Suns ranked as NBA team most desperate to win now, according to ESPN’s Zach Kram

The Phoenix Suns have been no stranger to pushing their chips all in, especially after Mat Ishbia bought the team in February 2023.

The team traded four first-round picks for Kevin Durant just two days after the purchase was made official, then doubled down by trading even more draft capital to the Washington Wizards for Bradley Beal a few months later.

Even after Durant’s and Beal’s tenures ended with failure, Ishbia and Co. again pivoted to maintain a competitive team around Devin Booker instead of going into a full rebuild, which has again landed the Suns at the No. 1 spot in Zach Kram’s “NBA Now or Later” rankings for ESPN.

Kram’s formula for ordering all 30 teams combines how much financial flexibility a team has and how many future first-round picks a team holds.

Phoenix ranked as the most desperate team to win a championship now for the second time in three years, coming in fifth in the money category and second in the draft capital category.

The Suns came in fifth in Kram’s rankings ahead of the 2025-26 season, but after trading another unprotected future first-round pick for Miles Bridges during the offseason, they leapfrogged the Cleveland Cavaliers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks for the No. 1 spot.

Phoenix doesn’t seem like a team that should be adopting the most win-now stance of any in the league. The four other teams in the top five of these rankings, for instance, all won a playoff series last season and have reasonable ambitions to win more next spring.

But the Suns went 45-37 before bowing out in a first-round sweep, and they don’t have anywhere near the talent level to justify a maximally all-in approach. To be fair, they already traded most of their draft assets a few years ago for Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, and owner Mat Ishbia deserves credit for continuing to spend big money even as his team has scuffled. Yet it’s still odd to see the Suns atop this list, directly ahead of teams that should win many more games this season.

— Zach Kram, ESPN

As it stands now, Phoenix doesn’t own its own first-round pick without some kind of protection or swap until 2032. It owns first-round picks in every year until then — except 2031 — but all of those picks are least-favorable swaps among several other teams.

Money wise, Phoenix is third in payroll going into this season, and will be among the top in the next four seasons, as well, thanks to Booker’s recent contract extension and the roughly $19 million dead money owed to Beal every year until the conclusion of the 2029-30 season.

Offseason extensions given to Dillon Brooks, Collin Gillespie, Jordan Goodwin and Mark Williams — as well as possible future ones to Bridges and Jalen Green — also contribute to Phoenix’s future money allocation.

With the regular season beginning in a week, it will soon be seen whether the Suns’ performance aligns with Kram’s projected desperation.

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