Baseline trade for KD – I don’t think Suns would accept anything less than this.
- Spurs get:
- KD
- Suns get:
- Devin Vassell
- Harrison Barnes
- #14 pick in 2025 draft
- 2nd round pick in 2026 draft
What would our depth chart be for the 2025-26 season?
| Pos | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PG | Fox | Dylan Harper | Wesley | |
| SG | Castle | Branham | ||
| SF | Champagnie | Keldon | Minix | |
| PF | KD | Sochan | Mamu | |
| C | Victor | Biyombo | Bassey |
What would the finances look like?
| Player | 2025-26 | ||
| 1 | Kevin Durant | $54,708,609 | 35.4% |
| 2 | De’Aaron Fox | $37,096,620 | 24.0% |
| 3 | Keldon Johnson | $17,500,000 | 11.3% |
| 4 | Victor Wembanyama | $13,376,880 | 8.6% |
| 5 | [Dylan Harper] | $12,368,379 | 8.0% |
| 6 | Stephon Castle | $9,559,046 | 6.2% |
| 7 | [free agent] | $7,000,000 | 4.5% |
| 8 | Jeremy Sochan | $7,096,231 | 4.6% |
| 9 | Malaki Branham | $4,962,033 | 3.2% |
| 10 | Blake Wesley | $4,726,328 | 3.1% |
| 11 | [S. Mamukelashvili] | $4,000,000 | 1.9% |
| 12 | Julian Champagnie | $3,069,767 | 1.5% |
| 13 | [Charles Bassey] | $3,000,000 | 1.4% |
| 14 | [Riley Minix] | $2,000,000 | 1.3% |
| 15 | [Bismack Biyombo] | $3,303,771 | 2.1% |
| 16 | [veteran minimum] | $3,000,000 | 1.9% |
My assumption is that we would want to stay under the tax. This would put us right at that limit. Everyone in brackets is assumed and not currently under contract. I think this would be a good deal for this next season. The biggest bummer is that we would only have about $7M to get a shooter in free agency and that we have no money for a center and so we would just bring back Biyombo and Bassey. Maybe we could get Sam Merrill as our shooter, but no idea.
I think the biggest question is if we would be able to extend KD into another contract and then what would that amount be. If we don’t extend him, we would find ourselves $13M UNDER the salary cap for 2026-27. We could sign a player up to that amount and then another player using the NTPMLE – so we could get two solid rotation players. We also have either one or two draft picks depending on Chicago. Here is our 2026-27 depth chart without extending him.
| Pos | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PG | Fox | [Rookie] | ||
| SG | Harper | [2025 FA] | ||
| SF | Castle | Keldon | Champagnie | Minix |
| PF | [2026 FA] | Sochan | Mamu | |
| C | Victor | [2026 FA] | [Rookie] |
My fear is that this team just isn’t good enough. Keldon would be on an expiring contract so we could package him and a future pick for another big and then move Champagnie into the backup SF position. For this reason, I don’t think I would want to add another first round draft pick into the trade. I would want to be able to use that draft pick plus Keldon for an upgrade at center.
If we extend KD for something like 2 years $100M, we would be over the tax and about $5M under the first apron with the following. I assume by this point, we would move Harper into the starting lineup and see what the three guard lineup looks like. We could also still do the Keldon trade to upgrade the center position or else we only have about $7M to get the backup center.
| Pos | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PG | Fox | [Rookie] | ||
| SG | Harper | [2025 FA] | ||
| SF | Castle | Keldon | Champagnie | Minix |
| PF | KD | Sochan | Mamu | |
| C | Victor | [2026 FA] | [Rookie] |
I think I land on the trade being worth it, but I would not do it if we have to add any more draft picks. Because eventually our roster is going to be pretty thin and we need assets to be able to refill it. If we cant extend him, we will end up sending out three players that could actually be in a rotation (assuming #14 could actually play in the future) for one year of KD and then having to use free agency to replace him.
matthew.cafe 