Suns unable to make big move at trade deadline with foreboding summer ahead ...Middle East

The Phoenix Suns wanted to make major moves at the trade deadline. They were not able to, and in some ways, were saved from themselves.

After going to great lengths to acquire Jimmy Butler, including even a deal involving Kevin Durant, they only pulled off one minor one. Disgruntled and benched center Jusuf Nurkic was sent to the Charlotte Hornets in exchange for wing Cody Martin and point guard Vasilije Micic. Phoenix sent a 2026 first-round pick that will likely land in the 20s, while it’s a 2026 second-round pick from either Denver or Golden State that probably is in the back-half of that round.

It’s a small-picture move with lots of context and caveats to get to.

To start big, the Suns are clearly open to dealing Durant. Whatever the basketball or cosmic reason is behind why he and Devin Booker defy all logic and not working together, this season is the final confirmation needed that this is the case. Nothing over the next 32 games will change that. Instead, it will lather the decision in concrete. Failure for that star pairing is not making the Finals. The Suns will win only one playoff series in three years with the two.

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Durant will be on an expiring contract this summer but can sign a two-year extension and still be traded. That gives him tremendous value on the market, enough to replenish Phoenix’s young talent pool to a satisfactory level and perhaps have one more go at this thing with Booker.

There are three different paths Phoenix can now go down.

The first timeline is trading Durant for a mix of present and future assets, which is what it tried to do with the three-teamer for Butler. The second is moving Durant strictly for draft picks and young players with upside, hoping the talent evaluation on the youth hits to a degree in which competing with Booker is still feasible. Or there’s the third option, which is understandably not seeing much hope in a “retool” either for now or within two years and just dealing Booker now along with Durant.

Timeline No. 2 is most likely where this is going and that’s fair. The unanswerable question and largest one hanging over the Suns’ heads that will dictate how the next half-decade goes is what Booker thinks of all this. Is he OK with Durant getting moved? If he is, is he also content with next season’s roster not being good enough on paper to contend? If either answer is no, oh boy.

The shift has to be to the future. Ryan Dunn has to play at least 25 minutes per game the rest of the year. Phoenix’s new backup center should be Oso Ighodaro. Find a way to play Martin and Micic to evaluate them as well.

Short-sighted moves must be a thing of the past. The inexplicable 3-for-1 first-rounders trade that all but looked like a way to make a multi-team Butler trade happen is even more baffling now. That type of deal was going nowhere. Phoenix could have got that same trade done in the summer, maybe even got more, given the newly discovered clarity on Durant’s long-term future. Trading a future asset that valuable when you know your next handful of years are incredibly volatile is incomprehensible.

The entire last two months reeks of Phoenix operating with too much confidence. The amount of Butler chatter surrounding Bradley Beal spoke to certainty in finding a taker for Beal that he’d sign off on going to. That did not happen, nor did getting Beal in general. Just about half the roster was in some ways involved in trade speculation. Unsurprisingly, reports are now coming in that the locker room has a “toxic” element to it, according to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne. The play on the court has more or less confirmed that, honestly.

That does not bode well for how the next two months finish up after the Suns tried to trade their best player in Durant.

OK, how about that trade huh?!

This is a deal that is difficult to grade in the present without knowing what the Suns plan to get from it in the future.

Let’s start with the non-basketball stuff to please those salivating over more trade possibilities later on and the “What does it really mean?!” Windhorst-double-point crowd.

Martin’s $8.7 million salary for next season is fully non-guaranteed, as is the $8.1 million team option for Micic. There are a couple of different paths Phoenix could choose to take with that money.

The first and most obvious is declining all that money. Phoenix could get below the second apron, re-opening some trade flexibility this summer. In addition, it would save them a boatload of money, over $120 million, per Yossi Gozlan.

Now, the latter does not sync up with Mat Ishbia’s tune. It would be an indirect benefit to lifting some of the second apron’s restrictions. The only time he’s made a cost-cutting move of real significance was dealing Cam Payne, and that was when the Suns believed he was not going to be playing a role on the team the following season.

The salary cap is set to expand greatly each of the next few years, so there is some second apron ducking that can still get done even if both Martin and Micic are back.

To that point, Phoenix could “Josh Okogie” both of them, bringing the two back just as tradeable contracts in the middle of the season.

If the primary motivation behind this trade was strictly money, the Suns better do something with the maneuverability built around the future. Otherwise, they dumped a first-round pick to save tax payments. That’s Robert Sarver’s music! To be fair, this would prevent the Suns from having draft picks frozen, a big plus.

But remember, this was the front office that was puffing its chest out a bit as a second-apron truther. Imagine doing this to slide under it, proving the rest of the league right and themselves wrong about how truly handcuffed it leaves you. Yikes.

The pick going out is Phoenix’s in 2026, which will be swapped into oblivion. The Suns will get the worst pick among Washington, Orlando and Memphis. The current trajectory of the last two teams puts high odds on it being somewhere in the 20s. Phoenix was able to move this pick because of the 3-for-1 and is now locked into drafting with Cleveland’s position (likely 29th or 30th) in the upcoming draft.

On the court, Martin can play.

A low-usage wing with accentuating winning traits like Martin is impossible to fully judge in Charlotte, the pull-up jimbo capital of America. Martin’s best trait is as an on-ball defender, where the Suns will actually have a force of resistance to dribble penetration joining Dunn!

Marin is very good about playing complete possessions on or off the ball and is great with swipes.

He also has terrific shot-blocking instincts for a 6-foot-6 wing.

For players under 6-foot-8, Marin is one of 12 in the NBA with at least four games registering multiple steals and multiple blocks, per Stathead. That’s in only 24.8 minutes per game too.

Martin is also a solid passer, grading well in Cleaning the Glass’ assist-to-usage ratio over the years.

Unfortunately, his career 3-point percentage sits at 31.9%, taking a disappointing turn the last two seasons after he improved to a 38.4% mark in the 2021-22 season.

That’s going to make it tough to see how Martin will get playing time on Phoenix. Head coach Mike Budenholzer is already struggling to find legitimate run for Dunn over all the other perimeter options on the team

The best-case scenario here is Martin shows out and signs an affordable contract extension this summer. At 29 years old, Martin joins Grayson Allen (29) and Royce O’Neale (31) as wings playoff teams would be interested in that might not fit the Suns’ long-term plans. Those are three trade chips for Phoenix to use in the future to get more athletic and young.

Micic is the one more likely to be used to free up money. The 31-year-old was one of the best players in Europe for years, and after getting drafted 52nd overall, he came over nine years later. Since then, he has largely underwhelmed with Oklahoma City and Charlotte. He is an out-of-this-world passer but has major shooting and defensive concerns.

This deal also marks the end of the Nurkic tenure, one that does not age well. Last season, Nurkic was a starting-caliber center and played solid two-way basketball. He quickly developed into unplayable this year and the Suns had to attach meaningful draft capital to get rid of him.

Along with Allen’s contributions, this led to grand declarations in this space last year about how wonderfully the trade worked out for the Suns. It instead has become incredibly divisive and looks like a loss for the Suns.

They would have been stuck in a similar situation with Deandre Ayton’s contract that is twice as large, but while Ayton is still quite inconsistent, he is at least playable and contributes.

Allen was a major depth piece for the Suns last year and holds value right now on a decent long-term deal but Phoenix had to waive and stretch Nassir Little. And while Suns draft pick Toumani Camara still has some more growth left to do on the offensive end, he’s quickly emerging as one of the best young perimeter defenders for Portland and looks like the best asset involved in the trade. Not good!

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