Why the more the Suns struggle, the brighter the Nets’ future looks

When injury-riddled Bradley Beal finally made his return to the court on Friday night, it wasn’t just Suns fans paying attention.

The Nets are likely to be keeping an eye on Phoenix — and not just today and tomorrow, but for the next several months and the next few years.

Much of their future rebuild depends on the Suns’ success. Or lack thereof.

Trying to declare who “won” any trade is often a narrative-driven folly, especially in the early going before the final book is truly closed on the deal. But when Brooklyn general manager Sean Marks and team owner Joe Tsai got backed into a corner by Kevin Durant’s midseason trade demand, their plan was clearly to short the Suns’ future.

The current drama in the desert is making that look like at least a reasonably smart bet.

It’s not just that Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson, who arrived in the Durant deal in February, have been key starters. The Nets also got a trove of four unprotected first-round draft picks, and sources told The Post that those assets were acquired not necessarily in hopes of making all of those selections, but also to use as trade chips when the time came.

Whether the Nets opt to bid to bring New Yorker Donovan Mitchell home next summer or not, they have a Top 5 trove of draft assets going forward. Putting aside the picks owed to Houston and owed from both Dallas and Philadelphia, Brooklyn could reap the benefits of the Suns’ struggles, which could make the Phoenix picks more valuable than expected, and possibly earlier than expected.

Hot seats in the desert

Brooklyn came into Friday’s tilt in Washington with 15-16 record, just a half-game behind the Suns’ 15-15 mark. But listen to your eyes, and it’s obvious something is awry with Phoenix.

They’ve vastly underachieved compared to their lofty expectations, just 10th in the Western Conference entering Friday’s games. Injury-riddled Bradley Beal came at great cost and has averaged only 14.7 points in just six games, plagued first by a bad back and then by a sprained ankle suffered when landing on Donte DiVincenzo’s foot.

Those struggles have already seemed to vex Durant, and considering the Suns mortgaged their future to Brooklyn, the Nets pulling against Phoenix righting its supposed superteam isn’t so much schadenfreude but self-interest.

Their futures are intertwined.

“You talk to people in Phoenix and around that organization, they can feel the frustration with Durant,” ESPN Insider Adrian Wojnarowski said recently on “NBA Countdown.” “The underwhelming supporting cast, that comes from those massive trades for Durant and Bradley Beal that really gutted the organization and left them having to sign a lot of minimum players to fill out the payroll.

“And then understanding that they lack the assets — the draft picks, the trade capital — to go out and really improve this team. …This is something they’re going to have to manage in Phoenix with Kevin Durant. You’ve seen it before, and it reminds you — it is a stark reminder — of how short of a window and how this team has to win big, and they have to win big quickly based on how it was constructed. …There’s a lot at stake for this organization. It’s got to change soon.”

It’s clearly in Brooklyn’s best interest that it doesn’t change — or if it does, it gets worse.

To be clear, Durant is still friendly with many in the Nets organization, from upper management to the players. And it’s not to suggest that anybody in Brooklyn is rooting for injuries or poor health. Just better draft picks.

The same way the Celtics and half of Boston actively rooted for Brooklyn to lose after then-Nets general manager Billy King gave away a litany of first-round picks in 2013 to get aging stars Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce — assets that let them draft Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, and trade for Kyrie Irving.

Now it’s the Nets brass’ turn to scoreboard watch.

Durant vociferously pushed back against the ESPN report, saying in a now-deleted social media post: “Woj says somebody ‘feels that I am frustrated and turned into me being mentally checked out. This s–t crazy, these people can flat out lie on my name and make s–t up and you people will believe it but when my teammates n coaches speak on how I am as a teammate, u ignore it lol.”

Want to catch a game? The Nets schedule with links to buy tickets can be found here.

Gambling on the future

In fairness, Durant has looked as engaged as always. The star has been nothing short of stellar, his 30.2 points-per-game average higher than any season he had for Brooklyn or Golden State. Devin Booker is on pace for career-highs in rebounds and assists, and is close in scoring as well.

But the rest of the team has issues. Bridges and Johnson are in Brooklyn, Jae Crowder was flipped by the Nets for more picks and the Beal trade stripped the Suns of every last asset that Marks hadn’t already plucked.

Phoenix gave Washington four first-round pick swaps (2024, 2026, 2028, 2030), and will give Beal $160 million over three seasons.

If Beal delivers a title, all the Suns’ wheeling-and-dealing will be judged a smashing success and even a dim future would be forgiven. Even if he just plays well enough to keep Durant happy and engaged, it may have been worth the risk. But should he become an injured, aging albatross, the Suns are in trouble with no clear path out of it.

Brooklyn pried unprotected first-round picks in 2023 (which became teenager Noah Clowney), 2025, 2027 and 2029 from Phoenix, as well as an unprotected first-round pick swap in 2028. They already had Dallas’ unprotected 2029 first-rounder from the Kyrie Irving trade days before Durant got dealt.

In an exhaustive analysis before the season started, Sam Quinn of CBS Sports looked at all 56 traded picks on draft boards through 2030, and posited that the Nets held four of the six most valuable — topped by the 2029 pick from Phoenix.

Meanwhile, the Suns’ 2025 selection was tabbed as just the 34th most valuable.

But looking at the poor bench behind Durant and Co., and even more threadbare assets, that pick two years out could become a lot more valuable, and the latter selections could be gold.