The average salary is $72.5 million! The Suns have not officially sent Bill away yet and have created another Bill?

For the past six months, the Sun has been desperately trying to send Bill away. Let’s not talk about his veto power for the transaction. Even if he is willing to give up this clause, no team wants him. This is not because Bill himself performed poorly - he averaged 17 points per game in a lineup that was not suitable for him and his shooting efficiency was pretty good. The problem is that he is overpaid. We are in the most frugal era in NBA history. A player who only earns $25 million an annual salary will become a "toxic contract" when he holds a $50 million annual salary.

This leads to the topic of Devin Booker -

The Suns' star is of course worth much more than 25 million annual salary, but the question is, is he worth more than 70 million annual salary?

He has renewed a two-year, $145 million contract with the Suns in advance, and his average annual salary in the past two years has reached 72.5 million, surpassing Alexander (the average annual salary of 71.25 million), setting a new NBA record. More than one salary expert lamented that this was undoubtedly a contract with a significant premium.

"Superstar" puzzle

Since Ishbiya bought the Suns, they have always regarded Booker as an untouchable superstar. When ESPN's Tim McMahon asked if it was possible to trade Booker (which might be a reasonable choice given the Suns' dilemma), Ishbiya interrupted the question and believed that the idea was simply not valid.

"It's impossible," Ishbiya said. "It's ridiculous. I can tell you that Devin Booker is in his prime. To win an NBA championship, you have to have superstars and great players."

Booker is indeed a great player, but the question is, what level has he "great" reached?

Booker was selected into the Best Team twice, the same number of times as Randle, and Randle's new contract's maximum annual salary is only about half of Booker's. One of the selections was in 2024. Under the new non-position selection rules, he was only the seventh guard to be selected. In previous years, he was unable to be selected. Booker was the last player to be selected, thanks to the league's newly introduced "at least 65 games" rules - well-known players such as Embiid, Mitchell, Trae Young and Kyrie Irving have all missed their qualifications due to insufficient plays. By the most basic standards, Booker is usually just a marginal top 15 player in the league and cannot even make it to the top 15.

Most advanced data reflect the same situation. He has never entered the top 15 of the league in terms of win contribution value (VORP), win contribution value every 48 minutes, plus or negative data. Last season, he ranked 72nd, 80th and 90th in these statistics respectively.

If you look at more basic statistics, as a player who is good at scoring, he has never entered the top five in the league in scoring. His highest true shooting percentage in a single season was 61.8% (2019-20), but was lower than Curry's average (62.5%) and just slightly higher than Harden's average (60.8%). Booker's average career real hit rate is 58.1%.

These players are the benchmarks for measurement. When you become one of the highest paid guards in the NBA, your offensive level must reach this level. You basically have to be an MVP candidate (like the superstars mentioned above) to deserve such a salary in this era - especially when you are not a very influential player on the defensive end. At least, you have to be selected for the All-A-Series like Lillard, but Booker obviously hasn't done that yet.

Time does not wait for others

Don't forget that the data we are currently discussing are Booker's peak performance, and the peak period may have passed. He is about to enter the 29-year-old season, and the contract extension will cover his 32-year-old seasons. If he is not a player in the top 15 in the league now, what will it look like in a few years?

You should know that Bill declined after signing a super maximum salary contract in 2022, but he just finished his 31-year-old season. Although Booker's career is more durable than Bill, it's hard to imagine that he will be better than he is now in three years. To be honest, by then, he might be just a fringe All-Star, but he is on the highest salary in the league.

In some cases, you may still be able to afford such a contract. For example, you have a better number one star who happens to be obtained from your draft and is still in the rookie contract period, which can play a role in balancing salary. But this is almost impossible for the Suns to happen, because they don’t have their own first-round pick until 2032, and even by 2032, that pick is frozen.

Perhaps Booker could recruit another star to Phoenix to prove his salary is reasonable - just like the Clippers gave up Alexander, five first-round picks and two first-round swap rights in order to get Paul George, but this also brought in the better Kawhi Leonard. But how can the Suns actually get such a star? They don't have a draft pick to trade and it's hard to free up enough salary space to sign a maximum free agent - because not only will they have to bear Booker's huge contract, but once Bill's contract is cut with extended clauses as expected, there will be a huge amount of dead money on the payroll in the next five years.

Another difficult contract to trade?

If this is the case, then what will the Suns be in a year or two? How happy is Booker to be on a team that always ends in April? How satisfied will the Suns management be with such a result? What would happen if future transactions were not only a wise choice, but were necessary for both parties? By then, Booker will make the transaction extremely difficult with a contract with an annual salary of about $70 million..

Although there is no veto on the transaction, can Booker, who signed such a contract, trade better than Bill at the moment? How many teams have enough matching salary on their payroll to accept such high-paying players? A few years later, most of the championship teams that Booker might be suitable for, perhaps already have one or two maximum-paid players, they may not have a few contracts of $20-30 million to stack up for another maximum-paid player, maybe only another super expensive contract, and may also be attached to a worse or vulnerable player. Think about Westbrook's situation when he was traded during the super maximum contract period: in return for Paul, who was considered to be overpaid at the time, and Wall, who was eventually out of the ball.

Matching the salary of top players has never been easy, and the current labor-management agreement makes this even harder. If the Suns really need to trade Booker, getting his team may need to match with a quality contract, so there will be less compensation for assets in the deal. More likely, they will try to trade with junk contracts. Overall, this contract may reduce Booker's future deal value.

If the Suns can really return to the championship ranks, it doesn't matter - if they can win, there is no need to trade Booker. Of course, they once thought that Bill could win, but look at the results now. Although there is no trade veto, the contract could still be one of the worst in the NBA based on Booker's possible aging. This is undoubtedly a premium contract for a team with slim hopes in the short term and uncertain long-term prospects. Before the sun could send Bill away, he created another "Bill".