The Phoenix Suns pulled off their latest masterstroke of roster building on Sunday, as starting center Oso Ighodaro saw his rookie contract extended early to three years, $29 million. It's the latest brilliant move by the front office around their superstar Devin Booker, but their inability to get the big decisions correct alongside those key smaller calls continues to baffle and hold them back.
Suns keep messing up huge decisions at critical moments
Re-signing your starting big man, who will also come off the bench either when Mark Williams is healthy again or Khaman Maluach is ready to take over (whichever comes first), to that kind of deal is brilliant roster building. But prior to that, the Suns also managed to bring back both Collin Gillespie (four years, $48 million) and Jordan Goodwin (three years, $19 million) on similar bargain contracts.
This is the same organization that found Jamaree Bouyea and turned him into a rotation player, albeit one who received too many offensive touches during preseason. They also found back-end value for their roster in the form of Pat Spencer and Duop Reath. On top of all of that, the front office was successful in drafting Ighodaro and Koa Peat, and they deserve credit for taking Toumani Camara as well. Even Ryan Dunn has enjoyed a mini-revival of sorts in the last few weeks.
Yet despite their ability to find value around their core group of guys, the big stuff has never worked out. Bradley Beal was a disaster whom they will continue to pay not to play for them for years to come. The Kevin Durant swing made sense, and he is clearly still bitter about how that all went down in The Valley.
Even their head coach hirings prior to Jordan Ott flopped, with back-to-back championship winners Frank Vogel and Mike Budenholzer only lasting one season. It is bizarre to see such massive decisions backfire, yet have the front office work so well under the restrictions they have placed upon themselves as a result of these misses.
Crucial Devin Booker decision now on the horizon
We will soon reach a point where the Suns will have to make their biggest call of the decade: what to do with Booker. Do they continue trying to win with the 30-year-old, knowing his best years may now be behind him? Or do they try to get ahead of one of the worst outlooks in the entire league by turning him into some future assets and younger players?
Recent history would suggest that whichever road the franchise takes here, it will be the wrong one. Yet you can be sure that when they need to add a 15th man to the roster or convince a rapidly improving prospect such as Peat to take a team-friendly deal, the Suns will manage to make that situation work out perfectly for them.
If only they could put it all together, they would be a genuine threat in the Western Conference.
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