Owner Mat Ishbia fires defiant take on Suns concerns after 2023-24 failure

Said Ishbia at a Suns press conference, “It’s extremely fixable. Let’s just be real, even though it isn’t a cool narrative, and the national media really won’t want to play it out there. Ask the other 29 GMs. 26 of them would trade their whole team for our whole team and our draft picks, as is. The house is not on fire, we’re in a great position. It’s not hard to fix. It’s not like we’re like, “Hey, we don’t have enough talent to win a championship.” We have enough talent to win a championship. Do we have enough continuity? Did we have time together? There’s a lot of things we can look at.”

You’ve got to hand it to Ishbia – he’s certainly optimistic.

Suns have tough decisions to make

While it can be debated whether or not the Suns have enough talent to win a championship, there’s no denying that the team is in a tough position.

The Suns enter the offseason planning to build around their top six players in Devin Booker, Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal, Grayson Allen, Jusuf Nurkic and Royce O’Neale. Allen signed a four-year, $70 million contract extension before the start of the playoffs, and Phoenix officials hope to retain O’Neale as a free agent this offseason.

The current cap projection for next season puts the second apron line at $189.5 million and the Suns owe their projected starting five an incredible $184 million, only $5.5 million under than that level. That means a huge tax bill will come due from just filling out their roster with minimum contracts.

All of this is due to the $150 million owed next season just to Booker, Beal and Durant. The salary of those three players is more than 14 teams’ total payroll next season.

Even more importantly, the front office will have only a few methods to improve the roster in the offseason as teams over the second apron cannot use the midlevel exception or take on money in trades along with other restrictions in the new collective bargaining agreement.

The Suns will need to find creative ways to obtain players who complement Durant, Booker, and Beal. But it’s going to be difficult.

Because of the apron restrictions, Phoenix is not allowed to take back more money in a trade than it sends out. The Suns also cannot combine contracts to trade for a single player who makes more. For example, combining the salaries of supporting players like Grayson Allen, Jusuf Nurkic and Nassir Little in a trade is not allowed even if the Suns take back less money.

Allen is also not allowed to be traded at all until Oct. 16 because he signed an extension with the Suns. Phoenix also cannot send out cash in a trade, use the $5.1 million taxpayer midlevel exception or acquire a player in a sign-and-trade. The $6.5 million trade exception created in the Cameron Payne trade is frozen. If the Suns finish the 2024-25 season over the second apron, their 2032 first-round pick is not available in a trade.

Oh, by the way, Phoenix also owes the Nets three first-round draft picks (plus pick swaps).

It’s no surprise that Ishbia is selling the idea of running it back. He may not have a choice.