Phoenix Suns prove there’s always a way to create draft assets

The Suns made a creative and risky trade to open up their options at the NBA trade deadline. It goes to show that any team can create trade assets if they’re willing to mortgage the future!

The next time you hear that your favorite NBA team doesn’t have the assets to pull off a trade, remember that the Phoenix Suns are creating draft picks out of thin air. It might not be wise, but it’s certainly possible.

Going into the trade deadline, the Golden State Warriors are only limited in the first-round picks they can trade by one outstanding pick: A 2030 first-rounder, protected for picks 1-20 and held by the Washington Wizards. NBA teams can’t trade their first-round pick in consecutive years, so the Warriors can’t trade their selections in 2029 or 2031, even with the 2030 pick unlikely to convey. They don’t have their own second-round pick until 2029, but they do have two second-rounders from the Atlanta Hawks in 2026 and 2028.

That’s a treasure trove compared to what the Phoenix Suns have been working with. To acquire Kevin Durant in 2023, Phoenix traded five future first-round picks and a first-round pick swap to the Brooklyn Nets. Then five months later, they sent Chris Paul and Landry Shamet to the Washington Wizards for Bradley Beal, along with six second-round picks and four first-round pick swaps.. You’d think that would exhaust their trade assets.

But you’d be wrong! The Suns managed to refill their cupboard by carving up slices of their meager draft assets, including ones they’d already traded. In July 2023, the Suns sent the Memphis Grizzlies first-round swap rights in 2024 and 2030 in exchange for three second-round picks, even though they’d already traded pick swaps for those drafts to Brooklyn and Washington. The 2024 pick swap never happened since Memphis had a higher pick than the Suns, but it was functionally a bet on the Suns sucking in seven years.

They did the same trick in a deal that got them three first-rounders from the Orlando Magic in exchange for another pick swap: The Magic can swap their pick for the second-best of the picks from the Suns or Wizards. In theory, the Suns could keep swapping increasingly-more restricted first-rounders indefinitely.

Now they’ve done it again. After their efforts to acquire another star were limited by the team only having a 2031 first-round pick to trade, they turned that unprotected pick into three other first-round picks. Three picks that might not be very good, but that do give the Suns more volume in a potential deal.

Was this a good idea? Almost certainly not! The Suns seemingly want to trade for 35-year-old Jimmy Butler, currently on his second suspension for his work slowdown with the Miami Heat, and give him a max contract extension. That’s so he can pair with 36-year-old Kevin Durant, a pair that will both have turned 40 before that pick is due to the Jazz in 2031.

They also may want to try and improve their depth, offload Jusuf Nurkic and/or Bradley Beal, or package the Gorilla and some picks for a mascot to be named later. Suns owner Mat Ishbia made his billions brokering mortgages, so why not mortgage the future of his NBA franchise and see what happens?

But it does mean that a team that actually motivated to improve and take a shot at a title can always find a way to make deals happen. It may be shortsighted to mortgage the future like this, but at least the Suns aren’t content to run out the clock on a Hall of Famer’s career while cashing in on the ticket sales he brings.

That being said, the Suns are only a half-game ahead of the Warriors this season, and that’s before Quinten Post started shooting the lights out. If Steph Curry doesn’t think his team should make a “desperate trade,” the Suns probably shouldn’t either. But the Warriors are certainly capable of making any number of trades, depending on their tolerance for risk and the loss of future assets. Right now, that tolerance looks low.

Down in Arizona, they’re making deals like there’s no tomorrow. If these pick swaps blow up in Ishbia’s face, there might not be one.