Before the draft, the Phoenix Suns resolved the Kevin Durant trade saga by sending the 36-year-old to the Rockets in exchange for Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, the No. 10 selection in the lottery, and five second-round picks.
It grew into a record-setting deal with seven teams. Now that the dust has settled, it’s time to look at one of the players the Suns got in the trade.
Brooks is one of the league’s most divisive players. During the 2023 playoffs, before the Lakers beat the Grizzlies, he dubbed LeBron James “old.” LeBron is elderly for an NBA player, but Brooks was wrong to provoke a bear if that beast is LeBron.
Brooks loves being a villain with his trash talk and aggressiveness, seeking ways to mess with the mind of his opponent. Sometimes it works in his favor, but a lot of times, it doesn’t.
The 29-year-old will brin that energy to phoenix. He’s the kind of player you despise when your team plays against his, but when he’s on your team, it’s fun to watch him aggravate his opponent.
What isn’t fun, though, is when Brooks doesn’t back his talk up with his play. It’s what got him into trouble with calling out LeBron.
What value will Dillon Brooks bring to the Suns?
Brooks is a good defender. Is he an elite defender? No, but should he help boost a defense that was one of the worst in the league last season? Yes.
The keyword there is boost. Brooks won’t fix the Suns’ defensive woes, but at least he prides himself on what he does on that end of the court.
One of the things that frustrated fans from Brooks’ first NBA stop, Memphis, was his shot selection. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t good.
Brooks’ shot selection is part of what prompted the Grizzlies to trade him. Memphis tried to find a trade partner for a couple of years before he landed in Houston as part of a sign-and-trade in 2023.
He thought he was worthy of being a top offensive option for the Grizzlies.
His shot selection, coupled with his on and off-the-court antics, didn’t make his departure from Memphis all that sad for fans.
His shot selection improved with the Rockets. Brooks’ true shop percentage in 2023-24 was a career-high 54.9%, and in 2024-25, he set a new career-best at 55.5%.
The numbers prove his shot selection wasn’t what it was in Memphis, but there were still times when Rockets fans wondered why Brooks took that shot.
Brooks tried to make 11.9 field goals per game last season, which was the fourth-most on the squad.
Houston was (and still is) one of the best defensive teams, but it didn’t have a great shot creator.
The Rockets do now. It’s interesting to think about what kind of player Brooks will be in Phoenix.
This previous season, he went from being on a top team in the league to one that didn’t even make the Play-In Tournament.
Green likes to shoot the ball (he took an average of 17.5 field goals last season), and so does Devin Booker, who is the star of the show.
Brooks might go back to his old ways of throwing up shots and getting caught up in pointless controversy if he plays for a lesser team. Suns supporters can only pray that won’t happen.
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