Things haven’t gone according to plan for the Phoenix Suns so far. Despite the addition of 3x All-Star Bradley Beal, Phoenix struggled in the regular season and that has continued to the playoffs. The Suns suffered a 105-93 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 2 of their first-round series on Tuesday, jeopardizing their chances of making a deep run this postseason. As the Suns trail 0-2, many have suggested breaking things up, including popular sportscaster Bill Simmons. However, former Suns forward Eddie Johnson has hilariously dismissed his proposal by bringing up Celtics star Jayson Tatum.

After Simmons suggested Phoenix trade Devin Booker for CJ McCollum in the summer, Johnson laid into the Boston sports fan. Johnson wrote, “That’s your mission is to break up the Suns? The Celtics need to trade (Jayson) Tatum for Trey Young and Jalen Johnson if he does not win a title this year instead of paying him 300 M then Bill,” along with numerous laughing emojis. This comes in a reply to a clip of The Bill Simmons Podcast posted by NBA Central on their official X account. 

Simmons played out a hypothetical situation on his podcast where the Suns owner, Mat Ishbia, calls the New Orleans Pelicans’ Executive VP of Basketball Operations, David Griffin. As per him, the conversation should go like this, “CJ McCollum and Trey Murphy and throw us two future picks and you can have Booker.” In many ways, Devin Booker is to the Suns what Jayson Tatum is to the Celtics.

Booker started his NBA career in 2015 with the Suns and has stuck with the team since then. He has been a key player for the franchise over the years, making 4x All-Star appearances, and an All-NBA First-team selection, along with helping the franchise to its best regular-season record back in 2022. While Booker is still one of the best guards in the league, McCollum has seen his production decline since leaving Portland in 2022.

So Phoenix giving up on Booker might not make the most sense on paper. More importantly, though, the Suns fans might not be too thrilled with the prospect of trading arguably the franchise’s best player in years. All this trade talk will go away if the Suns manage to make a comeback in the series. But as Booker stated on Tuesday, they need to execute things much better.

Devin Booker’s reaction to Game 2 loss

After the 105-93 defeat, Booker, during the media interaction, pointed out the problem that the Suns have been facing continuously. Something which was also observed in the second half of Game 2. “My frustration is just within the team… We need to execute. We play well when we’re playing and then we need to stick together once things turn bad… Done that throughout the season. Something that has to be corrected,” he said.

The Suns guard further mentioned they were just talking to each other and holding each other accountable. He also emphasized that the team has kind of separated rather than being together recently. “And that’s everybody, top to bottom. We got to figure it out,” he said.

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Now it is to be seen if the Suns can counter this problem in the next game. Phoenix has a chance to use the home-court advantage in the next two games and tie the series before heading back to Minnesota.