Phoenix Suns have few good options to keep Chris Paul; Lakers look like his next stop

It looks like we’ve seen the last of Chris Paul in purple and orange.

And that’s too bad. He’s one of the best ever at his position and he helped bring the franchise from irrelevance to the brink of a championship. No one in Phoenix should be happy with this development.

The Suns were standing in the shadow of the NBA’s championship trophy with Paul running the show the last three seasons, and the thought of pairing his offensive genius with Frank Vogel’s defensive mindset should have had everyone in town thinking the Suns would be right there again next year.

But they say all good things must come to an end, and it looks like that’s what’s happening here.

A tweet from NBA insider Chris Haynes is what set this current round of speculation into motion.

“Phoenix Suns have notified star Chris Paul that he will be waived, making the future Hall of Famer one of the top free agents this offseason,” the Bleacher Report and TNT reporter said on Twitter.

Arizona Republic Suns insider Duane Rankin, meanwhile, is reporting that the team is exploring its options with Paul and that he remains on the roster – for now.

More: Chris Paul odds for next team, staying with Suns revealed

Paul is set to earn about $31 million next season, but a series of factors are combining to make that unattractive for the Suns.

For starters, NBA teams are limited in how much they can spend on players. The salary cap for next season projects to be about $134 million. Some teams chose to go over that, requiring them to pay a luxury tax to the league for every dollar they spend above the cap, but under a recent labor agreement, teams face new restrictions on how much they can exceed the cap. Depending on a few factors, the upper limits will be somewhere between $160 million and $170 million.

This system is in place to ensure that teams in Minnesota, Milwaukee and Memphis, for example, can reasonably compete with teams in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.

For the Suns, Paul is 38 years old and prone to injury in the playoffs. It’s hard to justify having him account for such a big portion of a team’s budget under the new rules.

Given the salaries of Kevin Durant ($46 million), Devin Booker ($36 million) and Deandre Ayton ($32 million), the Suns have to be smart about how the construct the rest of the roster.

That brings us to the options in front of Suns General Manager James Jones. (For this section, I consulted with NBA salary cap guru Eric Pincus, who helps run Sports Business Classroom, a program at the NBA Summer League for prospective front office managers and journalists. It goes over the collective bargaining agreement in fine detail.) Jones has until the end of this month to make a move.

More: Chris Paul waived by Phoenix Suns report brings out mixed reaction on NBA Twitter

Jones can keep Paul, but that wouldn’t leave enough money under the salary structure to fill out the rest of the roster with a competitive group of players.

LOSE PAUL: Jones can waive Paul, allowing him to become an unrestricted free agent. This would give Jones access to something called the non-taxpayer mid-level exception, about $12 million to attract a free agent or two who would want to come play with Booker, Durant and Ayton. In this scenario, Jones also would be able to access an additional $4.5 million from a provision known as the bi-annual exception. That would give Jones the ability to go find two or three players to replace Paul, while re-signing most of the rest of the guys on his roster for modest raises.

TRY TO KEEP PAUL: Jones can waive Paul and then try to re-sign him. Without going too deep into the details, Paul would have to agree to come back for about $3 million. The Suns could then access about $5 million to sign another player, plus bring back most of the guys on their roster for modest raises.

Paul would have to agree to this. He could earn more elsewhere or sign for a similar price in a place like Los Angeles, where his longtime friend LeBron James and one of the league’s best players, Anthony Davis, were in the Western Conference Finals last month.

DEAL PAUL: Jones can trade Paul. There are plenty of teams that could use Paul, either to help get them over the top or to move on from veterans with big contracts. Still, it’s hard to imagine Paul in Atlanta, Washington or Chicago at this stage of his career.

Given these most likely scenarios, I think Paul is probably headed to the Lakers, which nearly makes me sick to type. I’d rather see him go anywhere else but to the Lakers.

Frankly, I’m hopeful that Booker, Durant and Ayton can figure out the right sales pitch to keep Paul in Phoenix (similar to how Paul helped recruit DeAndre Jordan to remain with the Clippers years ago).

But I don’t think that’s likely.

I think we’ve seen the last of Chris Paul in purple and orange, and I think he’s headed to Hollywood to play with LeBron.

And that’s too bad.

Reach Moore at gmoore@azcentral.com or 602-444-2236. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @SayingMoore.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Moore: Chris Paul leaving Phoenix Suns for Los Angeles Lakers is most likely scenario