Suns News: Free Agent To Sign Lucrative 4-Year Deal to Stay in Phoenix
Derrick White #9 of the Boston Celtics attempts a layup against Grayson Allen #8 and Royce O'Neale #00 of the Phoenix Suns during the first half at Footprint Center on March 09, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona. O'Neale is returning to Phoenix.
The Phoenix Suns have agreed to a lucrative deal with incumbent free agent small forward Royce O'Neale, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
O'Neale is slated to ink a four-year, $44 million contract with the club, Wojnarowski reveals.
The 6-foot-4 swingman was reunited with his former Brooklyn Nets teammate Kevin Durant in Phoenix midway through the 2023-24 NBA season via trade. Across his 30 games with the Suns (eight starts), the 30-year-old averaged 8.1 points on a .411/.376/.692 slash line last year, 5.2 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 0.9 steals, and 0.5 blocks a night.
Ahead of the start of general free agency on Sunday, the well-traveled veteran reserve wing opted to stay in Phoenix after all. This is a bit of a surprise, given that the team got knocked out of the Western Conference playoffs in an uncompetitive four-game sweep by the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Thanks to a quirk in the recently ratified CBA, teams can negotiate with their own free agents a day after the NBA Finals conclude, while rival clubs cannot start chatting them up until normally free agency tips off on June 30. The state of O'Neale's market is somewhat unclear, given that he is an aging reserve, is somewhat undersized for his preferred position, and has fallen off a bit defensively and as a scorer from his Utah Jazz-era prime.
O'Neale's past achievements, combined with his decent output on a 49-33 Phoenix club in 2023-24, might have been able to secure him a contract in the range of this year's anticipated mid-level exception, which should pay a bit less than $13 million annually, $2 million more than the per-year value of this fresh reported agreement.
The Suns are looking to improve their depth following a disappointing first run with a "Big Three" of Durant, two-time All-NBA guard Devin Booker, and former three-time All-Star guard Bradley Beal. The club is a bit hamstrung by the positional overlap of Booker and Beal, both of whom are ostensibly shooting guards. Booker was shifted to a primary playmaker role last season and performed fairly well, but was certainly not the All-NBA ballhandler former Suns backcourt mate Chris Paul had been during his first two seasons with the franchise from, 2020-22.
Phoenix's "Big Three" was flanked in the starting lineup by swingman Grayson Allen, whose accurate, high-volume three-point shooting gave him the starting edge over O'Neale, and center Jusuf Nurkic, who enjoyed the second-healthiest season of his career in 2023-24, but because of his middling speed was occasionally a defensive liability.
Team owner Mat Ishbia has already fired a pair of Suns head coaches during his year-and-change running the organization, and earlier this offseason brought in Mike Budenholzer, the man who beat Phoenix during its most recent Finals run in 2021. Time will tell if he can right the ship, or if a team relying on an aging, injury-prone Durant and Beal alongside Booker in his absolute prime can truly compete in a crowded West. O'Neale, at least, should help spell Durant and Allen when they sit.
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