If this quote is real, Suns just admitted they botched the Kevin Durant trade

A Phoenix Suns executive told Keith Smith at Summer League that the team has no intention of a full rebuild and completed the Kevin Durant trade specifically to retool the roster around Devin Booker for immediate competitiveness, not future planning. The executive stated their goal was acquiring a balance of veterans (Dillon Brooks), mid-career players (Jalen Green), and a young big man (Khaman Maluach), rather than solely young players and draft picks.

The article strongly criticizes this outlook as flawed. While acknowledging that the Suns' lack of full control over their own first-round picks until 2032 makes tanking impossible and theoretically necessitates trying to be competitive, it argues the Durant trade was handled incorrectly. The author contends the Suns prioritized acquiring players like Green and Brooks instead of focusing on obtaining valuable first-round draft picks.

The piece argues the Suns should have specifically targeted getting their own first-round picks back from the Houston Rockets (the team they traded with) or pursued future first-round picks from other teams projected to decline in the coming years, such as the Milwaukee Bucks, Golden State Warriors, Sacramento Kings, or LA Clippers. The author states they should have prioritized restocking their draft assets, even after Durant's preferred destinations were known.

Instead, the Suns received only one first-round pick in the Durant deal – the No. 10 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, used to select Maluach. Although the Suns have since acquired other young players like Green, Maluach, Rasheer Fleming, Koby Brea, and Mark Williams, the author believes this group is insufficient to compete in the Western Conference. The revelation that the Suns weren't prioritizing high-value first-round picks in the Durant trade is described as an "extreme disappointment".