Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia made one thing clear after his team was swept out of the NBA playoffs by the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder: Devin Booker remains the franchise player he’ll aim to build around.
“Devin Booker is our franchise player. Devin Booker is everything that we want here in Phoenix as a leader, as the star player, in the community, on the court, off the court,” Ishbia said. “We’re gonna continue to build around him exactly as we have been.”
It doesn’t get much more definitive than that.
Nevertheless, the “exactly as we have been” line needs to come with a stipulation. Specifically, the Suns need to build around Book by acquiring a point guard.
Suns' point guard need more apparent than ever
When the Suns were last at the height of their modern powers, they made the NBA Finals in 2021 because they had a backcourt featuring both Book and future Hall of Fame point guard Chris Paul. But after making that Finals run, CP3 was traded away in the ill-fated Bradley Beal trade in the summer of 2023.
The Suns effectively moved on from a proven floor general in favor of a hodgepodge “Big Three” of Booker, Kevin Durant and Beal. The results were less than ideal.
Now, there’s certainly an argument to be made that Paul was getting up there in age and had already been on the decline. That being said, it’s now abundantly apparent in hindsight that adding Beal to the roster created a glut of ball-dominant scorers that didn’t put Phoenix in a better position to attain playoff success. With Beal in tow, the Suns lost in the first round in 2024 and then missed the playoffs altogether in 2025.
Ishbia’s front office has since retooled the roster again by waiving Beal and trading Durant, but the “Medium Three” of Book, Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks presents a similar conundrum. The Suns still have three ball-dominant scorers without a true point guard to glue it all together. To be at his best, Booker needs to play off the ball as a shooting guard instead of the franchise continuing to experiment with "Point Book" running the show.
The breakout of Collin Gillespie certainly puts the Suns in a better position in that regard, but Gillespie is also more of a scorer than a distributor anyway and struggled at times in the postseason atmosphere. It’s entirely possible he’ll take another leap forward, but Phoenix still needs to address the point guard spot even if the front office brings Gillespie back as a free agent this offseason.
As Ishbia praises Book while GM Brian Gregory touts building an identity rooted in grit, toughness and unselfishness, the Suns are still one or two big pieces away from title contention.
Ahead of this year’s postseason, NBA analyst Zach Lowe questioned whether Green is the right fit beside Booker. The jury is still out. Green missed the bulk of his first season in The Valley with a recurring hamstring injury.
The Suns may just need more reps with their best players healthy to develop chemistry, but the point guard spot still needs to be an area of emphasis this summer.
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