The 7-player, 3-team trade that ends Crowder and Westbrook speculation

The Phoenix Suns give up a couple of picks to strengthen the top end of their rotation.

The Suns are missing high-end bench players, those you’d consider sixth and seventh men in a rotation. They address that in this deal:

Phoenix Suns Receive: Buddy Hield and Chris Duarte

Phoenix Suns Give: Jae Crowder, Torrey Craig, Landry Shamet, Top 3 Protected 2023 First-Round Pick

Perhaps Phoenix are giving up too much in the deal, but they’ll consider it as getting two pieces who could theoretically play 20-25 minutes in their playoff rotation. Whichever way you want to squeeze it, Hield is a major upgrade on Shamet, and Duarte could also prove better than Crowder. Craig is added for salary filler and can be replaced internally by someone like Josh Okogie.

They do give up next year’s first-round pick, but that’ll almost certainly be a pick in the twenties unless things go horribly wrong. Assuming they retain Cameron Johnson, Phoenix will have locked in a seven-man group till at least the end of next season — Chris Paul, Devin Booker, Mikal Bridges, Johnson, Deandre Ayton, Hield and Duarte.

That’s a good group, especially given they’d still have some salaries and a host of picks they could use to further upgrade the roster. Six of those seven are either in their prime or on the precipice of it, meaning further internal growth is expected for the best regular season team over the last two seasons.

But the Suns have no interest in settling for regular season success; getting two good players for their wantaway forward is a positive move to achieving that, even if it means giving up Shamet, Craig and a pick as well.