A review of the poor trading decisions of NBA teams over 20 years to date: Suns trade Bills and Durant

Mat Ishbia officially became the new owner of Phoenix on February 7, 2023. Just 24 hours later, the Suns traded Durant. The so-called new boss syndrome has never been so quickly before: Ishbiya forced his team to give up a lot of Durant’s deals — Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, Jay Crowder, four unprotected first-round picks and a swap — triggered a string of events that nearly destroyed a team that reached the NBA Finals in 2020-21 and won the league’s best 64 games in the 2021-22 season. The problem is not just Durant's trade; it is the Suns insisting on double-betting again and again, using all aspects of their future as collateral in exchange for the current increasingly greater chance of winning. That summer, Phoenix traded Chris Paul for Bradley Bill, who had a ban on transactions and had more than $200 million left in the contract.

Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal averaged 26.6 points and 17.0 points per game in their final season with the Phoenix Suns. The total cost of Durant and Bill, including the additional draft picks Brooklyn and Washington received when changing the routes of Bridges, Johnson and Paul, is 12 first-round picks and six swaps, plus the unusual punishment caused by the NBA's most expensive lineup and second apron to date.

What are the returns of all these aggressive spending? Durant lost the second round of the playoffs in his first season, swept the first round of the second season (Bill’s first season), and ranked 11th in the Western Conference last season.

Durant is now traded away at a price that is much lower than the price that takes him to Phoenix; Bill has been bought out and stretched, and will be included in the Suns' cap of $19.4 million in the next five years; and the Suns won't control their first-round pick until 2032. No team in the NBA has a worse long-term situation than Phoenix.