Suns trade ex-Arizona Wildcat Deandre Ayton in three-team deal involving Lillard, others

The Phoenix Suns have traded Ayton to Portland as part of a three-team deal that sent Trail Blazers’ All-Star Damian Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks.

The Suns are getting Blazers center Jusuf Nurkic as part of the trade that includes Nassir Little, Keon Johnson and Grayson Allen going to Phoenix. Little and Johnson are coming from Portland while Allen was with Milwaukee.

Ayton, the Pac-12 Player of the Year in 2018 after his lone season as an Arizona Wildcat, averaged a double-double in each of his five NBA seasons with the Suns. For the last eight years overall, his career — from his junior and senior high school seasons, into college in Tucson, and then the last five seasons with the Suns — has been intrinsically tied to the state of Arizona; but the top overall pick in the 2018 draft was one of four players with max contracts on the team, along with Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal.

Now with Ayton gone, Booker is the only player left from the 2020-21 Suns team that reached the finals.

The Blazers are receiving Bucks All-Star guard Jrue Holiday, their 2029 first-round pick and a pick swap along with Ayton and the Suns second-round pick this year, Toumani Camara.

Ayton finished his last season with the Suns injured, as he missed the elimination Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals in Phoenix against the eventual NBA champion Nuggets with a rib injury suffered in Game 5 in Denver.

Ayton has been the subject of trade talks for more than a year. Averaging 16.7 points and 10.4 rebounds in his NBA career, Ayton is one of the NBA’s most talented young bigs, but has been inconsistent and lacked a consistent motor.

He had friction with former Suns coach Monty Williams going back to Game 7 of the 2022 conference semifinals when the two got into a heated exchange on the bench during an embarrassing loss to the Dallas Mavericks at Footprint Center.

However, new Suns coach Frank Vogel said during his introductory press conference in June he was looking forward to working with Ayton and getting him to an “All-Star level player.”

A month later, Ayton said in an interview in his native Bahamas he felt the “whole world hating” him and he looked to change the narrative about himself.

Ayton also made reference to last season’s playoffs. He followed that up with leading the Bahamas men’s national basketball team to winning an Olympic pre-qualifying tournament in Argentina.

The Bahamas now are a step closer to qualifying for the 2024 Olympics in Paris, but Ayton took heat on social media for his comments following the pre-qualifying tournament title game win about his Bahamas teammates that made some question his relationship with the Suns.

“The best teammates I’ve ever been around on and off the court,” Ayton said after the game. “Just understanding how it feels to fight for your country and everybody on the same mission. It was a phenomenal feeling.”

The Suns appeared ready to go into the season with Ayton, but they’ve parted ways with him less than a week before the start of training camp Tuesday.

This is the third blockbuster trade the Suns have made under new team owner Mat Ishbia with Durant being first before last season’s trade deadline and Beal during this summer’s offseason.

Nurkic will fill Phoenix’s void at center left with trading Ayton. Nurkic is on the second year of a four-year, $70-million deal and is due $16.8 million this season. Nurkic averaged 13.3 points on 51.9% shooting and 9.1 rebounds last season in 52 games.

Ayton is on the second of a four-year, $133-million deal and is due $32.4 million. Ayton averaged 18 points on 58.9% shooting and 10 rebounds in 67 games last season.

Allen is in the final year of a two-year, $18.7-million deal and will be an unrestricted free agent after the 2023-24 season. So Allen has an expiring contract, a situation that helps the Suns moving forward financially.

Little is in the first year of his four-year, $28-million extension while Johnson is on a four-year, $12.5-million deal.