Phoenix Suns fans are well aware of the dearth of draft capital their favorite team possesses.
The Suns don’t own their own first round draft pick outright until 2032, and their decisions to package picks in trades has the potential to get much uglier.
Approved NBA draft lottery changes could burn Suns
The NBA board of governors voted Thursday, May 28, to approve draft lottery reform.
The proposal chosen was dubbed the “3-2-1” model. As with most rules governing the NBA, the new lottery rules are extremely convoluted. But the long and short of the changes is that they're yet another attempt by the league to address tanking. The new rules will make it so that teams cannot pick No. 1 overall in consecutive drafts, and the three worst teams in the league cannot fall below pick No. 12 but receive fewer lottery balls than teams ahead of them in the standings.
Again, the new rules are muddy, but it could certainly be a big shakeup.
NBA Insider Jake Fischer reported before the board of governors vote that one NBA general manager said in response to the proposed draft lottery changes: "I'm not trading any picks beyond 2029."
That’s not a great omen for the Suns, who’ve already traded away their first-round picks in 2029, 2030 and 2031.
CBS Sports reported in the aftermath of the vote that two of the biggest winners of the changes could be Western Conference juggernauts in the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs.
Why?
Both of those teams have been stashing picks for years — especially OKC. And now, those picks that would otherwise land in the late lottery have better odds than ever of resulting in a higher draft selection slot.
The Suns outpaced expectations throughout 2025-26 to earn a play-in tournament bid, ultimately advancing only to be swept by the Thunder in the postseason's first round. If they regress in the coming years and land in the late lottery, there could be some genuinely painful consequences.
The reformed lottery rules will become more clear to fans once they see it all in practice, but having more picks at your disposal is certainly a more favorable position than what the Suns are looking at.
That was true before, and it’s likely unnerving for the Suns’ front office now.
Phoenix hopefully has learned its lesson from packaging a number of first-round picks in trades in recent years. The Suns can now reset and evaluate how much additional value first round picks will have (especially for teams in the middle of the pack). But the short-term outlook ahead of 2032 doesn't appear promising.
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