Suns’ Mat Ishbia opens up on potential Kevin Durant trade, says moving Devin Booker would be ‘silly’
Despite having the NBA’s most expensive roster, the Phoenix Suns are 30-36, 11th in the Western Conference and 2.5 games out of the final play-in spot. They are 5-14 since the beginning of February, they’ve lost three of their last four games, and they have the most difficult late-season schedule in the league, as their remaining opponents have a cumulative winning percentage of .592.
This is bleak. It’s certainly not what the Suns were expecting this season, and they can’t even blame it on injuries. When their Big Three of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal have shared the court, they’ve been outscored by 3.3 points per 100 possessions.
Assuming the story more or less stays the same for the next month, major changes are expected in the offseason. “They’re gonna trade [Durant], and he knows that,” ESPN’s Brian Windhorst said on “NBA Today” on Feb. 26. There is an argument that Phoenix should also trade Booker — perhaps to the Houston Rockets, who own its unprotected 2027 and 2029 first-round draft picks and swap rights in this year’s draft — so it can rebuild in earnest.
In an interview with ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, Suns owner Mat Ishbia acknowledged that they have not come close to meeting internal expectations and they could “pivot and reload” in the summer. He also maintained that Booker is completely off the table in trade talks.
ESPN reported that the Rockets have “repeatedly expressed interest” in trading for Booker, a four-time All-Star who will turn 29 in October. Ishbia interrupted a question about potentially trading him and starting over by saying it would “never happen.”
“It’s silly,” Ishbia told ESPN. “So here’s what I’ll tell you: I have Devin Booker in the prime. In order to win an NBA championship, you got to have a superstar. You got to have a great player.”
Ishbia’s win-now mentality has not changed whatsoever.
“It’s surprising to me that other people, other fans, they actually like the rebuild process,” Ishbia told ESPN. “Like, ‘Oh, let’s rebuild it.’ Are you crazy?! You think I’m going to go for seven years and try to get there? You enjoy the 2030 draft picks that we have holding? I want to try to see the game today. I want us to win today, and we’re going to try.”
Ishbia then went a step further, promising that “we will win championships here in Phoenix.”
Booker has consistently said that he would like to spend his entire career in Phoenix and reiterated to ESPN that he wants to win a title there. “It might not look the most pretty right now,” he said, but we got to get it done and I’m going to do it.”
The front office explored trades involving Durant (who turns 37 in September) and Beal (who turns 32 in June) before last month’s trade deadline. A Suns source told ESPN that, while Durant has had “an amazing year,” they are “not in a position to not look at everything” and “there’s always been conversation with everyone on our team minus Devin Booker.”
“I’ll just say that we’re going to evaluate in the offseason,” Ishbia told ESPN. “We’re going to find a way to win, and it’s probably a lot easier winning with Kevin Durant than without him. But at the same time, yes, if we’re not good enough in this iteration of the Phoenix Suns, we’re going to find a way to be better next year.”
Beal has a no-trade clause and is owed $110.8 million in the two seasons that follow this one. He didn’t want to change teams during the season, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll finish this contract in Phoenix.
“It is a different deal in the summer,” Beal told ESPN. “Everything is kind of more laid out on the table. You got more options.”
Ishbia told ESPN that he still believes in the roster and in coach Mike Budenholzer, and that, if the Suns manage to make the playoffs, “I don’t think we’re an easy out for anybody.” At the same time, he said that the season has been “really disappointing,” and, when it’s over, they’ll make decisions based on the results.
For now, that seems to mean that the Durant-Booker-Beal era is likely near its end, and the front office will try to build a different kind of team around Booker. Given how Phoenix has operated during Ishbia’s tenure as owner, though, putting together a contender will be enormously difficult. The Suns have either traded or swapped all of its first-round picks through 2031, and they have extremely limited flexibility because of their payroll.
Ishbia is right that winning a championship generally requires a superstar, and that’s why no team wants to trade a player of Booker’s caliber in his prime. There are plenty of examples, though, of teams that have employed elite players and fallen far short of championship contention. When that happens year after year despite the front office going all-in, there usually comes a time when the franchise has to trade that player. Often, it regrets not doing it sooner.
