How the Phoenix Suns can make Devin Booker’s Superteam dreams come true

Phoenix Suns Devin Booker Deandre Ayton Mikal Bridges (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

Keep Who They Have, and Keep Them Happy

Step one is simple: DON’T LOSE ANYBODY THAT IS ALREADY HERE.

Off all the problems that have plagued the Phoenix Suns since the Robert Sarver era began, the worst is probably the team’s inability to keep it’s core players both happy and in a Suns uniform.

Too often have both fan favorites and clowns alike demanded out of Phoenix, putting management in a universally tough bind as they attempt to find a suitable trade to recover from said demand.

As we are all aware, when a player demands a traded, the other 29 teams smell blood and each of them know that they can now underpay to acquire the services of the disgruntled player. So of the four recent players who have demanded out, only Goran Dragic arguably brought back a decent return (two first round picks, including one unprotected), but even then, the fact that former General Manager Ryan McDonough was unable to acquire a living and breathing player to help the team right away, did hurt the ability to recover moving forward.

So for Booker’s desire to create a superteam in Phoenix, the first – and most important – thing the franchise needs to do is to keep the players they have on the roster happy.

Devin Booker must remain happy to be a Sun.

Deandre Ayton must remain happy to be a Sun.

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Josh Jackson, T.J. Warren, Mikal Bridges, all must remain happy to be a Sun.

Even players with not much of a future in Phoenix like Richaun Holmes and Dragan Bender must be kept happy to be Suns.

Keeping players happy not only helps in potential trades, but in free agency as well.

Robert Sarver has a terrible image problem (brought on by both his own actions and inaction) and keeping his current players – from the top to the bottom of the roster – happy must be a primary concern of his. No one outside of the roster must ever be led to believe that the franchise is run under the hand of a melding or incompetent owner and that Phoenix and the Suns are not a worthwhile destination.

Obviously players talk and they know the truth, but at least so long as current players are treated well and happy to be here, that alone is a start.

When any of the current roster is traded, the must be moved only on accord of the organization seeing a better opportunity without them than and trade those players without public demands. Obviously, doing so will in turn bring back the greatest return, and make such a super-dream, much closer to a superteam’d reality.

The ultimate player though to keep happy is of course Devin Booker, and since this stated superteam dream is his, he is at the center of what he believes can be a franchise on the rise.

So to keep him happy, the franchise must actually rise.

However, to that point I cannot help but wonder: does this superteam dream have a deadline?

If it is not accomplished by this summer; next summer; or the summer after that, does Booker at any of those points in time then demand the trade that we have all feared?

Only he knows this, but in the end, if Sarver wants to build a winner, and even a superteam with Booker at the heart, Book needs to be happy as well as the rest of the roster, so none of them ever demand out, and the return on any trades are of max value.