The NBA Draft Lottery is not an area the Phoenix Suns have a lot of interest thanks to some failed trades for superstars, but rule changes have made their life harder anyway.
Tanking is no longer going to be rewarded, and for the next three years at least trying to be competitive and coming up short is going to be favored more. It is just a pity the Suns don’t have any serious draft capital during this period.
New rules would have been ideal for Suns to re-tool around Devin Booker
Imagine a scenario in which the Suns were competitive but failed to make the postseason. Basically what we saw in 2025-26 before a play-in victory secured their spot. For the next three years (and potentially beyond) the odds of landing a top draft pick would have increased because of this.
Being rewarded for trying to win with Booker on the roster will surely encourage all teams in the middle of the pack like the Suns to try and win more games. Only they don’t control their first round picks throughout this period, with Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal the reason why.
That Beal deal in particular only getting worse as time goes on.
To make matters worse, the Suns can’t even completely tear it down either because of other organization’s reluctance to part with first rounders during this period. Even getting a late first as part of a bigger trade now looks as unlikely as ever, with no front office wanting to look foolish for giving up on a chance at landing real talent through the draft.
The only silver lining for Phoenix in all of this is the fact that it now makes even more sense to continue trying to build a winner around Booker. The alternative just got more difficult to pull off, while there will always be the next unsettled star to go after. Ja Morant anybody? That changes if Booker himself wants to leave, but the irony there is that the Suns could then command some of these first round picks nobody wants to give up if that were the case.
The front office has done a nice job of using second round picks to take both Toumani Camara (still hurts…) and Oso Ighodaro, and they will get another opportunity to do so again soon. They may also get lucky and have a future pick swap in which they receive the worst selection still land higher than expected because of these new rules.
There really are no easy ways out of the current situation the Suns find themselves in, with the draft a mirage of hope they won’t get near for years to come.
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