The Official 2024 Offseason Thread

[Ghost of Kleine]

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So as I and some others had previously argued, we had all of the leverage in the Beal trade, yet gave up more value than was necessary when Beal had the full autonomy to choose where he wanted to go with the infamous no-trade clause, the fact that there were really o other legit suitors, his injury history in correlation to his huge salary was/is viewed as a toxic component in depreciative value lens when negotiating, especially with the implied risks from his injury history, etc, BUT MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, as this short video clip illustrates, the Wizards front office and ownership had already mutually committed to moving him and going in another direction.

All of these clear factors yielded complete leverage to us, yet we dealt from a point of weakness giving up more cumulative value than was truly necessary in that contextual situation. This doesn't happen IF
1- We have a real, experienced GM,
2- Our new owner isn't too impulsive and making quick rash decisions without taking the time to consider the attached consequences in favor of making big splashy moves to sell to the fanbase and league to portray himself as a big-time player in ownership too quickly.Had he only exercised a small modicum of patience, we very well might of had either Pascal Siakim and other pieces, or OG Anunoby and other pieces, or maybe even other solid options like Washington and Gafford. All for significantly less, leaving us with more options to work with. I get that he did create a superteam, but how it's constructed and what we have after to work with going forward is equally important to the big names on paper.

[Ghost of Kleine]

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[Ghost of Kleine]

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[TeamTragic]

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Finally some legit trade targets. How about that Torrey Craig?

[Stix]

Beal trade is unforgivable in my opinion.

Basically hamstringed (pun intended) our bonafide Superstar in his prime with an albatross of a contract for a dude that never was that great and is a nightly injury risk.

[Ghost of Kleine]

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KD was terrific defensively for us for sure! But the bulk of our defense shouldn't be on the shoulders of a 36-year-old KD. We need to cleverly utilize the draft by adding some ELITE potential lockdown defenders that can take the weight of this off KDs' shoulders, and distributes this more evenly throughout the roster. This would actually be a HUGE BONUS for us as it would free up Durant to focus on being even more dominant offensively without having to wear himself down trying to help anchor our defense too.

This is exactly why we need non ball dominant low usage utility defenders with lockdown ability! Also why our big board should absolutely consist of this top 3:
1- Yves Missi.
2- Ryan Dunn.
3- Jamal Shead (from the late 2nd to undrafted ranges).

Because IF we can somehow accomplish adding maybe two of these, then our defense, effort and connectivity on that end would become significantly stronger and spare our big three the unnecessary wear down of having to expend significant energy trying to help defend as much. This alone should leave our big three not as exhausted heading into later stages of the game, which will help improve our efficiency issues.

Also very important will be having these kinds of elite athletic, relentless, and physical defensive options for different matchup dynamics to offset our lack of size, athleticism, energy levels, and grit. Key defensive plays can swing the energy and momentum in games and having elite lockdown defenders such as the three mentioned above can not only energize our oft-apathetic team but are critical to stopping or at least slowing down the Ants, Shais, Lukas, Hardens, Georges, Murrays, J Browns, Morants, etc of the league that'll otherwise continue dominating us!

[Ghost of Kleine]

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Finally some legit trade targets. How about that Torrey Craig?

So as of April 15th, the 2nd apron restrictions applied to us. So we're already affected by the 2nd apron penalties. Laughably, I wouldn't hate Craig coming back yet again!

[Saberestar]

Another addition for the Suns, this one for the Scouting Department.

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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Gregory

[Saberestar]

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[lilfishi22]

No owner is without fault, even ones that have won championships. But I much rather take this line of thought than the more "popular" line of he's the worst thing ever, we're doomed as long as he's the owner and nothing he does is good that I see bandied around here so often.

Yeah, I completely agree with you.

What Ishbia has done so far this offseason?

1) He fired Vogel eating his $31M contract.
2) He signed the best HC available in the world to a $50M+ contract.
3) He signed a well respected Assistant GM.

All three moves are great but really expensive too and we know that not every owner would have been OK spending that much so I have to give him props for doing it.

So far, what I've learned about Ishbia is that it's easier for him to spend money than to come to the right answer.

When you've used a hammer all your life, it's easy to see every problem as a nail that needs to be hammered in. It will be a learning process

[lilfishi22]

I like Ish and his commitment to this team and franchise, and his willingness to spend is truly a welcome change too. I don't even mind his over-exuberant nature and overt bordering-on fanatical optimism. But he's obviously getting well-deserved criticism for the very impetuous and shortsighted ego-driven decisions he himself made that put us in this very situation that he now absent of hindsight has to fix. Right now he's just reaping what he's sown himself, nothing more nothing less.

I like that he's trying to make better decisions to maybe be able to dig us out of the hole that he again put us in. And for the sake of our franchises' future, I really hope it works.

No owner is without fault, even ones that have won championships. But I much rather take this line of thought than the more "popular" line of he's the worst thing ever, we're doomed as long as he's the owner and nothing he does is good that I see bandied around here so often.

That's cool man! There's nothing wrong with being positive. I'm really hoping for an outlier outcome to be proven wrong in my skepticism. But multiple decades of repeated absurd BS and heartbreaking disappointment have conditioned myself and many others to feel this way! It's just a natural part of the ups and downs of being a sports fan!! Just the same, I commend you and Sabrestar for being able to remain unflinchingly optimistic. Just as many of us will remain objectively concerned. We all must play our roles in these situations. It's just the balance and nature of things in this life my friend.

It's not hard because i'm neither unflinchingly optimistic (as you've described) nor dooming and glooming and there's a massive gulf between these two extremes. I'm comfortably somewhere in the middle of those two ends and my belief is that neither success or sucking lasts so all that "we're going to suck for decades" or "as long as Ishbia owns the Suns, we're going to suck) is just noise to me that is pretty easy to laugh off

[lilfishi22]

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Thanks for sharing this man. :thumbs-up:
I'll be very curious to hear what Marks says our best options are! Hopefully something very innovative or under the radar in the way of a three-team deal that returns one of B Lopez, Capela, or some other starting center option and other impact options.

Bashing Ish is the easy and the cool thing to do now but while we are very limited because of the salary cap rules, it's clear Ish is doing whatever he can outside of those rules to continue to build on the team. Getting a guy like Tellum may or may not pay dividends but the fact that we've gone out and probably put out a pretty nice offer to a guy who's apparently one of the best capologist/strategists shows Ish is trying to improve on the edges where he can. Likewise with the Bud hiring, I absolutely see him as a guy who can do great things with this team but I also think he can work with a retooled team as well should we go down the retool/reload path.

He put us in this cap sh**hole in the first place, ffs. Now he's trying to find a way to slither out of it. He's not afraid to spend and that is his only 'virtue'. He knows next to nothing about running a franchise and still wants to have his fingers in every single aspect od Suns operations. He deserves to be bashed from here to the moon. He crippled us for YEARS all the while making the most off-putting 'star' roster in history of Phoenix basketball. He'll eat up another decade of our lives as Suns fans.

I pretty much don't agree with any of this other than putting us deeper in the hole.

[lilfishi22]

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So as I and some others had previously argued, we had all of the leverage in the Beal trade, yet gave up more value than was necessary when Beal had the full autonomy to choose where he wanted to go with the infamous no-trade clause, the fact that there were really o other legit suitors, his injury history in correlation to his huge salary was/is viewed as a toxic component in depreciative value lens when negotiating, especially with the implied risks from his injury history, etc, BUT MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, as this short video clip illustrates, the Wizards front office and ownership had already mutually committed to moving him and going in another direction.

All of these clear factors yielded complete leverage to us, yet we dealt from a point of weakness giving up more cumulative value than was truly necessary in that contextual situation. This doesn't happen IF
1- We have a real, experienced GM,
2- Our new owner isn't too impulsive and making quick rash decisions without taking the time to consider the attached consequences in favor of making big splashy moves to sell to the fanbase and league to portray himself as a big-time player in ownership too quickly.Had he only exercised a small modicum of patience, we very well might of had either Pascal Siakim and other pieces, or OG Anunoby and other pieces, or maybe even other solid options like Washington and Gafford. All for significantly less, leaving us with more options to work with. I get that he did create a superteam, but how it's constructed and what we have after to work with going forward is equally important to the big names on paper.

It's good spin from the Wiz GM for trading away their franchise guy for an old CP3, a Shamet no one wants and some 2nds.

[bwgood77]

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KD was terrific defensively for us for sure! But the bulk of our defense shouldn't be on the shoulders of a 36-year-old KD. We need to cleverly utilize the draft by adding some ELITE potential lockdown defenders that can take the weight of this off KDs' shoulders, and distributes this more evenly throughout the roster. This would actually be a HUGE BONUS for us as it would free up Durant to focus on being even more dominant offensively without having to wear himself down trying to help anchor our defense too.

This is exactly why we need non ball dominant low usage utility defenders with lockdown ability! Also why our big board should absolutely consist of this top 3:
1- Yves Missi.
2- Ryan Dunn.
3- Jamal Shead (from the late 2nd to undrafted ranges).

Because IF we can somehow accomplish adding maybe two of these, then our defense, effort and connectivity on that end would become significantly stronger and spare our big three the unnecessary wear down of having to expend significant energy trying to help defend as much. This alone should leave our big three not as exhausted heading into later stages of the game, which will help improve our efficiency issues.

Also very important will be having these kinds of elite athletic, relentless, and physical defensive options for different matchup dynamics to offset our lack of size, athleticism, energy levels, and grit. Key defensive plays can swing the energy and momentum in games and having elite lockdown defenders such as the three mentioned above can not only energize our oft-apathetic team but are critical to stopping or at least slowing down the Ants, Shais, Lukas, Hardens, Georges, Murrays, J Browns, Morants, etc of the league that'll otherwise continue dominating us!

Well, if they had 3 all defensive teams, KD would have missed, If they had 4 he would have missed. If they had 5 he would have missed. There are a lot of great defensive players. There are a lot of really good ones that missed. Heck, Dort didn't make either defensive team.

[lilfishi22]

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Didn't know this until recently but Bukstein has been with the organisation since 2010 and assistant GM since the early McD days. Dude's quietly been around for ages

[bwgood77]

Bashing Ish is the easy and the cool thing to do now but while we are very limited because of the salary cap rules, it's clear Ish is doing whatever he can outside of those rules to continue to build on the team. Getting a guy like Tellum may or may not pay dividends but the fact that we've gone out and probably put out a pretty nice offer to a guy who's apparently one of the best capologist/strategists shows Ish is trying to improve on the edges where he can. Likewise with the Bud hiring, I absolutely see him as a guy who can do great things with this team but I also think he can work with a retooled team as well should we go down the retool/reload path.

He put us in this cap sh**hole in the first place, ffs. Now he's trying to find a way to slither out of it. He's not afraid to spend and that is his only 'virtue'. He knows next to nothing about running a franchise and still wants to have his fingers in every single aspect od Suns operations. He deserves to be bashed from here to the moon. He crippled us for YEARS all the while making the most off-putting 'star' roster in history of Phoenix basketball. He'll eat up another decade of our lives as Suns fans.

I pretty much don't agree with any of this other than putting us deeper in the hole.

I don't see how he really gets out of it barring the trade of KD or something, which won't really help us compete, so I don't see it happening. By the time he may decide to trade him, his value will have gone down.

That KD trade killed us, giving up THAT many firsts and key players. The Beal trade was a no brainer since we gave negative assets and 2nds up, for a guy that's had a similar career to Book, ranked ahead of him as a player just 2 years ago. Imagine if we traded Book now that he has a similar contract for a broken down old guy who could barely play, Shamet and a bunch of 2nds.

[bwgood77]

Some KD trade proposals I came across...I saw he was trending on twitter..wasn't sure why.

https://fadeawayworld.net/new-york-knicks-land-kevin-durant-in-a-high-risk-high-reward-proposed-trade

There are a few others with the same pieces mentioned in the above one (just Robinson, Mitchell and 3 firsts)...the one below is more...similar to what I mentioned before.

The Knicks have the pieces to make a deal work, too, with Julius Randle as the centerpiece. Miles McBride could be added as a young piece, and the Knicks could also send Mitchell Robinson. The real prize, though, would be the Knicks draft picks—a package of three or four picks going to Phoenix would likely top any other offers the Suns would get.

https://heavy.com/sports/nba/new-york-knicks/trade-kevin-durant-nba-exec/

[TeamTragic]

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Didn't know this until recently but Bukstein has been with the organisation since 2010 and assistant GM since the early McD days. Dude's quietly been around for ages

Good riddens to bad rubbish.

[TeamTragic]

Some KD trade proposals I came across...I saw he was trending on twitter..wasn't sure why.

https://fadeawayworld.net/new-york-knicks-land-kevin-durant-in-a-high-risk-high-reward-proposed-trade

There are a few others with the same pieces mentioned in the above one (just Robinson, Mitchell and 3 firsts)...the one below is more...similar to what I mentioned before.

The Knicks have the pieces to make a deal work, too, with Julius Randle as the centerpiece. Miles McBride could be added as a young piece, and the Knicks could also send Mitchell Robinson. The real prize, though, would be the Knicks draft picks—a package of three or four picks going to Phoenix would likely top any other offers the Suns would get.

https://heavy.com/sports/nba/new-york-knicks/trade-kevin-durant-nba-exec/

"The real prize is picks near the end of the draft"

[Ghost of Kleine]

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So as I and some others had previously argued, we had all of the leverage in the Beal trade, yet gave up more value than was necessary when Beal had the full autonomy to choose where he wanted to go with the infamous no-trade clause, the fact that there were really o other legit suitors, his injury history in correlation to his huge salary was/is viewed as a toxic component in depreciative value lens when negotiating, especially with the implied risks from his injury history, etc, BUT MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, as this short video clip illustrates, the Wizards front office and ownership had already mutually committed to moving him and going in another direction.

All of these clear factors yielded complete leverage to us, yet we dealt from a point of weakness giving up more cumulative value than was truly necessary in that contextual situation. This doesn't happen IF
1- We have a real, experienced GM,
2- Our new owner isn't too impulsive and making quick rash decisions without taking the time to consider the attached consequences in favor of making big splashy moves to sell to the fanbase and league to portray himself as a big-time player in ownership too quickly.Had he only exercised a small modicum of patience, we very well might of had either Pascal Siakim and other pieces, or OG Anunoby and other pieces, or maybe even other solid options like Washington and Gafford. All for significantly less, leaving us with more options to work with. I get that he did create a superteam, but how it's constructed and what we have after to work with going forward is equally important to the big names on paper.

It's good spin from the Wiz GM for trading away their franchise guy for an old CP3, a Shamet no one wants and some 2nds.

I don't think it's a spin at considering they were very forthcoming with reports out there about their fanbase strongly desiring a true rebuild, and their front office echoing that sentiment rather than to keep treadmilling in mediocrity.