There is neither a championship nor an MVP, why does the Suns still have to renew Booker s contract with a maximum salary?

Since Durant switched to the Suns, the outside world has great expectations for the "Duke combination" - they believe that they have both Booker who scored explosively, and Durant who is reliable at critical moments. They even joined Bill, who once averaged 30+ games in a row, in the later stage.

Then, with three superstars, Durant, Booker and Bill, even if this Sun cannot book the championship in advance like the Warriors back then, they will at least be strong contenders in the championship...

It's just that what people unexpected is that this Sun did not meet the expectations of the outside world. Last season, he only scored 49 wins and 33 losses, ranking sixth in the Western Conference and did not enter the league's championship first group. Their performance in the playoffs was even worse, and they were swept out by the Timberwolves 0-4 in the first round.

I thought they could avenge their previous shame in the new season and regain their dominance. Unfortunately, the Suns have no chance to enter the playoffs this year, and they only have 36 wins and 46 losses in the regular season to eleventh place in the Western Conference.

Durant's departure seems to be a foregone conclusion when the team has achieved bad results in succession and uncertain prospects for winning the championship in the future. I thought that with Durant leaving, the Suns boss would make up his mind to knock down and rebuild. After all, judging from their salary space and existing chips, it would be difficult to create a lineup with championship strength.

But unexpectedly, even if the three giants "Dukell" disintegrate, the Suns have no intention of completely rebuilding. On the contrary, this summer, he gave the star of the leading company, Booker a two-year, $145 million early contract renewal, completely locking up his peak period.

The Sun's contract to Booker for $145 million also puzzled many people. After all, Booker has not helped the team win the championship over the years, nor has he won the valuable personal awards like MVP and scoring champion. Even when his existing contract is completed, he is already 32 years old. Why do you have to give him such a big contract in advance?

So, there is neither a championship nor an MVP, why does the Suns still have to renew Booker's contract with a maximum salary?

1. Without good bargaining chips, the sun does not want to enter a long period of reconstruction. Judging from the current situation of the Suns, if they choose to completely demolish and rebuild, they must clean up existing players. But now the Suns don’t have enough cost-effective chips in their hands, so they can’t get back many first-round picks.

And even if there are enough first-round picks for the Suns to splurge, they may not have the confidence to develop first-tier stars "from scratch", after all, not every team is like the Thunder. Even if you choose a potential new star or a sun, you can successfully cultivate it, but how long will it take?

Even if the Suns trained another superstar player behind Booker, this is not the one who won the championship. At that time, it depends on the team's management and operation capabilities? So what's the difference between holding Booker in hand now? On the contrary, it was wasted several years because of the "reconstruction and bad" so from this point of view, the sun does not want to enter a long period of reconstruction.

2. There is basically no hope of winning the championship, but keeping Booker can make money. Judging from the current Suns salary structure and current lineup, after giving Booker a two-year, $145 million in advance, it will be difficult for them to form a championship lineup as long as there is no major adjustment in the next few years.

However, although there is little hope for the Suns to win the championship in the next few years, as long as Booker is still there, they will be able to maintain high exposure and high profitability. After all, after years of precipitation, Booker is not only the team's scoring champion (the total score exceeds 12,000 points), but also occupies the top three-pointers in the team's history with 900+ three-pointers. His core data such as appearances and time are firmly ranked among the top five in the team's history.

, and Booker's jersey sales have been firmly ranked among the top three in the Western Conference defenders for many years, holding more than a dozen brands, and annual revenue exceeds eight figures. Even though the team's winning rate dropped to 45%, his portrait was still printed on home tickets. This means that Booker has slowly become the symbol of the Sun. As long as he is still there, the Sun will not worry about exposure and income at all.

To sum up, although Booker renews his maximum salary cannot help the team win the championship, as long as Booker is still there, the Suns can easily make a profit. So with Booker's guarantee, as long as you can make money (winning the championship is second), the Suns don't want to re-enter the unknown and long reconstruction period...