What Happens to KD, Booker, and the Suns After Getting Swept by the Minnesota Timberwolves?
After a blockbuster trade with the Brooklyn Nets, the Phoenix Suns acquired what they thought would be the answer to push them over the top into Championship contention with superstar Kevin Durant. They gave up four first-round picks for Durant along with multiple players like Mikal Bridges and Cameron Johnson in the deal back in February 2023. The Suns also went out and traded for Bradley Beal from the Washington Wizards in June 2023 for six second-round picks and lost the stabilizing force of Chris Paul. With this new trio of dynamic playmakers, the Suns were hyped up as a preseason favorite to contend for a championship with the third-best odds to win the NBA Finals. However, in the first round of the playoffs, the Minnesota Timberwolves embarrassed the Suns by sweeping them in four games while beating them by an average of 18 points in each contest. A severe lack of leadership by the players and coaches coupled with no dominant big man on defense to stop Rudy Gobert, Karl-Anthony Towns, or Anthony Edwards led to the destruction of the Suns in this series. So where do the Suns go from here?
It is evident the KD, Booker, and Beal trio experiment has failed. Most likely this results in the Suns changing up this team and trading away one, if not multiple of these stars in the near future. It would be extremely tough for this team to try to acquire any more talent and compete for a championship given that the team traded away essentially every draft pick for the next five years in the deals to get Durant and Beal. With Durant already 35 years old, the Suns could move him to another team vying for a championship to recoup some draft capital to make the roster more collectively functional. Or if they want to keep Durant and Booker together after their terrific individual performances in these playoffs, then trading Bradley Beal would be the one to be moved. By trading Beal, they could get a more dominant big man defensively and a solid playmaker at point guard from such a deal. The biggest problem with trying to trade Beal is that he has a no-trade clause as part of his contract with the Suns. If the Suns were to trade him it would require Beal to agree to being traded to whatever team the Suns were considering. If they retained all three stars into next season they could still make some solid improvements defensively by trading the little draft capital they have and some of their current role players for adequate starters. The Portland Trailblazers have players like Malcolm Brogdon and Robert Williams who would provide better ball distribution and improve the interior defense for the Phoenix Suns at a rather cheap trade price.
It is clear that the Suns need to shake things up before next season if they are going to compete for a championship. They need to have a better supporting cast around their stars especially defensively because they really struggled to slow down Minnesota in this past series. KD had a tremendous series putting up 27 points, seven rebounds, and three assists per game, while Devin Booker put up 28 points, three rebounds, and six assists per game. These efforts by KD and Booker, although commendable, were futile against the big Minnesota roster and have sent Phoenix back to the drawing board to figure out how they will compete next season.
