tier scouts and actual talent consultants. In successfully utilizing this strategy, we'll not only sidestep the poorer " least of" late firsts by drafting from the other teams' acquired premium 1sts, but those late "Least of" 1sts can be used to target supplementary depth or utility pieces.

2- We make sure we actually do get some combination of young, athletic core players on cost-controlled contracts to build out our roster around Booker and then utilize the accumulated cap space from the KD trade, etc to add higher value free agents now and espeecially in 2027. Or possibly even trading some of those acquired pieces for key players/other draft assets (for even years, to offset those pick swaps while additionally working towards being more competitive in the process??

I think the trade above getting Dillon Brooks plus the other players/picks was the best option for Durant

With Durant - they probably don't need Brooks
With Eason, they probably can move on from Smith
Two first round picks
But there needs to be more money so probably Jock L and somebody like Whitmore

I am not the biggest fan of Brooks but I think he would be that player next to Booker, like Crowder, - who is the tough guy, instigator type player.

Agreed! I do like Brooks as an agitator to give us an "edge" that we've sorely lacked for a long time now! And although I'm still on the J Green train, and would take him back as a centerpiece salary inclusion, because I do think he'll absolutely break out and become a star player soon.

Even if people don't prefer him, He'd still give us a desirable large salary trade piece to flip elsewhere for other players. Maybe J Green/ 2 CLE 1sts to Brooklyn for Cam Johnson. Or perhaps to Orlando for Isaac/ Anthony/ DEN 25' 1st (25)/ ORL 26' 2nd.

[Saberestar]

2025 Suns picks:
#29
#52