Suns clowned as media member wouldn't trade two players straight up for Devin Booker

No matter how the 2024-25 NBA season ultimately pans out for the Phoenix Suns - and things have been better as of late - at least they have Devin Booker. Bradley Beal might have the worst contract in the league - and Kevin Durant is now 36-years-old - but there's every chance we're witnessing the best player in franchise history on a nightly basis.

The doom and gloom surrounding this "Big 3" experiment has rightly concerned fans, but even if Durant once again decides he wants to leave town, the Suns will always have a chance with Booker. He's a top 15 player in the league and at 28-years-old has proven he can also attract elite players to The Valley to play with him.

So why did Bill Simmons clown on him so bad on his podcast?

Simmons was joined by Ryen Russillo on The Bill Simmons Podcast recently to break down his list of the top 85 trade assets in the league roday. Durant's slide into the mid-twenties range shouldn't have come as a surprise to anybody, but it was the stray shots Booker took while being moved up to 17th on the list - after some push back by Russillo - that raised eyebrows.

If you skip to the 1:25:10 mark Simmons asks the question of if the Oklahoma City Thunder would trade Jalen Williams straight up for Booker. Simmons quickly argues the point that the Thunder would rather have Williams right now given the contract he is on - which if you know the Thunder's front office - is about the only case you can make for them not doing this.

General Manager Sam Presti prides himself on having flexibility and a ton of draft picks to throw at any situation if a star player becomes available, while he absolutely won the Paul George for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander trade that landed them a frontrunner for the MVP award this season. But if we're talking about pure talent - and even fit - is he really going to try and make this argument?

Williams has been excellent for the Thunder and is a wonderful foil to Gilgeous-Alexander, but he hasn't done anything of note in the playoffs. He's obviously nowhere near the scorer Booker is - thankfully Russillo was on hand to correctly claim he's a top 10 bucket getter in the league - while defensively it's not the walkover that Simmons would have you believe.

After all, wasn't it Booker who willingly defended stars last summer at the Olympics? Wasn't he chosen to go in the first place? You can't honestly say if Booker was magically on the Thunder for the rest of this season, that that franchise wouldn't have an even better chance of winning a championship than they already do. Again Russillo made this point, but Simmons wasn't done.

He then went on to claim that te Houston Rockets - the same organization who were rumored to be up for making a play for Durant - wouldn't trade Amen Thompson straight up for Booker. Which... come on now. Thompson is going to be an All-Star, and it is going to happen sooner rather than later. He's exciting and potentially the best young player that the Rockets have, including Alperen Sengun.

Simmons would go on to say - with perhaps a hint of humor in his voice - that the last five weeks of Thompson's play would make you terrified to trade him. He's right, it would. But for a guy who has done it in the postseason and been to the NBA Finals, that seems ridiculous. This isn't like when the L.A. Clippers added Paul George at the expense of Gilgeous-Alexander and all those picks.

Booker hasn't had any long-term injuries up to this point, and he's good for about 68-70 games a season. You can build a winner around him because the Suns already have, while the same cannot be said for Thompson yet and won't be for a long time. Williams looks like one of the best second or even third options in the league. Something Booker has never - and will never - be. This is crazy talk.