The Phoenix Suns are in a tough spot right now, and there have been several key roster moves that have led to their current situation. Trading for Bradley Beal was certainly one of them - although if you cast your mind back to that deal - the prospect of giving up an ageing Chris Paul for an All-Star level scorer made a ton of sense in the moment.
Having to break up a valuable first round pick into three less appealing selections to pair one of them to jettison center Jusuf Nurkic to the Charlotte Hornets was certainly another, and it was a painful moment in a dreadful 2024-25 season. Made even worse by the fact previous head coach Frank Vogel had created an above league average defensive scheme around the Bosnian big man.
Haunting decision to give away a rookie in Nurkic deal hurts.
Going back to Nurkic's arrival in Phoenix, and you probably remember that this was the trade that sent Deandre Ayton to the Portland Trail Blazers. The Suns also got Grayson Allen, Nassir Little and Keon Johnson in the three-team deal, which allowed the Milwaukee Bucks to acquire Damian Lillard.
Nestled at the very bottom of that deal was the decision to include a guy who had yet to play in the NBA, and it is causing the Suns more grief than they ever could have imagined. Toumani Camara had been taken by the franchise late in the second round, and had shown some nice defensive instincts during Summer League play for the Suns.
Again though this trade was never going to be held up or even called off over Camara, which is why the Suns were happy to ship him off to Portland. They had Beal, Devin Booker and Kevin Durant, and they weren't going to be able to give minutes to a then 23-year-old rookie who was already close to being the player he was going to be in this league. Big mistake.
Camara has blossomed into one of the best defensive wings in the league today, with Jovan Buha of The Athletic recently revealing that he has heard that the Trail Blazers could potentially want a pair of first-round picks in any potential trade for Camara. Not that they are interested in moving him - but with the organization still in the midst of a rebuild - Camara's value to a contender is obvious.
He was recently named to the All-NBA second team all-defense, and had a wonderful individual campaign for a Trail Blazers team that was friskier than it had any right to be in the Western Conference. It is not hard to see any number of rivals looking at his play and believing he can do for them what the likes of Aaron Gordon once did for the Denver Nuggets. The final piece of the puzzle.
This hurts the Suns in three unique and awful ways. Beginning with the most optimistic, and they managed to find a diamond in the second round of the draft. Their more recent selections in Ryan Dunn and particularly Oso Ighodaro - again a second round pick - seem to indicate the franchise can identify talent, even if that wasn't enough for James Jones to keep his role as General Manager.
The hope then is that the Suns can replicate that success moving forward, but a more painful viewpoint is that Camara was everything this team needed during the regular season. They finished 27th in defensive rating, and you know Camara would have brought it on that end every night in a way that we just didn't see. Imagine if he had taken Beal's spot in the starting lineup. Exactly.
If the Suns had also wanted to re-tool around Booker this summer - especially with the future of Durant still very much up in the air - having Camara to possibly trade for a pair of firsts would have been enticing. Instead it is the Trail Blazers who not only get to watch Camara continue to grow, but managed to somehow saddle the Suns with Nurkic in the process. That's tough to take.