Preface
With the playoffs going on, there are also some people happy and some worried, the Clippers and the Mavericks as the most fierce group of matchups in the first round, they are currently tied with a score of 2-2, and the strength of the two sides is also equal, so the two sides have a high probability of playing to the end to determine the winner. There are also the Cavaliers and Magic in the East, they are another group of teams that are drawn, and the young Magic, led by Banchero and Wagner Jr., have chased two games in a row, and now it is impossible to say who will die.
However, in addition to these two sets of matchups, the rest of the teams are basically clear winners and losers, Nuggets 3-1 Lakers, Knicks 3-176ers, Thunder 3-0 Pelicans, Bucks 3-1 Pacers, Celtics 2-1 Heat, the most promising of these matchups is actually the Lakers, due to Murray's injury, they seem to smell a glimmer of life again, provided that Russell can keep the G4 play.
But even if these teams are eliminated, they are not the most humiliating, because the Suns have lost to the Timberwolves, and they have become the first team to be swept out of the playoffs this season. As a team with a Big Three lineup, everyone's expectations for the Suns are championship-winning, no one would have thought that they would lose so simply, except for G4, they can be said to be being beaten by the Timberwolves, and the performance of the 22-year-old Edwards on the opposite side completely crushed any of their giants.
At the end of this series, the 35-year-old Durant was the one who played the best, he averaged 26.8 points, 6.5 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.5 blocks per game, and he only G2 was a pull in four games. Booker, on the other hand, averaged 27.5 points, 3.3 rebounds, 6 assists and 1.8 steals per game, and he had a terrible performance in G1 and G2, where he scored 18 points on 16 shots and G2 scored 20 points and had 6 turnovers.
However, compared with Beal, Durant and Booker's performance can be said to be no problem, and Beal averaged 16.5 points, 2.8 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 3.3 turnovers per game in this series. Especially in the final life-and-death battle G4, when he was going to take a holiday when he lost, Beal shot 4 of 13 from the field, 1 of 5 from three-point range and got 9 points, 1 rebound and 2 assists, in addition to 6 turnovers and 6 fouls, and finally his game plus/minus of -12 was also ranked first in the team. It can be seen that whether it is offensive or defensive, Beal's effect is far from meeting the Suns' expectations of him, and even even including the regular season, Beal's performance this year is extremely bad.
Beal played in 53 games in the regular season, averaging 18.2 points, 4.4 rebounds, 5 assists and 2.5 turnovers per game, and because of his frequent absences, the oldest Durant was forced to play more games, which also caused him to not have the most physical strength and physical condition in the playoffs. You must know that the team traded to Beal to let him share the pressure on Durant and Booker, but he was good enough to let them carry the weight from the beginning of the regular season.
In this way, the Suns' strategy of exchanging Paul for Beal in the 2023 offseason can be said to be a mess, although the former has not even made the playoffs in the Warriors this year, but at least he is playing a positive role on the court, and he is also one of the few players worthy of the playoffs for the Warriors. And compared to Beal, Paul's tandem offensive ability is much stronger than him, when Paul is lost, their big three are left with "standing stick singles", and the ball quotient and passing of the three people combined are not necessarily as tall as Paul alone.
The most critical thing is that because the Wizards will provide Beal with a super cap salary of 251 million for 5 years in 2022, his annual salary this season is also as high as 46.74 million, ranking 6th in the league. At the same time, it means that such a bill will continue to stay in the Suns for the next three seasons, and his salary is gradually increasing every year, and his annual salary will exceed 50 million from next season.
Even so, the Suns can only choose to restructure the roster in the offseason, first of all, Vogel is definitely going to be cut, he has completely lost control of the locker room, and the relationship between Beal and him is visible to the naked eye There are contradictions. The most promising of the Big Three are Booker and Beal, the former is the youngest and can play well, and a large part of the reason why he has not played so well this year is that he has to play more of the No. 1 position due to lineup problems, and Beal's words are simply smashing hands.
Durant's words, he still has oil, at least he deserves his annual salary, and his contract year is shorter than Beal's. But when the time comes, it is not certain whether the Suns want to trade Durant, or Durant wants to go by himself, for Durant, whose career has begun to count down, it is meaningless to continue to stay in a team like the Suns, which has no hope of competing for the championship in recent years, and this was the case when he was in the Nets, so he applied for a trade, and now he is in this situation again, so he is likely to make the decision to leave the team again.
If Durant leaves, then Booker and Beal will be even more finished, unless Durant's departure can be exchanged for an All-Star level interior and an above-average point control, and these two people must have no obvious shortcomings in offense and defense, otherwise they can't take Booker and Beal. However, judging from the Suns' current trade chips, this is obviously unrealistic, no matter how strong Durant is, he will soon be 36, so his trade value will definitely decline compared to the previous two years.
The current Suns team has completely reached a situation where there is no room for maneuver, the team's core strength has declined, and there are not many trade chips in hand, except for Durant and Booker, the rest of the sum is not enough. There is also the fact that the Suns have almost given away their draft picks in order to get Durant and Beal, and Durant alone has cost them four first-rounders, so it is unlikely that they will rebuild on the spot, but if it continues like this, the luxury tax alone will cost tens of millions every year, so the Suns will have to be the top three even if not the worst team this year.