With the start of the NBA season only eight days away, ESPN’s Tim Bontemps ranked the core trios of all 30 teams, placing the Phoenix Suns in “starting a rebuild,” the ninth of 10 tiers.
Bontemps focused not just on the 2025-26 season but also defined a team’s core trio based on their potential future together.
He listed the Suns’ core trio as Devin Booker, Ryan Dunn and Khaman Maluach, notably excluding Jalen Green and Mark Williams.
What a difference a year makes. Last year at this time, the Suns had a wildly expensive roster built around three big stars — Booker, Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal. Now, Durant and Beal are gone, Booker remains, and the Suns — who have dead money on their books for the rest of the decade and none of their own draft picks under their control for the same time period — are starting a rebuild. There are some interesting young players, led by Dunn and Maluach, but it’s going to take time for Phoenix to turn this around — and the Suns are going to need to show more patience than they have at any point since Mat Ishbia bought the team two-plus years ago.
Dunn and Maluach are presumably named as core players next to Booker because they represent the building blocks to build a competitive team for the long term. Writes Bontemps:
We’ve done so by taking into account both the group’s present and future value — along with the likelihood that these players will be with their respective teams for the medium to long term.
Green is also the second-highest paid player on Phoenix’s roster, making $33 million this season. If the team wanted to lower its payroll and get some draft picks, Green could be a trade piece in the future.
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Green was a piece of the Kevin Durant trade and is under team control for the next two years, with a player option for the 2027-28 season. The 23-year-old guard averaged 20.1 points per game across four seasons in Houston.
Williams, 23, was brought to Phoenix over the summer in a trade with the Charlotte Hornets.
He is a restricted free agent after this season and was acquired within minutes of the Suns using the 10th overall pick from Houston to draft another center in Maluach.
Departure of veterans has opened the door for Suns youth
After being the oldest team in the league last season with an average age of 28.4 years old, the Suns now only have one player on their roster over the age of 30.
Durant, Bradley Beal and Tyus Jones led the team in minutes per game after Booker last season. With all three leaving the team this offseason, there are plenty of minutes that will need to be filled by other players.
Dunn averaged 6.9 points per game in his first pro season. He played the fifth most minutes per game for Phoenix last year of players currently on the Suns roster and should see an increase in playing time this season.
Maluach joins the team after only one season at Duke, where he averaged 8.6 points and 6.6 rebounds per game on 71% shooting.
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