Dillon Brooks keeps showing Phoenix exactly what it needed, and yet the market still seems stuck treating him like a one-pick player.
That was the conversation on Yossi Gozlan’s Third Apron Podcast, where cap expert Sam Quinn joined after the L.A. Clippers were punished severely for their Kawhi Leonard shenanigans.
The discussion turned to which team has the worse future between the Clippers and Suns, and they picked the Suns. From there, Gozlan asked who holds the most trade value on Phoenix’s roster after Devin Booker.
Khaman Maluach got a mention before Quinn landed on Brooks: "Probably Dillon Brooks you could get a good first for; it's bleak."
Gozlan pushed back hard, saying Brooks was worth "not a good first; a first of some sort (for Brooks)."
That kind of shrugging valuation is exactly what feels off. Brooks just finished a career year in Phoenix, was the team’s best playoff performer, and signed a perfectly reasonable three-year, $73 million extension. Even so, he’s still being talked about like a negative asset or a guy who doesn’t really move the needle.
Phoenix fans haven’t seen it that way. They embraced him from the start.
And when he got there, the whole operation had already been battered by the departure of Kevin Durant. Plenty of people expected the Suns to sink to the bottom of the Western Conference.
Brooks didn’t single-handedly drag them anywhere, but his edge and force of will were a major part of why they ended up making the playoffs.
That’s why the idea that he tops out at one first-round pick feels too low. A contender looking for one more piece would likely have to pay more than that. And if you’re talking about a team that’s unraveling the way Phoenix was a year ago, Brooks could change the temperature overnight.
The Sacramento Kings are the clearest example of that kind of fit. They’ve been searching for someone who treats the regular season like it matters for 20 years, and Brooks would fit that bill. He’s done it before, too, with the Memphis Grizzlies and Houston Rockets.
For now, though, the perception lags behind the production. Brooks may be far more valuable to Phoenix than the market wants to admit.
In Other News...
Dillon Brooks Added An Unexpected Twist To His Suns Offseason Work
Dillon Brooks offseason routine took an unexpected turn before he even got back into NBA work, with the Suns sharing that he spent part of the summer training in Kung Fu. The setting alone stood out, and so did the fit: the Wudang Mountains in China are tied to a style built around discipline and body control, two traits that can only add another layer to a player whose game has long been defined by edge, strength and relentless physicality.
Brooks is coming off a career-best NBA season, which already gave Phoenix reason to believe it had added a veteran wing with plenty left in the tank. Now hes folding martial arts into the mix as part of his offseason routine, an unusual wrinkle that makes sense for a player looking to sharpen his body control while keeping the competitive fire that makes him who he is. [Read more 🡒]
Suns Face A High-Stakes Booker Decision In Potential Guard Upgrade
Phoenix has spent plenty of time looking for a cleaner answer at point guard, and any move that upgrades the backcourt next to Devin Booker would naturally get attention. In that kind of search, the Suns would be weighing not just fit but future flexibility, especially if the trade market is built around a team with limited draft capital and a need to think carefully about roster balance.
One speculative scenario floating around would send the Suns a proven guard option while asking them to part with a pair of young players from the edge of the rotation. For Phoenix, the appeal is obvious: a steadier table-setter to ease the burden on Booker. The question is whether the cost is too steep for a team still trying to thread the needle between win-now pressure and long-term depth. [Read more 🡒]
Suns Suddenly Have A New Center Question Fans Will Love
The Suns center room looks a lot more stable after bringing Mark Williams back into the fold, and that alone changes the conversation around the roster. Williams gives Phoenix a true interior presence with rim protection, rebounding and easy finishing around the basket, the kind of profile that can quietly reshape how a team defends and how it plays around its guards.
But the intrigue does not stop with one familiar name. Phoenix also has Khaman Maluach and Oso Ighodaro in the mix, which gives the frontcourt a different kind of depth than most teams carry, and Maluach in particular has already flashed the sort of athletic upside that makes the Suns long-term picture harder to pin down. The real question now is less about whether Phoenix has enough size and more about how the rotation sorts itself out once the competition at center starts for real. [Read more 🡒]