The Ghost Of The 2021 Nba Finals Is Haunting The Suns’ Trade Rumors

I like to wake up each morning and, before either logging into work remotely or driving into the office, spend about 30 minutes reading new stories, scrolling my Twitter feed, and getting a gauge on what’s going on in the sports world at large. Some people need coffee to get themselves going in the morning. All I need is information. That’s the fuel, for once I start consuming it, the brain starts firing.

One story I continually see is the theory about Giannis Antetokounmpo coming to the Phoenix Suns because Phoenix is supposedly a preferred destination. We don’t know how much merit there is to any of this actually occurring, seeing as the sources never feel consistently reputable.

Still, over and over again, media outlets keep pushing it, fans keep talking about it, and every corner of Suns discourse somehow circles back to Giannis. People wonder if it’ll happen. Some are so damn excited that the possibility even exists.

It gets the clicks. I get why the remote possibility of acquiring the 10-time All-Star is discussed. I guess I’m part of the problem as well, as I sit here and type this out. But I do so more out of frustration than fantasy.

If you want to talk about things that get my blood pumping, this is one of them. Because I can’t. I genuinely can’t do this again. I cannot go through another aging star with a massive price tag coming to Phoenix, getting everybody hyped as if the parade route is already mapped out, then watching the team fall flat on its face as everyone scrambles around pointing in every different direction trying to explain why it failed instead of acknowledging the glaring goddamn reason sitting right in front of them.

We lived it with Kevin Durant. We lived it with Bradley Beal. So why the fuck would we willingly hop back on the same goddamn carousel again? I truly do not understand the mindset.

Let’s say that it happens. Let’s say that somehow, someway, the Phoenix Suns are able to acquire Giannis Antetokounmpo. I’m not even going to start contemplating what we’d have to give up, because you know and I know that it’s highly unrealistic. The Suns simply do not have a trade package you could piece together that would be desirable enough to land him.

Sure, there are other teams out there that can offer better packages. We know that. We also know, thanks to the cases of Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, that players can force themselves to a desired destination even if other offers are objectively better.

The problem is those two moves completely nuked the Suns’ cupboard. That thing has an old box of Cheerios and some honey in it (because honey never expires). And if you think the team would give up Devin Booker for Giannis, that in and of itself is certifiably insane. Booker is younger. Booker has given this city 11 years of dedication. Booker is the identity of the franchise. I highly doubt the organization would pivot away from that for an aging, injury-prone power forward as a replacement.

Still, let’s play the “what if” game. Let’s say this team acquires Giannis. Then what?

The assumption is you’d have to give up enough assets that your depth is completely shot to shit, and now you’re running veteran minimums out there night after night trying to patch together a rotation whenever somebody inevitably misses time. Chimezie Metu, anyone? And you know what that does? It puts extra strain on both Giannis and Booker, which equates to injuries and exhaustion because there’s zero margin for error. Every game becomes a survival exercise. And I don’t know if people realize this or not, but neither Booker nor Giannis exactly comes with pristine bills of health anymore.

Since coming to Phoenix and destroying our dreams in the 2021 NBA Finals, Giannis has averaged 61.2 games played per season. He played only 36 games last year. Time typically is not kind to older big men who play with the level of aggression that Giannis does. Remember Dwight Howard? He was dominant early in his career. Then the paychecks got bigger, the body started wearing down, and the production slowly followed. You do not want to become the 2017 Atlanta Hawks, stuck paying for what a player used to be.

That’s the challenge facing any team pursuing Giannis. Because wherever he goes, the expectation is that he gets another extension. He’s slated to make $58.5 million next season and has a player option worth $62.8 million the following year. He’s going to want one more massive bag before retirement. Phoenix should not be the team left holding it for a player who could be on the back nine of his career, halfway to the clubhouse for a nice Arnold Palmer.

Maybe that’s part of why Phoenix appeals to him. Mat Ishbia has shown in the past that he’s willing to spend for talent. The hope is that ownership has been learned from those mistakes. The reminders are already sitting there staring everybody in the face. Go look at the dead cap money.

If Giannis Antetokounmpo honestly were to come to Phoenix, I would not be a happy fanalyst. It’s one thing to bring in somebody who is overpriced and injury-prone. It’s another thing entirely to bring in the guy who ripped your heart out in the NBA Finals. Why in the name of John Paxson would we want that? Are we that masochistic? Do we need him to not only fuck us in the Finals, then come here and fuck our cap sheet for the next few years too?

We’ve got to get out of this mentality that every player who bats their eyes toward the Valley of the Sun needs to be Photoshopped into a Phoenix Suns jersey and admired like the Wolverine meme holding a picture frame.

I understand there are sections of the fan base that view everything at surface level. I recognize that. Still, I’ve seen way too much conversation about Giannis coming to the Suns over the past week, and it finally got me to the point where I had to write something about it.

Because, for everything this organization and its leadership keep saying about continuity and development, this move would be 25 steps backward. People need to start understanding that. They need to accept it. They need to stop getting hypnotized by the name on the back of the jersey and start appreciating the one on the front.

And maybe that’s the disconnect in all of this. Fans are still conditioned to think the next big name automatically equals the next big leap, even after the past few years have shown exactly how fragile that equation can be. Star chasing sounds exciting in May. It looks great in graphics packages and rumor cycles. Then the season starts, depth disappears, injuries pile up, and everybody acts stunned when the math no longer works. Phoenix does not need another shortcut disguised as ambition. It needs sustainability, identity, and a roster that actually fits together around Devin Booker instead of constantly asking him to survive another experiment.

Ah. That worked. The blood is coming down.