Suns’ Traded Future 1st-Round Picks Among Most Valuable in NBA

PHOENIX -- The Phoenix Suns have made it abundantly clear through several trades that they would rather trade future draft picks for win-now players and owner Mat Ishbia has gone on record in saying that "draft picks are to get great players."

This has led to the Suns not having full control of any first-round pick through 2032 in large part due to the original trades to acquire Kevin Durant from the Brooklyn Nets and Bradley Beal from the Washington Wizards.

Phoenix was able to re-acquire its No. 10 pick in this year's draft, which it used to select Duke's Khaman Maluach, by trading Durant to the Houston Rockets, but the Suns will now have to attempt to reload the team without any favorable draft picks the next several years.

CBS Sports' Sam Quinn had a plethora of Suns' draft picks ranked near the top of his list of the 63 traded future first-round NBA draft picks that have the most value, including five in the top nine.

This is where the Suns' picks ended up in Quinn's rankings with descriptions for some:

22. 2026 Phoenix Suns (Swap with Washington Wizards)

Quinn: "OK this is a somewhat complicated situation. In this slot, we are just ranking Washington's ability to swap places with Phoenix in 2026. Separately, we will rank where Phoenix's pick is likely to actually end up. So, if Washington isn't where Phoenix's pick is likely to end up, why is it ranked so high? Because of the lottery system. Let's imagine a scenario in which Washington and Phoenix finish in the same slots they did last year. Washington would have the No. 2 slot ... but it would also have the No. 10 slot, because if Phoenix moves up, the Wizards would just swap picks with them. So Washington will probably be worse than Phoenix this season, and therefore is unlikely to actually swap picks with the Suns. But getting an extra set of ping pong balls in the flattened lottery odds era is enormously valuable."

12. 2030 Phoenix Suns (Swap with Washington Wizards or Memphis Grizzlies)

9. 2028 Phoenix Suns (Swap with Brooklyn Nets, Washington Wizards or Philadelphia 76ers)

Quinn: "Brooklyn traded the bulk of its Phoenix inventory to Houston to regain control of its own picks. This selection, however, they managed to hold onto, and it's a valuable swap in more ways than one. Obviously, as we'll soon get to, Phoenix has some of the most valuable owed picks in the entire league. The cherry on top of this one, though, is that the Nets do not necessarily need to swap it with their own pick. They also have that 2028 76ers pick provided it actually conveys, and they can swap that one instead of their own if they need to. Phoenix will therefore essentially wind up with whichever of those two picks is worse, and then Washington can swap on top of that one if they want to. We won't bother ranking those secondary swap rights separately because of how complicated this whole situation is, but any time you can swap one of multiple picks for a Suns pick, it's going to be among the most valuable swaps on the board."

8. 2026 Phoenix Suns (Memphis will receive the less favorable of Washington's or Phoenix's pick, or Orlando's pick if it is more favorable)

Quinn: "Yes, I know, we've covered the 2026 Suns already. Bear with me. The first time we addressed them, we were talking solely about Washington's swap rights. Now we're talking about something a bit juicier. Once Washington's swap rights are addressed, we move down the list to Orlando. Phoenix traded secondary swap rights on its 2026 pick to the Magic two summers ago, and Orlando, in turn, packaged those rights to Memphis in the Desmond Bane trade. That means that the Grizzlies will get whichever pick is worse between Phoenix and Washington this year, but with a cherry on top: if Orlando's pick is better than that one, the Grizzlies get that pick instead. That last part is unlikely, so Memphis should expect to receive either Washington's or Phoenix's first-round pick. As we assume both will be bad this year, that choice is going to be worthwhile no matter what becomes of Washington's swap rights."

5. 2027 Phoenix Suns (Owed to Houston Rockets)

4. 2031 Phoenix Suns (Owed to Utah Jazz)

3. 2029 Phoenix Suns (Owed to Houston Rockets or Brooklyn Nets)

Quinn: "Ranking the Phoenix picks is agonizing. What do you do with a team that's bad now and likely to be bad later? In the end, this is the order I settled on for the following reasons:

"The 2027 pick is the least valuable of the three because Phoenix isn't a true bottom-dweller yet. Devin Booker is still here. He's still in his prime. There are decent, older role players. There's a modicum of remaining flexibility after the Bradley Beal buyout. I would expect this pick to come in toward the middle of the lottery, perhaps slightly lower if they can make the Play-In Tournament.
The 2031 pick is slightly better because of the long time horizon. It's just a bit more tradable. By then, Booker will either be long gone or 35 years old. Jazz GM Justin Zanik called this "the most valuable asset on the market" at the 2025 deadline. Sure enough, no pick traded at the 2025 deadline ranks higher.
The 2029 pick wins out as the goldilocks pick. It's far enough away that Booker will likely have declined or been traded. It's close enough that if Booker is eventually traded, most of the picks acquired in that trade won't have borne fruit yet. Unlike the 2031 pick, Phoenix will still have dead Bradley Beal money on its books in 2029.

"That was my logic. You could argue any order for these picks. The 2027 pick comes with the most certainty, especially since we know how good the Western Conference is now. The 2031 pick is tempting because it's so far out and Phoenix controls none of its own picks until then, so rebuilding will be a challenge. The 2029 pick technically could wind up in Houston, but only if it is worse than both Houston's own pick and Dallas' pick, so if that happens, it's likely less valuable than we figured anyway. So 2029 wins by a hair, but any of these three Suns picks could plausibly jump into the top four on lottery night."

Only the Milwaukee Bucks' 2029 first-rounder (owed to Portland Trail Blazers or Washington Wizards) and the 2026 New Orleans Pelicans first-round pick (owed to Atlanta Hawks) place above these three Suns' picks.

It's safe to say the Suns took a huge swing trading away all of these picks, and it has not paid off at all so far after the team missed the playoffs this past season and moved off of both Durant and Beal this summer.

Phoenix was still able to get significantly younger this offseason and trade its way into a high first-rounder and two high second-rounders, so this might be a strategy the Suns employ moving forward if they want draft picks.

Still, it's hard to grasp what the future of this Suns team is without any good draft picks, especially in Devin Booker's prime.