Devin Booker, Kevin Durant are safe, but what about Monty Williams and everyone else on Phoenix Suns?
The Phoenix Suns are entering the offseason much sooner than expected after Thursday’s embarrassing 125-100 Game 6 elimination loss to Denver in the Western Conference semifinals before a disgusted sellout crowd of 17,071 at Footprint Center.
Ouch.
The fourth-seeded Suns had championship aspirations after acquiring Kevin Durant right before the Feb. 9 trade deadline, but they couldn’t push past Nikola Jokic and No. 1-seeded Nuggets.
What’s next?
Decisions. Decisions. Decisions.
With a new team owner in Mat Ishbia, everything seems to be on the table for the Suns.
Well, almost everything.
Devin Booker isn’t going anywhere. Neither is Durant, but is everyone else expendable starting with the president of basketball operations and general manager James Jones to head coach Monty Williams and continuing with center Deandre Ayton and veteran point guard Chris Paul?
Quick recap
2022-23 regular season record: 45-37 (4th in West)
Playoff run: Defeated No. 5-seeded Los Angeles Clippers, 4-1, in first round; lost to No. 1 Denver Nuggets, 4-2, in second round.
Leading scorer: Devin Booker 27.8 ppg.
Leading rebounder: Deandre Ayton 10.0 rpg.
Assists leader: Chris Paul 8.8 apg.
Roster status
2023 Free agents: Unrestricted: Torrey Craig, Bismack Biyombo, T.J. Warren, Damion Lee, Josh Okogie, Terrence Ross; Restricted: Darius Bazley, Jock Landale and Saben Lee (two-way); Club option: Ish Wainright.
Major contracts: Kevin Durant (Three years left on four-year, $194.2M deal, UFA 2026), Devin Booker (One year left on five-year, $158.2M deal; his four-year, $224M supermax kicks in 2024-25, UFA 2028), Deandre Ayton (Three years left on four-year, $133M deal, UFA 2026), Chris Paul (Two years left on four-year, $120M deal, non-guaranteed 2024-25, UFA 2025).
Two more contracts: Landry Shamet (Two years left on four-year, $42.5M deal, non-guaranteed 2024-25, club option, 2025-26, UFA 2026), Cameron Payne (One year left on three-year, $19M deal, UFA 2024).
General manager/head coach
James Jones and Monty Williams played a major role in lifting the Suns out of the NBA basement.
Jones trading for Chris Paul before the 2020-21 season was the catalyst for Phoenix’s run to the 2021 NBA Finals, but his best move to this day remains hiring Williams.
The Suns needed stability at head coach and a culture change. Williams has brought both — and success.
He won NBCA Coach of the Year back-to-back (2021, 2022), was named NBA Coach of the Year in leading the Suns to a franchise-record 64 wins in the 2021-22 season and received a contract extension, but the Suns haven’t even made it back to the conference finals after reaching the Finals in 2021.
With heightened expectations, Williams has fallen short of them.
In this age, coaches are more expendable than ever. The Bucks fired Mike Budenholzer two years after winning an NBA title in 2021 over the Suns.
Budenholzer won NBCA Coach of the Year back-to-back too, in 2019 and 2020 when he shared the award with Bulls head coach Billy Donovan, by the way.
Frank Vogel was let go by the Lakers a year after they won it all in the 2020 Orlando bubble.
Ishbia could take another run at a title with Jones constructing a roster around Durant and Booker and Williams having a full training camp and season with Durant — or look to start fresh in both roles.
Nick Nurse is a name to consider for head coach.
He won an NBA title with the Raptors — and a healthy Kawhi Leonard — in 2019.
His former assistant, Patrick Mutombo, is on the Suns' coaching staff right now.
The Raptors were 13th in NBA efficiency this regular season with Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet as their top two scorers. Wonder what Nurse could do with Durant and Booker as his go-to players.
More: Phoenix Suns should fire Monty Williams after loss to Denver Nuggets, NBA Twitter says
More: Could Phoenix Suns fire GM James Jones after NBA Playoffs Game 6 loss to Denver Nuggets?
Ayton’s future
The Suns matched Indiana’s offer sheet last summer to keep Ayton, but he had veto power over a trade for a year.
That ends this summer.
Phoenix could look to trade him and get in return draft picks, a shooter and a four-man who can work as a backup five like the Nuggets have with Aaron Gordon. The Suns traded away their immediate draft future in the Durant deal and a team can’t have enough shooters.
If the Suns deal him, it’ll end an era in which Ayton showed the potential to be one of the game’s best bigs, but never consistently delivered at the level to match his talent.
He’s averaged a double-double in each of his five seasons in Phoenix and posted three career 20 and 20 games, but had low postseason moments — Game 7 vs. Dallas in 2022 and Game 3 vs. Denver last week — and his motor never ran full tilt all the time.
That blowup between him and Williams on the bench in that embarrassing loss to the Mavericks last year and Ayton saying the two didn’t talk all summer after that continues to linger.
Then Ayton scored a playoff career-low four points in that Game 3 against Denver that ended with him watching the final 4:57 from the bench.
Ayton’s inconsistent play further begs the question of whether he’ll ever become a great player in Phoenix. He’s the most polarizing player on the team.
His supporters really are very loyal and don’t think the Suns are doing their part to bring out the best version of him. His detractors have been begging for the Suns to trade him.
That latter sentiment is at an all-time high right now after Jokic had his way with Ayton in this series, coupled with Ayton sitting Phoenix’s last game with a rib contusion suffered in Game 5 Tuesday.
The two-time MVP stacks numbers against most, but he looked unstoppable against Ayton.
Teams want a player with Ayton’s skill set of size and athleticism, who can shoot, rebound and guard perimeter players on switches and his defensive potential. The Suns could get value in return, but there is always that fear he fulfills his true potential somewhere else.
It’s hard to find someone of Ayton’s talent setting a zillion screens a night and getting less than 15 field goal attempts a game. That begs the question of what type of big man do the Suns want if not Ayton?
NBA centers tend to fall under three categories — excellent on defense, but limited offensively, skilled on offense, but subpar defensively or pick-and-roll guys who are lob threats and run the floor.
Joel Embiid and Jokic are in a class by themselves. Anthony Davis, when healthy, is right there with those two and a better defender than both.
Bam Adebayo is unique in that he can defend, handle the ball, create, and score but after that, Ayton is in that next tier of bigs with Domantas Sabonis and Rudy Gobert.
The difference is Ayton will never be featured in a system with Booker and Durant.
Phoenix could possibly live with a pick-and-roll big who will rebound like a man possessed or one with scoring ability or finally figure out how to get the best out of Ayton on a nightly basis.
More: The Suns lost to better team, but series revealed issues that must be addressed
Chris Paul’s future
Age is only a number, but Chris Paul being 38 years old — and injury prone — has him looking like someone the Suns could press forward without next season.
Remember, Paul was part of a trade package the Suns offered before the Feb. 9 deadline to Brooklyn for Kyrie Irving, who the Nets ended up moving to Dallas.
The final year of Paul’s contract which ends in 2025 is non-guaranteed.
Cameron Payne isn’t Paul, but seeing the Suns play faster with him shows what they could be with someone who pushes the pace more.
Booker’s improvement as a playmaker — and being a supermax player — gives even further thought to Phoenix looking to trade Paul in the offseason.
He’s an all-time great, still one of the game’s best point guards, a leader and someone who could turn another team into a playoff contender.
Paul is the only player in league history to be part of four teams to set a franchise record for victories in a single season.
However, he slipped on the defensive end. Paul showed he can play off the ball, but the third all-time leader in assists has been at his best finding guys and running the show.
And he’s prone to injuries.
Last summer, Tyus Jones was an unrestricted free agent who would’ve been perfect for Phoenix. The best assist-to-turnover ratio guy in the league. Averaged a career-best 10.3 points and 5.2 assists this season.
Now, the Grizzlies re-signed him, as they should have, but the Suns could roll with a point guard like him — or run it back with Paul and continue to develop an offense with him playing off Booker and Durant.
More: Suns quit in an elimination game. Expect massive changes in the offseason
Which free agents should the Suns keep?
Looking at their free agents, Landale and Bazley are the only restricted ones. Landale has made a strong impression in the playoffs and could be an ideal backup big with or without Ayton.
Bazley has potential. He was never really given a shot in Phoenix this season after coming over in the trade with Oklahoma City for Dario Saric before the trade deadline, but he’s an athletic four who knocked down a career-best 40% from 3 in his 36 games with the Thunder this season.
Phoenix could use both.
As for the unrestricted, Craig and Ross can be rotation players. Craig is that necessary glue guy while Ross has sixth man written all over him with the green light to fire away.
Williams said Ishbia, Jones and himself talked with Ross, who appeared to be headed to Dallas after Orlando bought out his contract, about his role with the Suns before signing him in February.
“We try to shoot guys straight about what their role could look like,” Williams said back in February. “I explained to him exactly what that would be, the possibilities and the constraints and just told him like James did and like (Ishbia) did that we wanted him here and we felt like he could be an important person in this organization, not just on the floor, but a culture piece and all the stuff that we try to push every day."
Do you tell that to someone who doesn’t have a future beyond this season with the team?
Cam Johnson back in the Valley?
The Suns needed to deal Jae Crowder. He wasn’t going to play another game in Phoenix after the way things unfolded in the summer.
They had to deal Mikal Bridges in order to get Durant, but Cam Johnson was the third player in that deal.
The Suns and Johnson were unable to agree on a rookie extension going into the season. Sources informed The Republic Johnson wanted more than Phoenix's offer of $60 million over four seasons.
It’s probably a long shot Johnson returns to Phoenix.
He stands a good chance of getting a bigger offer sheet from another team because while he’s had his share of injuries, Johnson is a 6-8 wing who can stroke it from deep (shot 41% from 3 in his last two seasons) and is an improving shot creator on offense and defender.
The question is would Brooklyn match an offer sheet of say $20 million a year for four years to keep Johnson, who is super tight with Bridges? The two work so well together on the court and so close off it.
Then would the Suns make that offer, especially if they’re moving forward without either Ayton or Paul — or both.
Johnson loved being in Phoenix. He didn’t want to go. Paired with Booker and Durant, Johnson would get open 3s all night and possibly be the X-factor to a championship season in 2023-24.
Have opinion about current state of the Suns? Reach Suns Insider Duane Rankin at dmrankin@gannett.com or contact him at 480-787-1240. Follow him on Twitter at @DuaneRankin.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Booker, Durant safe, but what about others on Phoenix Suns after Denver Nuggets loss?
