The Phoenix Suns have made a ton of moves this offseason, and the hope is that their front office is now going to do a better - and more patient - job of building around 28-year-old Devin Booker. It is clear they are no longer trying to cut corners to build a contender, and are going to take a more measured approach to roster building.
One player the franchise badly could have done with as they look to the future is former draft pick Toumani Camara. You likely remember that he had a nice Summer League showing for Phoenix, before being included in the Deandre Ayton trade with the Portland Trail Blazers that also sent Damian Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks.
Trail Blazers had interviewed Camara prior to NBA Draft.
In a recent episode of their Game Theory Podcast, hosts Sam Vecenie and Bryce Simon revisited the trade that sent Ayton and Camara to Portland, and revealed that the Trail Blazers' front office had interviewed the Belgian defensive stopper themselves prior to the draft. They then rightly pointed out that Portland landing Camara did have an element of luck, as well as doing their homework.
As was also brought up - with Lillard ultimately ending up in Milwaukee - clearly this was a deal in which Camara was only a small part, and so if the Suns had perhaps pushed back on his inclusion maybe they could have gotten away with keeping him. Instead they let him go, and watched him become an All-Defense selection in only his second season in the league.
This may seem like only a small decision to come out on the wrong side of, but the Suns have put themselves in this situation too many times since Mat Ishbia bought the franchise for it to be a coincidence. Taking on Jusuf Nurkic for Ayton because they wanted to get rid of him was another mistake, while in hindsight so too was swapping Chris Paul for Bradley Beal.
This also exposes the front office as getting outworked by rivals around the NBA Draft, with the Trail Blazers as a rebuilding organization taking second round picks seriously. They identified Camara as a player who could be part of their future, and they have already been proven correct in doing so. They even landed Phoenix with a lumbering big man in Nurkic for the pleasure of adding Camara.
The irony of all of this is that the Suns have actually done a nice job through the draft in recent years of adding guys who can actually help. Ryan Dunn and Oso Ighodaro continuing to look like fine selections from last year, but Camara is clearly the one that got away. As they enter into a new phase of their roster building, they need to take second round picks as seriously as Portland took Camara.
The jury is still out on new General Manager Brian Gregory on his opening few months in the job, although it may yet be that he won the Kevin Durant trade. The perception remains that the Suns are a team both in transition and which has made some bad miscalulations in recent years, and the Trail Blazers getting the inside track on Camara and then stealing him will live on for a while in The Valley.