Suns Poor Trades Continue to Cost Them

The Phoenix Suns have made several trades to try and turn things around after acquiring Kevin Durant two years ago from the Brooklyn Nets.

Since trying to build around Durant and Devin Booker, the team has tried to continue trading as a way to make things better, beginning with the Bradley Beal deal with the Washington Wizards.

CBS Sports writer Sam Quinn believes the team's trading habits are a big reason behind where the team finds itself at this point in its process.

"Leverage is everything in trade negotiations. Unless you're getting a superstar, the moment you've decided a trade is absolutely necessary is generally the moment the you've lost the trade. Sometimes, the best trade is the one you don't make. If you're going to make a trade, do it from a position of strength. Phoenix has frequently traded from a position of weakness, and that's one of the biggest reasons the Suns are in this mess," Quinn writes.

The team negotiated from a place of weakness to get Nick Richards from the Charlotte Hornets and to move off of Jusuf Nurkic's contract in a deal with the same team a few weeks later.

That trend is expected to continue when Durant looks for a trade this offseason. The Suns almost are required to trade Durant, but they won't be getting the value that they want because the future Hall-of-Famer has just one year left on his contract, and the team won't get nearly the same amount of value in return that they needed to give up to bring him to Phoenix in the first place.

Could a Durant trade help? Absolutely, but they need to be able to fully maximize his value, otherwise it's just kicking the rock down the road waiting for something better to happen in a year or two.