One of the Phoenix Suns’ biggest priorities is sorting out an extension for their outstanding defensive pest Jae Crowder. Photo: USA Today.

The Phoenix Suns backed up their 2021 Finals loss to Milwaukee with another devastating regular season, claiming a league best – by a full eight wins – 64-18 campaign.

A first-round win over an upstart Pelicans outfit had the Suns confident of running through a weakened West, only for Luka Doncic and his Mavericks to spoil the party, though injury and COVID didn’t help the Suns’ cause.

Now their attention turns to team building and specifically what to do about Deandre Ayton, the man the Suns drafted over Luka.

The roster

The Suns roster is without doubt championship calibre, though with a future that is balancing on a knife’s edge.

The Suns are loaded up and down the roster, but their success clearly starts in the back court.

Love him or loathe him – and there are very legitimate arguments either way – Chris Paul transformed these Suns from also-rans to contenders.

It was his particular brand of intensity that coalesced a young and talented, though ultimately unproven, side into a contender.

Paul turned 37 through the playoffs and has clearly lost a step or two, averaging a career-low 14.9 points per game this past season.

He has handed more of the shot-making duties over to Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson (Devin Booker already carries plenty of responsibility) and concentrated on setting the table, leading the league in assists for the fifth time in his pro career.

Alongside him, Booker posted career-highs in points (26.8), rebounds (5.0), steals (1.1), blocks (0.4 – yeah, it’s not much but it’s still a career high) and three-point percentage (38.3).

If there was any doubt after last season, Booker has emerged from the dreaded ’empty calories’ status to a fully-blown superstar.

Bridges finally earned an All-Defensive nod this year, after being unlucky to miss out in 2021. He’s the very model of a modern role player – long and athletic, a defensive demon and a good catch-and-shoot option with enough juice off the bounce to attack a compromised defence.

He’s making the extension he signed last season look very good for the Suns.

Johnson is an elite shooting forward, Jae Crowder is an outstanding defensive pest and JaVale McGee continues to belie his early-career woes with outstanding play, even as he enters his mid-30s.

The Suns even turned Bismack ‘Hands Of Stone’ Biyombo into a legitimate starting centre for a fleeting moment.

The swing piece for Phoenix, though, is Ayton. The Bahamian didn’t get the contract extension that he felt he deserved at the end of last season, yet was able to compartmentalise and concentrate on the basketball to be played.

He produced 17.2 points and 10.2 boards whilst shooting 63.4 per cent from the floor. His offensive game is expanding and his defence has progressed impressively since his rookie year.

We’ll discuss Ayton’s contract situation a little later in this piece, but it’s fair to say that he’s an integral part of the Suns squad.

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Team needs

The Suns wish list would probably include a few minutes alone with Mr Peabody’s Wayback Machine.

The chance to turn 37-year-old Paul into 27-year-old (or even 32-year-old) Paul would make this Suns team a perennial contender for the next half a decade.

Barring an unlikely episode of time travel for their veteran point guard, planning for a future without him is the Suns’ top priority.

Paul is still a gun, but a combination of age and injury history means that the Suns need to have a better back-up plan than Cameron Payne, Elfrid Payton or Aaron Holiday.

Their team is expensive, and about to get even more costly, so their options are limited.

Phoenix’s only other pressing concerns are re-signing its own free agents in Ayton, Biyombo and McGee, as well as sorting out extensions for Johnson and Crowder.

Otherwise, this roster is set.

The cap sheet

As mentioned earlier, this team is about to become very expensive.

The Suns currently have nine players under contract (including Johnson’s team option) for $128 million.

They have free agents to look at re-signing, too. In order of urgency:

-Ish Wainwright (see ya!)
-Payton (au revoir)
-Holiday (likely won’t be offered anything more than the minimum)
-Biyombo (has earned a bigger contract than the Suns are likely to stomach)
-McGee (if he takes something similar to the $5 million he’s on, he’ll stay)
-Ayton (DEFCON ONE!!!)

Ayton is clearly the priority, here.

Given he refused to sign a sub-max offer last off-season and has only gotten better, it’s clear that he will only sign a max deal – the question is, where?

It’s worth noting Ayton is a restricted free agent – any deal he signs with another team can be matched by Phoenix.

There are only four teams (Detroit, Indiana, Orlando and San Antonio) that have the cap space to sign Ayton outright, though Portland can get in the mix if it so chooses. Given it will likely cost the Blazers Josh Hart, it seems unlikely.

Orlando has its frontline of the future and the Pacers have Myles Turner. The Spurs start the criminally underrated Jakob Poeltl, though Ayton would clearly be an upgrade over the Austrian. If the Spurs desperately want Poeltl, could a sign-and-trade be negotiated?

The key player here is Detroit. With Cade Cunningham and Saddiq Bey in place the Pistons will be looking for a mobile big man to round out their young core and Ayton would fit the bill perfectly.

Should Ayton leave the valley, re-signing McGee and Biyombo becomes that much more important, as does reintegrating Dario Saric after a year on the sidelines with a knee injury.

Let’s turn our attention to Johnson, who should sign an extension at some point this season.

Johnson averaged 12.5 points (46/43/86 shooting splits) off the bench for the Suns last season, finishing third in Sixth Man of the Year voting.

He’s good enough to start for a raft of teams in the league and the Suns will have to pay him as such. Expect a long-term deal in the $18-20 million range.

If the Suns can get his at something closer to $15 million per year, they’ll be doing back flips.

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