Phoenix Suns offseason outlook, Part 2: New CBA challenges could lead to quick action around the NBA Draft

The Phoenix Suns are looking for a new coach and might even be looking to replace other positions on the front office staff, but as of today it’s the brain trust of James Jones, Trevor Bukstein, Morgan Cato and Ryan Resch who will try to fill out a deeper contending roster for next year than the one that just meekly slunk out of the playoffs.

The Suns who entered the playoffs this year had two stars, two pretty good starters and 11 so-so guys who can’t be expected to produce regularly. They were either good at offense but terrible at defense, good at defense but terrible at offense, or good at neither but a pretty good locker room personality.

And the Suns still might have gone further in the playoffs if their two pretty good starters hadn’t underperformed and before getting hurt.

Now the offseason approaches and the Suns have very little spending power in free agency, so they’ll have to look into the trade market to formulate a roster that’s more reliable around Devin Booker and Kevin Durant.

And maybe that trade market could come sooner than later.

---

Suns salary cap

First, let’s take a look at where they stand. A few things to note:

Kevin Durant, Deandre Ayton and Devin Booker are under contract for 3+ more years, and will take up 90% of the salary cap ($121m of $134m) all by themselves in 2023-24. The Suns could clear the decks beyond these three before July 1, but would still be officially over the salary cap thanks to ‘roster holds’ and limited to cap exceptions to fill out the other 9+ positions on the roster. More on that below.

That brings us to...

Chris Paul is under contract for another $30.8 million in 2023-24.

• If he is released on or before June 28, which is 6 days after the 2023 Draft and 3 days before the new league year, only $15.8 million is guaranteed.
• If the Suns trade Paul before the guarantee date, he would be traded using his 2022-23 salary of $28.40 million
• If the Suns trade Paul after the guarantee date, the whole salary would be used for salary matching purposes, in whichever league year
• If Paul is released before June 28, the $15.8 million would be payable in a lump sum to him but could be applied to the cap as either a direct hit ($15.8 million in 2023-24) or stretched out over five years ($3.16 per year through 2027-28).
• The problem with just releasing Paul is that you now have to find a new starting caliber point guard at a bargain basement price. Releasing him only frees up, at best, the mid-level exception of $11-ish million, and frankly the Suns already need that money to find a fifth starter not a fourth starter. This is why Chris Haynes of Yahoo/TNT reported this week that the Suns won’t be just releasing Paul.

Here’s all the details. The ORANGE column is the ‘run it back’ option while the PURPLE column is the ‘strip it down for a sliver of cap space’ option.

---

Option 1: Keep em all

The Suns have 8 players under some sort of team-controlled contracts for next season, either full guarantee, partial guarantee, team option or restricted free agent. They include four guys that are very interesting trade pieces.

The Suns could keep all those guys and choose to fill out the rest of the roster in free agency and trade season. Unfortunately, that puts the Suns over the new second tax apron once you include the not-depicted ‘roster holds’ required to put the Suns at 12 players minimum.

The players and owners recently agreed to a new Collective Bargaining Agreement that has extra penalties for overspending on salaries, and the Suns are one of a handful of teams in that category.

Keeping all eight players would place these first AND second tax apron restrictions on the Suns as of July 1:

• no salary cap exceptions beyond the veteran’s minimum salary (meaning, no mid-level or bi-annual exception)
• no ability to take back more salary than they send out in trade
• no ability to send out cash in a trade
• no ability to sign a player who was bought out of a contract worth over $12.2 million (like Terrence Ross, for example)
• no ability to acquire a player in a sign-and-trade

So, in keeping all eight players the Suns are strapped on spending power while also having no tradable first round picks for Durant. What’s left, you ask?

• Deandre Ayton’s $32.46 million contract, which can be used in trade to acquire different player(s) who make up to $32.46 million (he has veto power until 7/15, though)
• Chris Paul’s contract, which can be used as described above
• Cameron Payne’s contract, worth $6 million this year, and $6.5 million as of July 1. He has a June 29 guarantee date for 2023-24.
• Landry Shamet’s contract, worth $9.5 million this year and $10.25 million as of July 1. This one can be handy in trade because it can bring back a player under longer-term guaranteed contract while giving the receiving team the flexibility to waive/stretch him for a tiny, 7-year cap hit
• $4.975 million trade exception from the Dario Saric trade, which can be used to acquire one player already under contract with another team making that much or less
• Rights to swap first round picks in 2024 and 2026
• After the 2023 Draft, rights to swap first round picks in 2030
• Minimum-salary exceptions (about $2 million each), like were used to sign Josh Okogie, Damion Lee, Bismack Biyombo, T.J. Warren and Terrence Ross this past season.

That’s it. Keeping all eight players makes it a much tighter summer on spending but not impossible.

---

Option 2: Strip it down

Alternately, the Suns could simply jettison everyone not named KD, Book or Ayton.

They could use the waive/stretch options on Paul, Shamet and Payne before end of June to convert their $47.65 million in contracts for 2023-24 to a mere $5.29 million cap hit. Those waive/stretch releases, along with waiving Ish Wainright’s non guaranteed contract and Darius Bazley’s restricted free agent cap hold would... not do as much for their spending power as you’d hope.

Yet once you factor in the CBA-required cap holds for minimum number of players on the roster (in this case, 9), the Suns are still over the cap while having just three players under contract.

In this case, though, they are under the luxury tax level and would have a few more spending options, including:

• Full mid-level exception of $12+ million per year, up to 3 years
• Bi-annual exception of $6+ million per year, up to 2 years
• Ability to take back as much as 25% more salary than they send out in trade
• Ability to send out up to $5 million cash in a trade
• Ability to sign a player who was bought out of any size contract
• Ability to acquire a player in a sign-and-trade

Sounds like a lot of options, but again that’s starting with only three players under contract, and the only one of the three you’d even consider trading is Deandre Ayton.

---

Option 3: Do your biggest business before July 1!

Get your popcorn ready, folks.

The new CBA with the tighter restrictions on spendy teams like the Suns and more than a handful of other teams does not go into effect until July 1.

There’s still almost six weeks and an NBA Draft between now and then. You already know James Jones like to make draft day deals. I’d expect even more deals across the NBA than usual this year, considering those spending limits being applied on July 1.

For the next 5+ weeks, the Suns can still take back up to 25% more salary in trade than they send out and use whatever’s left of their $5 million allowable cash to include in trades.

These players can be traded before end of June using their 2022-23 contract values:

• Deandre Ayton’s current $30.92 million contract, which can be used in trade to acquire different player(s) who make up to 25% more than Ayton’s contract, though that impacts the luxury tax bill. He has veto power until July 15, but based on the way he played this past year I’d expect he would approve any trade to a team that wants him
• Chris Paul’s current $28.4 million contract. Like Ayton, he can be traded for up to 25% more salary through end of June, though that impacts the luxury tax bill. A team acquiring Paul before June 28 could use the waive/stretch to release him and take on only a $3.16 million cap hit for the next five years.
• Similarly, Cameron Payne’s current contract has a June 29 guarantee date. He can he traded before June 29 under his $6 million current contract, and an acquiring team could release him, if they want, for only a $2 million hit in 2023-24 (or stretched for $667k over next 3 years)
• Landry Shamet’s current contract worth $9.5 million. This can be handy in trade because it can bring back a longer-term contract player worth up to $10 million a year while allowing the receiving team the flexibility to waive/stretch him with only a $1.46 million cap hit over the next five years.
• $4.975 million trade exception from the Dario Saric trade, which can be used to acquire one player already under contract with another team
• Rights to swap first round picks in 2024 and 2026
• After the 2023 Draft, rights to swap first round picks in 2030

Bottom line: the Suns should be looking to make trades around the 2023 Draft, even if it doesn’t net them their own first round pick in the deal.

For example, Flex from Jersey tweets he’s heard the Blazers want Ayton and are willing to deal their 3rd overall pick. No way the Blazers send the Suns the 3rd pick just for Ayton, and there’s all kinds of salary matching needed anyway. And, I seriously doubt a Suns team that wants to win the 2024 championship would hitch their wagon to a 19 year old kid. Could be a three-team trade where the Suns trade Ayton to the Blazers, take back really good player(s) worth up to 25% more than his $30 million and another team gets the crappy salary dumps along with the 3rd overall pick.

I totally expect the Suns to look hard at trading Ayton, Shamet, Payne and even Paul during the 2023 Draft.