Phoenix Suns: Telling Devin Booker is common courtesy

It was first tweeted out by Shams Charania then confirmed by Scott Bordow: Devin Booker is “upset” that he was not told that Tyler Ulis had been released by the Phoenix Suns. This lack of professionalism and common courtesy has to stop.

The NBA, more than any other league in America, is ran by it’s stars. Not an owner. Not a general manager. Not a head coach. The players run the league, like it or not, and the stars are it’s greatest commodity.

Devin Booker is the Phoenix Suns’ biggest star, the face of the franchise, the best player to don the purple and orange since Steve Nash. Tyler Ulis is his best friend.

So when the Phoenix Suns decided that they were going to release Ulis (the writing had been on the wall), it was their common courtesy to tell their greatest asset that they were doing so.

Instead, once again, they did not, and the leadership has been made to look like cold-hearted aristocratic businessmen raising their noses at the working man.

This isn’t 1918 when the barons of the world looked down upon it’s underpaid employees with contempt that their work was to their management’s bidding. It is 2018, and the star players of the league are making as much money – if not far  more – than anyone else in the organization, sans the owner himself, and even in some cases more so.

To say that the Phoenix Suns owe Devin Booker nothing is to ignore the fact that without him the franchise has zero star power and zero hope for it’s future. Their best player is growing to become one of the most prominent faces in the league. His professional career began here. On a rookie contract he is currently underpaid for his play (albeit with a max contract coming). He has said multiple times that he wants to play his entire career here.

No doubt Devin Booker wants to not only be the star player to finally hoist a championship banner into the arena’s rafters, but follow up such a feat by playing long and well enough to see his face and number eventually placed in the franchise’s pantheon alongside the rest of the the Suns’ revered greats.

But to do so, he needs to actually be on the team. And to keep him on the team, he needs to be kept happy – and deservedly so.

In a league where star players move from team to team at a rate far more frequently than in any other sport; when a star player can literally quit, still get paid, and demand a trade to wherever he wants; or when he can leave without just provocation (*ahem* Kevin Durant, *ahem* Kawhi Leonard, *ahem* LeBron James), then certain steps must be taken to ensure that those stars are kept happy. Thus the most mundane tasks must be seen to a rightful end and done so so that the stars are comfortable within the setting.

What Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver and General Manager Ryan McDonough need to understand most is that without talent on a team, they do not win. Without winning, they have no fans. Without fans they do not have a team. The cycle is obvious and inarguable.

What Devin Booker – and now the fans – requested of the franchise was that he was given a head’s up that his best friend was being released. A phone call. A Skype. A text. A meeting. Some sort of official, final moment of clarity that Tyler Ulis was no longer a member of the Phoenix Suns.

The conversation could have been as simple as this:

"“Hello, Devin? I know that we have discussed this in the past, but so that you are aware and not caught off guard, we are releasing Tyler. We have a plan to improve the roster, and to see it through we need as much cap space and roster flexibility as possible. We have targeted a number of point guards who we believe better fit the system we are about to run under Igor and we need the cap space to guarantee the right pieces are in place. Tyler has been a consummate professional and if there is anyway we can guarantee him a job elsewhere in the league, we will see to it to the best of our abilities. Have a great weekend and we’ll see you after the holiday.”"

Professional.

Courteous.

To the point.

The Phoenix Suns have done it again. They have made a move that directly affects one of their core players, and have not offered the adjoining party, the player that is to stay behind, a simple head’s up to the event’s occurring.

Moreover, they have done this to a player that they have publicly stated will have a role in roster-building. Ryan McDonough has flat out stated that Booker will have a voice in who the team seeks to acquire in trade and free agency. If this is the case, then players must leave to open up space for the newly acquired. As such (and if this is the position the Phoenix Suns want Devin Booker to hold)  then should Booker not have a role in this process as well?

And for those who believe that the Suns do not have to offer Devin any insight into the decision, I ask you this: would the Cleveland Cavaliers have traded LeBron James’ best friend without telling him? How about Chicago and Michael Jordan? Or Los Angeles and Kobe Bryant? Disregard that those players are all Hall of Famers (or guaranteed to be) and Devin Booker has only played three seasons in the league. Consider that they were or are all the faces of their respective franchise’s and that Devin Booker is one now too.

Is it professional when players themselves can all walk away without telling the team. No. But then that is their issue as poor professionals. Franchise’s must rise above such pettiness and offer every opportunity to be the better party. In the end it will serve them better, and will, if nothing else, appease those players that deserve appeasing.

Next: How much of a say should Devin Booker have in free agency?

The Phoenix Suns, once again, messed up and offered zero bedside manner to a player who’s success they are desperately tied to. A simple phone call would have sufficed. Instead they have allowed a matter that should have never existed to become national talk and the living out of their fan’s greatest fears.

For the love of all that is good and mighty, Suns decision-makers: treat your players as family and not as employees looked down upon by management upon high.

Whether anybody likes it or not, they  are actually the franchise, not you. And thus, in situations such as this, certain players deserve the common courtesy of a phone call.

If not, then maybe someday Devin Booker will offer the same cold-shoulder, and the franchise will be left star-less, win-less, and fan-less.