In mid-May, a few days after the Suns’ season ended and with the wounds from a second straight second-round playoff exit still fresh, Phoenix’s basketball brass—owner Mat Ishbia, CEO Josh Bartelstein and GM and president of basketball operations James Jones—gathered in a conference room at the team’s practice facility. The high from the midseason trade for Kevin Durant had long faded, replaced by the whiplash from a series-ending 25-point shellacking by Denver in Game 6 of the second round of the playoffs. But despite that disappointment, optimism remained. With Durant and shooting guard Devin Booker, Phoenix possessed two elite scorers. Over lukewarm coffee, the front office brainstormed about the right pieces to put around them.
Options were discussed. Shooters. Playmakers. Three-and-D wings. The Suns, already over the salary cap, had limited tools at their disposal. The mid-level exception. The biannual exception. Minimum salary deals. They could run everything back and hope that better health—the trio of Durant, Booker and point guard Chris Paul played 167 minutes together before the playoffs—would yield better results. Still, as the meeting progressed, one strategy earned consensus: If the opportunity arose to add another star, the team needed to be aggressive. “It just got us down the line of thinking about the game’s best players,” says Jones.. “And those guys that we could pursue that we thought could mesh well with Devin and Kevin.”
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