Phoenix Suns Pull Surprise By Waiving Former 1st-Rounder

The Phoenix Suns want to go into this coming season with some luxury tax flexibility to add a key piece or make a trade if they need to. To do so, they had to create some space on the roster, and with that, have waived five-year NBA forward Nassir Little.

The Phoenix Suns are waiving forwards Nassir Little and EJ Liddell, per sources. By releasing both, the Suns open up a roster spot and create flexibility for signings and trades during the season. Suns will stretch the three years and $22 million remaining on Little’s deal. pic.twitter.com/UTsuimA2yX
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) August 21, 2024

It's a stretch-and-waive for Little, as the Suns will have to pay out the remaining $22 million on his contract over seven years. With the move, however, Phoenix saves about $40 million in tax penalties over the next two seasons based on its current payroll.

It's assumed that the Suns tried to trade Little first, but found no takers, which surprises at least one NBA insider.

I would have thought someone would take Nassir Little via trade. He showed some real promise in Portland at times. Reasonable contract too. Almost every team seems to be staying really, really conservative with using exceptions or taking on money.
— Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) August 21, 2024

Little did show some promise at times in his four years with the Portland Trail Blazers. In particular, in 2021-22, he averaged just about 10 points per game along with 5.6 rebounds in 26 minutes a night. All of those numbers have dropped off significantly since then.

NBA Insider Shams Charania says that the Suns have been impressed with rookie forwards Ryan Dunn and Oso Ighodaro this summer, who will now have more opportunities to play with Little out of the picture.

In addition to Little, the Suns have also waived EJ Liddell.

Little was a first-round pick (25th overall) by the Trail Blazers back in 2019. He was traded to the Suns as part of the Damian Lillard-Jrue Holiday three-team blockbuster before last season.