If you're brave enough to look back on the 36 win season that was 2024-25 for the Phoenix Suns, trading center Jusuf Nurkic was one of the key moments of that campaign. The reasoning for doing it at the time made sense, and it was because Nurkic didn't feature in the plans of then head coach Mike Budenholzer.
There was another more important reason however, and that was because the Suns were operating in the second apron, and were panicking in trying to find ways to get more flexibility to improve their roster. Adding Nick Richards and Cody Martin from Charlotte in two different trades - which also saw Josh Okogie go the other way - was as good as it got and it was nowhere near good enough.