Mat Ishbia: ‘It’s not hard to fix’ current Phoenix Suns build
Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia spoke to the media Wednesday for the first time since the Minnesota Timberwolves swept Phoenix out of the first round earlier this week.
Safe to say, at least publicly, that Ishbia isn’t the slightest bit concerned regarding the team’s roster construction–spearheaded by Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, whom it acquired last offseason from the Washington Wizards.
“Ask the other 29 GMs, 26 of them would trade their whole team for our whole team, our draft picks, and everything as is,” Ishbia said. “The house is not on fire. We’re in a great position. It’s not hard to fix.
“We have enough talent to win a championship. Did we have enough continuity? Did we have enough time together (on the floor)? There’s a lot of things we can look at. … We have all things. How fixable is it? If I read the media, I would think we have a lot of problems.”
That’s … because … your team does, Mat.
The Suns own the league’s highest 2024-25 payroll at $205.9 million with just 11 players on the roster, $34.6 million over the projected luxury tax threshold with an estimated luxury tax bill of $104.6 million, according to Spotrac. Their aforementioned payroll will also be $28.4 million above the projected $178.7 million first tax apron and $17.6 million over the projected $189.5 million draconian second tax apron.
Let’s brush over a few of the punitive penalties the second apron will have to offer in 2024-25, shall we?
- You can’t aggregate salary in trade (i.e. combine $20 million and $10 million cap hits to make $30 million for salary-matching purposes in trades.)
- You can’t take back more salary than you send out in a trade.
- You can’t add cash in trades to complete a deal.
- You can’t use any of your pre-existing trade exceptions.
- You won’t have any access to your mid-level or bi-annual exceptions to sign free agents.
- Your first-round pick becomes frozen seven years in advance.
- Your frozen first-round pick will move to the end of the first round if you exceed the apron twice in a four-year span.
Next year will be the first year of Booker’s four-year, $221 million extension (which could change based on this year’s final cap projection). Durant, who’s extension eligible, has two years left on his deal while Beal has three, including a $57.1 million player option in 2026-27.
Those three players alone allocate for roughly 107 percent of the Suns’ 2024-25 cap. That’s not including Jusuf Nurkic‘s $18.1 million or Grayson Allen‘s $15.6 million, the first year of a brand new $70 million extension he signed in early April.
Phoenix will own the No. 22, which is projected to cost a sliver above $2 million. It won’t possess its own first-round pick nor its own second-rounder until 2031, emptying that treasure chest for Beal and Durant, who will be 36-years-old by the start of next season.
Are we sure this isn’t hard to fix? When you have no leverage in negotations? A first-round sweep isn’t enough?
The house may not be on fire, but the Suns’ old, brittle, top-heavy house is on the precipice of collapsing on itself without enough supplies to reconstruct unless proper realities are faced.
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