From Superteam to Super Letdown: The Phoenix Suns’ $400 Million Disaster

How many good players must come to Phoenix for them to win a title???

There’s something hilariously tragic about watching a basketball empire crumble in real-time. The Phoenix Suns—who once had GM’s across the league studying their roster-building blueprint—just got bounced from playoff contention only mere days after getting absolutely demolished by the Warriors 133-95. After putting together the big time star power trio of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal, their season is what can only be described as basketball’s version of buying a winning lottery ticket then immediately setting it on fire while livestreaming the whole thing.

The aftermath? Head Coach Mike Budenholzer got his walking papers after just ONE SEASON. That’s not even enough time for the man to develop a proper sunburn in Phoenix, let alone construct a championship roster from the wildly expensive pieces he inherited.

The Big Money Flop

Let’s talk numbers because they’re absolutely staggering. The Suns assembled the NBA’s first $400 million roster with three max players in Booker, Durant, and Beal, who were due a combined $150 million this season alone. For that astronomical investment, Phoenix’s billionaire owner Mat Ishbia got:

• A 36-46 record
• Zero playoff appearances
• The NBA’s most expensive lottery team
• A season-worst seven-game losing streak to close things out

Wowzers!

The most devastating quote from that Warriors beatdown didn’t come from a stat sheet—it came from Devin Booker himself, who stared into the abyss of organizational failure and recognized what was missing:

“They built a culture and environment that they’ve sustained for a long time—they don’t expect nothing less than a championship and understand what goes into that,” Booker said of the Warriors. “It showed.”

That’s basketball-speak for “we’re just three guys in expensive jerseys while they’ve spent the better part of the last decade being a fully operational Death Star.” The Warriors have constructed something sustainable through years of careful development, while after blowing a 2-0 lead in the 2021 NBA Finals Phoenix has been throwing money around like a teenager who just found their parents’ credit card.

The Jimmy Butler saga feels like the perfect encapsulation of this Suns disaster. While Phoenix spent months reportedly trying to navigate the financial labyrinth created by Beal’s no-trade clause (one of only two in the entire NBA alongside LeBron), the Warriors casually strolled in, made a deal happen, and proceeded to transform their entire season.

The Warriors are one win away from claiming the 7th seed in the playoffs after looking dead in the water before the All-Star break. Butler hasn’t even needed to put up gaudy numbers; he’s simply slotted perfectly into the Curry ecosystem that’s been revitalizing aging stars for years. The system matters. The fit matters. The culture matters.

Meanwhile, the Suns were left standing there with their $400 million roster like someone who spent three hours crafting the perfect text message only to get left on read. What’s truly baffling is that Butler reportedly wanted Phoenix as his destination. The Suns tried everything short of trading arena naming rights to make it happen. But that Beal contract created an immovable obstacle that not even the NBA’s most creative accountants could navigate around.

So instead of Jimmy bringing his talents to the Valley of the Sun, he joined the Bay Area basketball machine that keeps humming along year after year, finding new ways to reinvent itself while maintaining its championship DNA.

The Teardown Begins

Now comes the really wild part. According to Shams Charania, the Suns are preparing for a massive roster overhaul that will likely start with—wait for it—Kevin Durant. Devin Booker apparently remains “the foundation of everything they’re doing in Phoenix,” while Durant and his business partner Rich Kleiman will be “working together on his next trade home.”

Poor Booker, though. He’s gotta get a new head coach.

As for Budenholzer, the man went from winning an NBA championship with Milwaukee to getting unceremoniously dumped after just 82 games in Phoenix. Talk about basketball whiplash—from championship parade to unemployment line faster than you can say “player empowerment era.”

The Suns’ collapse isn’t just about talent. It’s about foundation. Phoenix assembled stars without considering how they’d play together or what system would maximize their abilities. They sacrificed depth, defense, and draft capital in pursuit of instant gratification.

As this $400 million experiment goes up in smoke, Phoenix fans are left wondering what might have been if they’d kept Bridges, Johnson, and all those picks instead of chasing the superteam dream. The answer, as it turns out, was written on the scoreboard as the Warriors walked off the court with a 38-point victory.

Sometimes the best moves are the ones you don’t make. And sometimes, the basketball gods make you pay for your hubris with compound interest.