The Phoenix Suns’ two biggest moves this off-season have been trading Kevin Durant and signing Devin Booker to one of the largest contract extensions in NBA history. To many, these moves seem contradictory.
Durant’s departure signals a shift in the team’s win-now focus but retaining Booker for the remainder of his prime establishes a need to compete further. Speculation about a future Booker trade has been rampant in the media and among fans, but his new contract makes that very difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish.
Trading Devin Booker is no longer realistic.
Devin Booker‘s new contract extension puts him at over $70 million per season in coming years. This will be one of the highest figures in the league and require multiple salaries to match for almost any team. This already presents one tremendous difficulty of architecting a trade because even other All-NBA players can make up to $20 million less than Booker.
Teams will be hesitant to pull the trigger on a Booker trade if they have to send out valuable assets that total up to around $70 million per season and then have to pay an aging superstar that much money.
The team that has been spoken about the most as a potential trade destination recently may be the Detroit Pistons. The only player on their team making remotely close to what Booker makes is Cade Cunningham, who is all but untouchable in trade talks.
Pairing Cunningham and Booker would likely require Detroit to give up veteran Tobias Harris, along with one or more members of their young core and draft capital. Not only is this an exorbitant price to pay for one player even one of Booker’s skill level, but it also puts them in a limited timeframe to compete for a championship once they acquire Booker and his salary.
The public perception of Devin Booker is one of an aging superstar due to his years of experience in the league. However, he’s still only 28 years old and has multiple seasons of high-level production left.
He can still be a very effective player and near All-NBA caliber talent by the time the youngsters on the Suns roster develop into winning pieces. The Suns definitely shifted younger this off-season by trading away Kevin Durant and drafting young rookies. But Booker's current age and versatile playing style allow him to succeed alongside any combination of teammates.
If the Suns did intend to trade, Booker signing him to a huge contract extension was definitely not the right way to proceed. Now that he’s got his new deal, it’ll be almost impossible to ship him out of Phoenix. Instead, the front office must figure out how to re-tool around Booker and create a championship contender during the duration of this contract.