Re: Game Day - Playoff Edition - Game 4: Wolves (3-0) @ Suns (0-3), Sun 4/28/24
Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2024 10:19 pm
by Wally_West
Hmm. Interesting. Concerning.
Spoiler: show/hide
Phoenix Suns swept: What went wrong, what’s next for Frank Vogel, Big 3 and more
Frank Vogel entered the home locker room at Footprint Center and lit into his team. After his Phoenix Suns had fallen into a 35-4 hole en route to a loss to the LA Clippers on April 9, the head coach yelled so much that his voice could be heard outside the locker room. There was only one problem.
On this night, Suns players weren’t buying it. The outburst seemed forced and out of character in their eyes. It continued at the next day’s shootaround in Los Angeles, Vogel tearing into the Suns before that night’s road win over the Clippers. Vogel’s eruption left players rolling their eyes, sources briefed on the matter told The Athletic. One player even told The Athletic he had to keep from laughing.
On Sunday, the Suns were swept from the playoffs, losing four straight to the Minnesota Timberwolves in a Western Conference first-round series that was seldom close. The Suns made a valiant effort but lost Sunday’s Game 4 at home 122-116. Phoenix did show signs of life as Devin Booker (49) and Kevin Durant (33) combined for 82 points.
But built around the star power of Booker, Durant and Bradley Beal, the Suns were expected to contend for the organization’s first championship. Instead, they spent the entire season struggling to find an identity, and in the process, lost some trust in the man in charge.
Durant, Booker and Beal did not produce at their best in these playoffs as a unit, and sources in the locker room also believe not one of the trio emerged as the necessary leader on the floor. But the buck stops at the head coach, and for the second offseason in a row, sources briefed on the situation told The Athletic that Phoenix will take a hard look at making a full coaching change or, at the very least, discuss adjustments to Vogel’s staff. General manager James Jones, however, is expected to continue overseeing team-building for the Suns, those sources said.
For his part, Vogel said before Game 4 that he is confident he will return next season, adding that he has the “full support” of team owner Mat Ishbia.
Less than a year ago, Ishbia hired Vogel on a five-year, $31 million deal to replace Monty Williams after the Suns had lost to eventual-champion Denver in the Western Conference semifinals. The decision to move on from Williams had its merits, as every sector of the Suns organization had lost faith in him. In his first season with the Detroit Pistons this year, Williams didn’t fare much better — the exact opposite, in fact, as the team posted its worst record ever.
Vogel had strong credentials when he got the job. Over an 11-year NBA head coaching career, he had led LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers to a championship during the 2019-20 bubble season and had guided the Indiana Pacers to the Eastern Conference finals twice. A defensive-minded coach, he entered his first season in the desert with a high-priced coaching staff, established offensive stars, a solid big man in Jusuf Nurkić — and several questions.
How will the big three mesh? Can the team’s stars stay healthy? Is more depth needed, in particular a true point guard?
Nevertheless, Vogel promised: “When we get out there and play, we’re going to be scrappy as hell. We’re going to be a scrappy team that plays harder than our opponent every night.”
In Frank Vogel’s first season, the Suns, with three high-priced stars, struggled to find consistency. (Stephen Lew / USA Today)
The Suns didn’t always demonstrate that kind of desperation or urgency. Even in the NBA, good teams in some ways resemble the head coach. Although Phoenix improved defensively, it seldom stayed connected. The Suns would look great one night, disinterested the next. Then, after a strong finish to a 49-33 regular season, the sixth-seeded Suns — and their internal flaws — were exposed when it mattered most.
In a 105-93 Game 2 loss at Minnesota, the Suns let the officiating and sloppy play take them out of a winnable game. Once Phoenix lost its composure, Minnesota pulled away, igniting the Target Center crowd.
Trailing by 15 with 3:53 left, Vogel tried to empty the bench, saving his starters for Game 3, scheduled for three days later in Phoenix. He called on five bench players to prepare to check into the game, but sources briefed on the situation say Booker expressed in the huddle that he preferred the current group stay in, as he thought the Suns still had a chance. Vogel kept the current five in the game, but not much changed. Booker fouled out 90 seconds later, and Vogel sent in the reserves.
In the second half of the same game, Vogel and Beal appeared to exchange words. After Game 2, both said the incident stemmed from the heat of the moment.
“It was not between us two, it was just kind of like what was going on in the game,’’ Beal said. “The refs. Our flow. Our defense was bad. I’m just like, ‘What are we doing?’’’ With Phoenix headed home for Game 3, Beal added that he and Vogel were on good terms.
On-court disagreements are often excused if a team operates with high efficiency and consistency, but that was never the case with Phoenix this season.
“We’re all trying to fight out there, and so far this series, once it has turned to sh–, we’ve kind of separated instead of being together,” Booker said after Game 2. “That’s everybody. Top to bottom.”
In late March, the Suns posted three wins, then lost at struggling San Antonio, which played without presumptive Rookie of the Year Victor Wembanyama. A week later, the Suns started their best stretch, posting wins over playoff teams New Orleans, Cleveland and Minnesota. And yet, two days later in Phoenix, the Clippers blasted them with the 35-4 start that left Vogel ripping them after the game.
What went wrong?
Entering the postseason, guard Grayson Allen estimated the Suns had endured 10-15 questionable regular-season losses. The kind “where you look back and you’re like, ‘Man, we should’ve had some of those,’’ he said.
One possible reason is that Booker and Durant struggled to find the right chemistry. Since acquiring Durant in a blockbuster trade in February 2023, the Suns have won just one playoff series: last season’s first round, when they beat the Clippers, who played without stars Paul George (for the entire series) and Kawhi Leonard (for three of five games). Overall, Phoenix is 6-9 with Durant in postseason action. A franchise that reached the 2021 NBA Finals, losing to the Milwaukee Bucks in six games, has since been slipping.
At the team’s preseason media day, Ishbia said he thought Phoenix had the NBA’s best roster. Over his first year as owner of the Suns, Ishbia has spared no expenses in giving the franchise the necessary resources to win and spearheaded efforts to bring to Phoenix the WNBA All-Star weekend this summer and the NBA All-Star weekend in 2027. In addition, Ishbia has dug deep into his pockets: The Suns have the third-largest payroll in the league this season. After acquiring Durant and Beal in 2023, the Suns stayed over the dreaded second apron and will pay a projected $68 million in luxury tax alone for the 2023-24 campaign. That’s a total of roughly $260 million (players plus tax) this season.
But as it turned out, the roster still lacked two things: a pure point guard and a defensive stopper on the wing or at center. In acquiring Beal, the Suns had dealt Chris Paul, an aging (and expensive) point guard but an accomplished one who very much understood how to organize offense. The trade moved two players out of the Suns’ plans — Paul and Landry Shamet — and second-round picks for a star in Beal, a risk many executives believed made sense. But the Suns never replaced Paul, an oversight that would prove costly.
Phoenix tried to mitigate the offensive disruption caused by losing Paul by retaining Kevin Young from Williams’ staff as Vogel’s lead assistant. He was given the largest salary in the league for an assistant coach because of his offensive background, relationship with Booker and a new task to run the Suns’ offense.
In Booker and Beal, the Suns had two scoring guards who could handle playmaking duties, something they hoped to patch the hole at point guard. Booker had done so at a high level the past few years in spurts, and this season he averaged a career-high 6.9 assists. But it was Beal who was supposed to enter the regular season as the starting point guard, something he had previously done for the Washington Wizards.
“We wanted (Beal) to have the ability to be a player that could bring the ball up and create things off the dribble and in pick-and-roll situations, and he became that player,’’ former Washington coach Randy Wittman told The Athletic before the season. “He worked very hard.”
In Phoenix, Beal dealt with injuries to begin the season, played in 53 games and never gained consistency at the point guard position. The arrangement was never ideal. Booker ran the offense more before the All-Star break, Beal did so after. Neither seemed comfortable as the point guard, particularly when the opposing team pressured full-court and wore on their stamina. Turnovers were a major problem. The Suns averaged 14.9 turnovers during the regular season (an increase of 1.5 from the previous season with Paul), which ranked 25th in the league. They fumbled away dribble handoffs, threw lazy passes and were stripped on penetration. In the playoffs, Minnesota coach Chris Finch had Jaden McDaniels and others pick up Booker and Beal full-court, disrupting Phoenix’s offensive flow.
Across the season, Young was in charge of the Suns’ game plans on the offensive end, which featured a heavy dose of pick-and-rolls for Booker and Beal. But Phoenix’s players questioned the coaching staff’s inability to structure the offense and maximize the output of a lineup featuring three of the game’s best scorers, per team sources.
An NBA head coach candidate, Young recently took the head coaching job at BYU, staying on Phoenix’s staff until the Suns were eliminated.
Durant not comfortable, Booker not himself
Meanwhile, Durant, among the best scorers in NBA history, was not always happy with how he was used. Sources briefed on the matter told The Athletic that Durant never felt comfortable with his role in Phoenix’s offense alongside Booker and Beal this season. Those sources said Durant had persistent issues with the offense, feeling that he was being relegated to the corner far too often and not having the proper designs to play to his strengths as the offense was built around pick-and-rolls. At the same time, some teammates and people close to the organization believed Durant needed to voice his concerns more adamantly and directly with Vogel and his coaching staff.
Durant averaged 27.1 points, fifth best in the league, and remained one of the league’s best players in the regular season. His 52.3 percent field goal percentage during the regular season was nearly five percentage points off last season’s accuracy, however.
Booker, meanwhile, wasn’t himself in these playoffs. Since Phoenix drafted him with the 13th pick of the 2015 draft, the smooth scoring guard has become one of the most popular athletes in state history. He’s been loyal, charitable and appreciative. Before games, he stops and greets children, posing for photos. From his first NBA season, Booker has understood and embraced the responsibility that comes with being a face of the franchise.
But this season, something was missing. Like many NBA players, Booker grew up idolizing Kobe Bryant. This can be seen in his game, how Booker turns and shoots a fading jumper. At times, this has been seen in his attitude, not backing down on the court, not tolerating nonsense. In the first half of a Christmas Day loss to Dallas, then-teammate Chimezie Metu threw a lazy pass that Luka Dončić picked off and converted into an easy layup. After the ball fell through the net, Booker realized that he had been the only Phoenix player to give chase. “Why aren’t you running back?” he yelled at Metu, audio picked up by game mics. “You just turn the ball over and don’t run back?”
But asked about the team’s frustration level after the April 9 loss to the Clippers, Booker took a different approach, keeping his feelings to himself but misreading the fanbase’s frustration. “Chillin’,’’ he said. “Another chance tomorrow.” He explained this by saying he’d seen nearly everything over his nine-year career, the highs and the lows.
This has been a theme of sorts. After head-scratching losses, it was easy to wonder if the Suns had enough leadership inside the locker room to help them navigate adversity. Durant said this week that while every Phoenix player has a voice – the freedom to bounce ideas and be heard – “the coach is the leader.”
It was a curious answer given that championship teams are usually player-led.
The Suns’ big three of Devin Booker, Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant did not mesh on the court this season. (Kiyoshi Mio / USA Today)
What’s next?
Over the regular season’s final weeks, Vogel preached the same message: That, after several injuries in the first half of the season, the Suns were improving. That they were figuring it out defensively. That this was a dangerous team.
But once the postseason began, as Phoenix prepared to face Minnesota, Vogel said that while the Suns had players with postseason experience, this would be the first time they’d go through it together. It sounded like an excuse. A coach trying to protect himself.
After Phoenix fell behind Minnesota 2-0, crumbling in the second half of each game, Durant was asked if that collective inexperience had contributed.
“Nah, I don’t think that’s a factor at all,” he said.
The Suns now enter the summer planning to build around their top six players in Booker, Durant, Beal, Allen, Nurkić and Royce O’Neale. Allen signed a four-year, $70 million contract extension before the start of the playoffs, and Phoenix officials hope to retain O’Neale as a free agent this offseason. Booker remains at the center of everything, and will be tasked with continuing to embrace an enhanced role as a leader and a return to his usual assassin self once he’s being set up by a proper point guard again — two things the team considers musts for the 2024-25 season. The Suns could also look to bring in additional locker room presence, which was filled late in the season by Isaiah Thomas and Thaddeus Young.
Looking forward, the NBA’s current salary cap projection for the 2024-25 season puts the second apron line at $189.5 million and the Suns owe their projected starting five a whopping $184 million, only $5.5 million under than that threshold. That means a massive tax bill will come from even filling out their roster with minimum contracts but even more importantly, the front office will have only a few methods to improve the roster in the offseason as teams over the second apron cannot use the midlevel exception or take on money in trades along with other restrictions in the new collective bargaining agreement.
In terms of assets for offseason moves, the Suns will have access on draft night to trade two first-round picks — No. 22 this year and one in 2031 — as well as holding a protected 2028 second-round pick from Boston.
On Sunday, Phoenix finally played with urgency. Booker was aggressive from the start, finally looking like the best player in the series. Durant was just as strong, scoring on dunks and fading jumpers.
With the outcome in doubt late in the contest, the sold-out crowd stood and chanted, “DE-FENSE! DE-FENSE!” trying to will the Suns on to Game 5. But familiar problems surfaced. Phoenix committed three turnovers. Reserve Josh Okogie missed two foul shots. Minnesota held on, ending the Suns’ season.
As the final seconds ticked away, Ishbia sat with his children in their normal seats, across from the Phoenix bench. The offseason had arrived, earlier than expected, and difficult decisions await.
Frank Vogel entered the home locker room at Footprint Center and lit into his team. After his Phoenix Suns had fallen into a 35-4 hole en route to a loss to the LA Clippers on April 9, the head coach yelled so much that his voice could be heard outside the locker room. There was only one problem.
On this night, Suns players weren’t buying it. The outburst seemed forced and out of character in their eyes. It continued at the next day’s shootaround in Los Angeles, Vogel tearing into the Suns before that night’s road win over the Clippers. Vogel’s eruption left players rolling their eyes, sources briefed on the matter told The Athletic. One player even told The Athletic he had to keep from laughing.
On Sunday, the Suns were swept from the playoffs, losing four straight to the Minnesota Timberwolves in a Western Conference first-round series that was seldom close. The Suns made a valiant effort but lost Sunday’s Game 4 at home 122-116. Phoenix did show signs of life as Devin Booker (49) and Kevin Durant (33) combined for 82 points.
But built around the star power of Booker, Durant and Bradley Beal, the Suns were expected to contend for the organization’s first championship. Instead, they spent the entire season struggling to find an identity, and in the process, lost some trust in the man in charge.
Durant, Booker and Beal did not produce at their best in these playoffs as a unit, and sources in the locker room also believe not one of the trio emerged as the necessary leader on the floor. But the buck stops at the head coach, and for the second offseason in a row, sources briefed on the situation told The Athletic that Phoenix will take a hard look at making a full coaching change or, at the very least, discuss adjustments to Vogel’s staff. General manager James Jones, however, is expected to continue overseeing team-building for the Suns, those sources said.
For his part, Vogel said before Game 4 that he is confident he will return next season, adding that he has the “full support” of team owner Mat Ishbia.
Less than a year ago, Ishbia hired Vogel on a five-year, $31 million deal to replace Monty Williams after the Suns had lost to eventual-champion Denver in the Western Conference semifinals. The decision to move on from Williams had its merits, as every sector of the Suns organization had lost faith in him. In his first season with the Detroit Pistons this year, Williams didn’t fare much better — the exact opposite, in fact, as the team posted its worst record ever.
Vogel had strong credentials when he got the job. Over an 11-year NBA head coaching career, he had led LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers to a championship during the 2019-20 bubble season and had guided the Indiana Pacers to the Eastern Conference finals twice. A defensive-minded coach, he entered his first season in the desert with a high-priced coaching staff, established offensive stars, a solid big man in Jusuf Nurkić — and several questions.
How will the big three mesh? Can the team’s stars stay healthy? Is more depth needed, in particular a true point guard?
Nevertheless, Vogel promised: “When we get out there and play, we’re going to be scrappy as hell. We’re going to be a scrappy team that plays harder than our opponent every night.”
In Frank Vogel’s first season, the Suns, with three high-priced stars, struggled to find consistency. (Stephen Lew / USA Today)
The Suns didn’t always demonstrate that kind of desperation or urgency. Even in the NBA, good teams in some ways resemble the head coach. Although Phoenix improved defensively, it seldom stayed connected. The Suns would look great one night, disinterested the next. Then, after a strong finish to a 49-33 regular season, the sixth-seeded Suns — and their internal flaws — were exposed when it mattered most.
In a 105-93 Game 2 loss at Minnesota, the Suns let the officiating and sloppy play take them out of a winnable game. Once Phoenix lost its composure, Minnesota pulled away, igniting the Target Center crowd.
Trailing by 15 with 3:53 left, Vogel tried to empty the bench, saving his starters for Game 3, scheduled for three days later in Phoenix. He called on five bench players to prepare to check into the game, but sources briefed on the situation say Booker expressed in the huddle that he preferred the current group stay in, as he thought the Suns still had a chance. Vogel kept the current five in the game, but not much changed. Booker fouled out 90 seconds later, and Vogel sent in the reserves.
In the second half of the same game, Vogel and Beal appeared to exchange words. After Game 2, both said the incident stemmed from the heat of the moment.
“It was not between us two, it was just kind of like what was going on in the game,’’ Beal said. “The refs. Our flow. Our defense was bad. I’m just like, ‘What are we doing?’’’ With Phoenix headed home for Game 3, Beal added that he and Vogel were on good terms.
On-court disagreements are often excused if a team operates with high efficiency and consistency, but that was never the case with Phoenix this season.
“We’re all trying to fight out there, and so far this series, once it has turned to sh–, we’ve kind of separated instead of being together,” Booker said after Game 2. “That’s everybody. Top to bottom.”
In late March, the Suns posted three wins, then lost at struggling San Antonio, which played without presumptive Rookie of the Year Victor Wembanyama. A week later, the Suns started their best stretch, posting wins over playoff teams New Orleans, Cleveland and Minnesota. And yet, two days later in Phoenix, the Clippers blasted them with the 35-4 start that left Vogel ripping them after the game.
What went wrong?
Entering the postseason, guard Grayson Allen estimated the Suns had endured 10-15 questionable regular-season losses. The kind “where you look back and you’re like, ‘Man, we should’ve had some of those,’’ he said.
One possible reason is that Booker and Durant struggled to find the right chemistry. Since acquiring Durant in a blockbuster trade in February 2023, the Suns have won just one playoff series: last season’s first round, when they beat the Clippers, who played without stars Paul George (for the entire series) and Kawhi Leonard (for three of five games). Overall, Phoenix is 6-9 with Durant in postseason action. A franchise that reached the 2021 NBA Finals, losing to the Milwaukee Bucks in six games, has since been slipping.
At the team’s preseason media day, Ishbia said he thought Phoenix had the NBA’s best roster. Over his first year as owner of the Suns, Ishbia has spared no expenses in giving the franchise the necessary resources to win and spearheaded efforts to bring to Phoenix the WNBA All-Star weekend this summer and the NBA All-Star weekend in 2027. In addition, Ishbia has dug deep into his pockets: The Suns have the third-largest payroll in the league this season. After acquiring Durant and Beal in 2023, the Suns stayed over the dreaded second apron and will pay a projected $68 million in luxury tax alone for the 2023-24 campaign. That’s a total of roughly $260 million (players plus tax) this season.
But as it turned out, the roster still lacked two things: a pure point guard and a defensive stopper on the wing or at center. In acquiring Beal, the Suns had dealt Chris Paul, an aging (and expensive) point guard but an accomplished one who very much understood how to organize offense. The trade moved two players out of the Suns’ plans — Paul and Landry Shamet — and second-round picks for a star in Beal, a risk many executives believed made sense. But the Suns never replaced Paul, an oversight that would prove costly.
Phoenix tried to mitigate the offensive disruption caused by losing Paul by retaining Kevin Young from Williams’ staff as Vogel’s lead assistant. He was given the largest salary in the league for an assistant coach because of his offensive background, relationship with Booker and a new task to run the Suns’ offense.
In Booker and Beal, the Suns had two scoring guards who could handle playmaking duties, something they hoped to patch the hole at point guard. Booker had done so at a high level the past few years in spurts, and this season he averaged a career-high 6.9 assists. But it was Beal who was supposed to enter the regular season as the starting point guard, something he had previously done for the Washington Wizards.
“We wanted (Beal) to have the ability to be a player that could bring the ball up and create things off the dribble and in pick-and-roll situations, and he became that player,’’ former Washington coach Randy Wittman told The Athletic before the season. “He worked very hard.”
In Phoenix, Beal dealt with injuries to begin the season, played in 53 games and never gained consistency at the point guard position. The arrangement was never ideal. Booker ran the offense more before the All-Star break, Beal did so after. Neither seemed comfortable as the point guard, particularly when the opposing team pressured full-court and wore on their stamina. Turnovers were a major problem. The Suns averaged 14.9 turnovers during the regular season (an increase of 1.5 from the previous season with Paul), which ranked 25th in the league. They fumbled away dribble handoffs, threw lazy passes and were stripped on penetration. In the playoffs, Minnesota coach Chris Finch had Jaden McDaniels and others pick up Booker and Beal full-court, disrupting Phoenix’s offensive flow.
Across the season, Young was in charge of the Suns’ game plans on the offensive end, which featured a heavy dose of pick-and-rolls for Booker and Beal. But Phoenix’s players questioned the coaching staff’s inability to structure the offense and maximize the output of a lineup featuring three of the game’s best scorers, per team sources.
An NBA head coach candidate, Young recently took the head coaching job at BYU, staying on Phoenix’s staff until the Suns were eliminated.
Durant not comfortable, Booker not himself
Meanwhile, Durant, among the best scorers in NBA history, was not always happy with how he was used. Sources briefed on the matter told The Athletic that Durant never felt comfortable with his role in Phoenix’s offense alongside Booker and Beal this season. Those sources said Durant had persistent issues with the offense, feeling that he was being relegated to the corner far too often and not having the proper designs to play to his strengths as the offense was built around pick-and-rolls. At the same time, some teammates and people close to the organization believed Durant needed to voice his concerns more adamantly and directly with Vogel and his coaching staff.
Durant averaged 27.1 points, fifth best in the league, and remained one of the league’s best players in the regular season. His 52.3 percent field goal percentage during the regular season was nearly five percentage points off last season’s accuracy, however.
Booker, meanwhile, wasn’t himself in these playoffs. Since Phoenix drafted him with the 13th pick of the 2015 draft, the smooth scoring guard has become one of the most popular athletes in state history. He’s been loyal, charitable and appreciative. Before games, he stops and greets children, posing for photos. From his first NBA season, Booker has understood and embraced the responsibility that comes with being a face of the franchise.
But this season, something was missing. Like many NBA players, Booker grew up idolizing Kobe Bryant. This can be seen in his game, how Booker turns and shoots a fading jumper. At times, this has been seen in his attitude, not backing down on the court, not tolerating nonsense. In the first half of a Christmas Day loss to Dallas, then-teammate Chimezie Metu threw a lazy pass that Luka Dončić picked off and converted into an easy layup. After the ball fell through the net, Booker realized that he had been the only Phoenix player to give chase. “Why aren’t you running back?” he yelled at Metu, audio picked up by game mics. “You just turn the ball over and don’t run back?”
But asked about the team’s frustration level after the April 9 loss to the Clippers, Booker took a different approach, keeping his feelings to himself but misreading the fanbase’s frustration. “Chillin’,’’ he said. “Another chance tomorrow.” He explained this by saying he’d seen nearly everything over his nine-year career, the highs and the lows.
This has been a theme of sorts. After head-scratching losses, it was easy to wonder if the Suns had enough leadership inside the locker room to help them navigate adversity. Durant said this week that while every Phoenix player has a voice – the freedom to bounce ideas and be heard – “the coach is the leader.”
It was a curious answer given that championship teams are usually player-led.
The Suns’ big three of Devin Booker, Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant did not mesh on the court this season. (Kiyoshi Mio / USA Today)
What’s next?
Over the regular season’s final weeks, Vogel preached the same message: That, after several injuries in the first half of the season, the Suns were improving. That they were figuring it out defensively. That this was a dangerous team.
But once the postseason began, as Phoenix prepared to face Minnesota, Vogel said that while the Suns had players with postseason experience, this would be the first time they’d go through it together. It sounded like an excuse. A coach trying to protect himself.
After Phoenix fell behind Minnesota 2-0, crumbling in the second half of each game, Durant was asked if that collective inexperience had contributed.
“Nah, I don’t think that’s a factor at all,” he said.
The Suns now enter the summer planning to build around their top six players in Booker, Durant, Beal, Allen, Nurkić and Royce O’Neale. Allen signed a four-year, $70 million contract extension before the start of the playoffs, and Phoenix officials hope to retain O’Neale as a free agent this offseason. Booker remains at the center of everything, and will be tasked with continuing to embrace an enhanced role as a leader and a return to his usual assassin self once he’s being set up by a proper point guard again — two things the team considers musts for the 2024-25 season. The Suns could also look to bring in additional locker room presence, which was filled late in the season by Isaiah Thomas and Thaddeus Young.
Looking forward, the NBA’s current salary cap projection for the 2024-25 season puts the second apron line at $189.5 million and the Suns owe their projected starting five a whopping $184 million, only $5.5 million under than that threshold. That means a massive tax bill will come from even filling out their roster with minimum contracts but even more importantly, the front office will have only a few methods to improve the roster in the offseason as teams over the second apron cannot use the midlevel exception or take on money in trades along with other restrictions in the new collective bargaining agreement.
In terms of assets for offseason moves, the Suns will have access on draft night to trade two first-round picks — No. 22 this year and one in 2031 — as well as holding a protected 2028 second-round pick from Boston.
On Sunday, Phoenix finally played with urgency. Booker was aggressive from the start, finally looking like the best player in the series. Durant was just as strong, scoring on dunks and fading jumpers.
With the outcome in doubt late in the contest, the sold-out crowd stood and chanted, “DE-FENSE! DE-FENSE!” trying to will the Suns on to Game 5. But familiar problems surfaced. Phoenix committed three turnovers. Reserve Josh Okogie missed two foul shots. Minnesota held on, ending the Suns’ season.
As the final seconds ticked away, Ishbia sat with his children in their normal seats, across from the Phoenix bench. The offseason had arrived, earlier than expected, and difficult decisions await.
