Suns' Locker Room 'Toxic' Per NBA Insider

The Phoenix Suns are not in a good place right now.

Dec 19, 2024; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; Phoenix Suns guard Bradley Beal (left) and forward Kevin Durant react on the bench against the Indiana Pacers at Footprint Center. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

The NBA trade deadline is always going to be tough on locker rooms, and with the Phoenix Suns at the forefront of so much trade chatter and speculation this season, it's clearly impacted the team.

ESPN NBA insider Ramona Shelburne described Phoenix's locker room as "toxic" at the moment:

"The word I would use... I'll use toxic. That shootaround yesterday I heard was very awkward, very weird in Oklahoma City because everybody was on pins and needles wondering what they were going to do," said Shelburne.

"Now you have this reset - how do you move forward as a team when there was a clear mandate here: they have to do something. If they're not able to get anything done ... it's really hard to do something and the thing they wanted didn't come to fruition because Kevin Durant said no. It's hard to move forward and that's where they're left.

"They had this sort of fools gold run three weeks ago, they won eight out of ten. Things looked okay, but they realized afterwards they were just beating bad teams. ... The conversations between Phoenix and the Warriors, those started ten days ago. Ten days ago.

"They were essentially [thinking] if we can't move Bradley Beal, we have to think about Kevin Durant. Do they want to move Kevin Durant? Probably not, they love Kevin Durant. They gave up so much to get him. But if he's worth something right now that you can get a great return for, you have to think about it.

"So for the last ten days, these conversations with the Warriors - and other teams by the way - have been happening."

Phoenix’s locker room is ‘toxic’ right now, per @ramonashelburne

(h/t @ohnohedidnt24 )pic.twitter.com/38K9jL8WVe

— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) February 6, 2025

Like Shelburne says, the optics in the locker room certainly can't be good at the moment.

Not only are the Suns struggling on the court, but trade rumors surrounding Beal and Durant certainly have had their impact.

With Devin Booker essentially the only untouchable player on the roster, the Suns must have felt like they needed to make some sort of change.

Perhaps that comes with the dismissal of Jusuf Nurkic after he was traded - which you can read more about here.

Yet Phoenix's star experiment of Beal-Durant-Booker will extend for the rest of the season, and not quite by choice.

It's tough to say how the locker room will rebound and come together moving forward.