Bill retreats, the sun enters a new era!

According to reports, Bill has agreed to give up his salary of 13.9 million and let the Sun buy out his last two-year contract. He became the third high-paid player in this offseason to have an annual salary of over 30 million yuan but was bought out after Lillard and Ayton.

From the perspective of the situation, this is not the best choice, but the sun finally chose to retreat. After becoming a free agent, Bill also found a way out. He is expected to reach a two-year contract of 11 million yuan with the Clippers. For many teams, this contract that is higher than the basic salary is indeed a high-quality choice.

In the summer of bidding farewell to Durant, the Suns finally got rid of the high-pressure and chaotic time of the Big Three. Even though they could only get the worst pick among many swap rights in the first round next season, they finally chose to send Bill away by directly losing their combat power. Including the previous Durant deal, the Suns team has been completely renovated, saying goodbye to the embarrassing situation of poor rotation depth but hard-working in the past two seasons, and welcomes the 2025-26 season with a new look.

In comparison, Bill's buyout operation this time is not low, unlike the Bucks who directly bought out Lillard in full, Bill's remaining 110 million contract for the remaining two years is less than Lillard. If you refer to the Bucks buying out Lillard's five-year share contract, it will be about 22.16 million yuan per year.

After the Sun bought out Bill, the most direct advantage was that they reduced their salary by more than 30 million yuan in one fell swoop, directly reducing their salary, which was originally above the second level of hard upper limit to the luxury tax line, and even the first level of hard upper limit was not even touched. In short, if the Suns intend to strengthen in the next two seasons, they can continue to trade in the trading, and the operation level is obviously much more abundant than before.

The Suns currently have only 13 formal contract players, three two-way contract players, and there are also places to be added in the free market. The Suns' current total salary is only slightly lower than the luxury tax line. Next, it depends on how the team operates. Whether it is not paying luxury tax at all, or whether it is possible to operate at a higher level than the luxury tax line but controlled below the hard upper limit of the first floor.

The next thing is to see how the newly appointed management and the team boss who has always claimed to be interested in spending money will rectify the team.

It is obvious that after the Adu trade, the Suns actively operated in the draft. Although the outside world jokingly said that the Suns spend more than 100 million yuan in the shooting guard every year, except for Booker, Jaylen Green and Grayson Allen, the other lineups are not high pressure. Colin Gillaspi, who changed to a formal contract last season, Dillon Brooks and Ryan Dunn on the wings, the frontcourt positions are young Iguodaro, two newcomers Rahill Fleming, Kaman Maluah, Nick Richards and Mark Williams who were traded from the Hornets, and Hayes Davis recruited from the European arena.

Looking back at the Suns in the past two seasons, there are almost no forwards except Durant. Compared with the current lineup, although the players' experience is immature, at least the frontcourt rotation has increased significantly, and the lineup is finally a little reasonable.

As for the next choice, it is mainly to see if Ma Wei's contract renewal can be completed before the season starts. Considering that he was returned by the Lakers due to health problems, the new season also needs a full season to regain his value. The Suns need to try to find relatively cheap renewal opportunities after he makes a fortune.

In addition to Booker and Green, Mawei should be the most important young asset for the Suns at present. It will be much easier to set the center position that has been in trouble in these two seasons early.

As for Bill's part, with the buyout, the Suns only left disappointment in the era of the Big Three. In the two years of cooperation between the three cores, the Suns made the playoffs in only one year and were finally swept out in the first round; in the 2024-25 season, there was no playoff game, and such a result was definitely difficult to satisfy.

Objectively speaking, compared with the previous season, the Suns played in the second round of the Western Conference and were eliminated in six games with the final champion Nuggets, it is indeed difficult to bring any positive contribution in the past two years of cooperation with Bill. He even failed to transfer Bill into other bargaining chips, and eventually he could only become a buyout ending.

Summary of the cooperation between Bill and Suns was originally a choice that the Sun had to do, and they were not the most suitable targets for each other. Based on the chips sent by the Sun, it is indeed difficult to call the Sun the loser of the trading at that time. The subsequent operational mistakes caused the team's formation to become more deformed. In addition, the implementation of the new salary regulations, which made it difficult for the Sun, who was under high tax pressure, to make progress.

For Bill, it was not that he had no contribution, but his contribution value was lower than his salary expectations, which made him quite embarrassing in his high salary contract. Compared with the various god-level operations of the Thunder in the same period after reconstruction, the Suns made their own choices after cooperating with Bill, which is completely the best negative case of the Thunder.

The lineup is full of loopholes, but it has to be forced to hold on. This difficult time is finally over. Since there is no desire to compete, there is naturally no need for too much salary expenditure. This may also be the reason why the team boss and the Suns management finally chose to buy out Bill.

But in the next time, the Sun must face the additional fact that the salary will be stuck in advance every year for the next five years. Perhaps the salary cap will continue to rise in the next few years, which will also make the annual expenditure of 22 million cheaper and cheaper.

But this is still part of the impact, which means that in the next five years, the Suns' annual operating space will basically start at a 10% discount on the basis of other teams. Although it is not a complete dead end, it mainly depends on how the management will operate.