NBA Insider: Suns Have 'Toxic' Vibe amid Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal Trade Rumors
Few teams were discussed in trade rumors over the past month more than the Phoenix Suns, who at one point were potential suitors for Jimmy Butler and reportedly had discussions to trade Kevin Durant to the Golden State Warriors.
And that has led to a tense environment around the team.
"The word I would use is toxic," ESPN's Ramona Shelburne said during Thursday's NBA Today while describing the vibe around the Suns. "That shoot-around yesterday, I heard, was very awkward, very weird in Oklahoma City, because everybody was on pins and needles, wondering what they were going to do. Now you have this reset where, how do you move forward as a team? When there was a clear mandate here that they have to do something. ... And the thing they were trying to do did not come to fruition because Durant said no."
The Suns eventually made a trade, sending veteran center Jusuf Nurkić and a 2026 first-round pick to the Charlotte Hornets for Cody Martin, Vasilije Micić and a 2026 second-rounder, according to ESPN's Shams Charania. It just wasn't the sort of blockbuster, core-reshaping deal that had been rumored.
It isn't hard to see why the vibe has shifted in Phoenix. It's no secret the team wanted to trade Bradley Beal but were stymied by his no-trade clause and the fact that most teams wouldn't want to pay him over $50 million per season. So there's one star who knows the team wanted to make a change.
The inability to move on from Beal, however, meant that the only way to truly shake up the foundation of the roster was to trade Durant (Devin Booker, obviously, is untouchable, or at least should be). Most reporting suggested that the preference of the Suns was to keep Durant and Booker together and add a different star to the mix, but once that was ruled out, the floodgates opened on the Durant rumors.
So that's a second star who knows the team considered moving him.
And it's not as though everything was honky-dory in the first place. The Suns are just 25-25, currently 10th in the Western Conference. In parts of two seasons with the trio of Booker, Durant and Beal, the Suns are 74-58 and were swept out of the first round of the playoffs by the Minnesota Timberwolves last year.
This season, Booker, Durant and Beal have appeared in just 26 games together and have a disappointing minus-0.7 net rating when sharing the court, per NBA.com. Teams don't pair three stars together with the intention of losing the minutes all three are on the floor—there are clearly major chemistry concerns at play.
Hence, the Suns tried to make a change. That quest's failure could make the remainder of the 2024-25 season a contentious period for these Suns.
