Trade Deadline Countdown....What will we do? What should we do?

[jcsunsfan]

Grant is essentially a 1st round pick - he's a good player on a 4yr deal...

Grant is a backup rookie pg who can't get minutes on the Knicks, who are desperately in need of a pg. He shoots 34% from the field and 15% from the 3 CONSISTENTLY, like clockwork. Where is the good player in those numbers?

Ronnie Price and Archie Griffen are MUCH better players than Grant, and you want to trade Knight? Yikes.

[Saberestar]

Grant is essentially a 1st round pick - he's a good player on a 4yr deal...

He is really old for a rookie player, and he is not having any impact on a meh team like the Knicks. Low upside.

[TASTIC]

Grant is essentially a 1st round pick - he's a good player on a 4yr deal...

Grant is a backup rookie pg who can't get minutes on the Knicks, who are desperately in need of a pg. He shoots 34% from the field and 15% from the 3 CONSISTENTLY, like clockwork. Where is the good player in those numbers?

Ronnie Price and Archie Griffen are MUCH better players than Grant, and you want to trade Knight? Yikes.

He's a rookie who's shown when he gets minutes he can contribute.

Fisher's rotations are a friggin mess and I guarantee if he trusted Grant to play 28-30min he'd produce.

I want to trade Knight to get out of that deal and clear up the starting guard logjam that we'll have next season with Bledsoe and Booker, plus Bogdanovich coming over. Grant's a young piece who was the 19th pick - he has value.

[TASTIC]

Grant is essentially a 1st round pick - he's a good player on a 4yr deal...

He is really old for a rookie player, and he is not having any impact on a meh team like the Knicks. Low upside.

Who cares though, he's only 23 and had a stellar career in College.

Missed almost two full seasons and came back with a Senior year where he averaged 16.5pt/3.0reb/6.7ast/48%FG 78% FT and better than 3:1 assist to turnover.

I would kill for a PG who had a 3:1 A/T on this team!

He was pretty highly coveted going into the draft and after it was seen as a steal too:
https://www.numberfire.com/nba/news/5573/why-jerian-grant-is-the-steal-of-the-2015-nba-draft

I'm saying if they're going to trade Knight or whoever and actually embrace tanking and giving young guys minutes, if Archie isn't the PG of choice (think most of us can agree while his last 2 games have been great, he isn't a real point guard), then a guy like Grant is a good player to have in the fold on the cheap.

I'm not saying he's better than Archie or Price, but Price should be dealt to a contender if we get any type of 2nd for him or a useful expiring, while Archie should get 25-30mins regardless of whether he starts or is off the bench.

[Saberestar]

Grant is essentially a 1st round pick - he's a good player on a 4yr deal...

He is really old for a rookie player, and he is not having any impact on a meh team like the Knicks. Low upside.

Who cares though, he's only 23 and had a stellar career in College.

Missed almost two full seasons and came back with a Senior year where he averaged 16.5pt/3.0reb/6.7ast/48%FG 78% FT and better than 3:1 assist to turnover.

I would kill for a PG who had a 3:1 A/T on this team!

He was pretty highly coveted going into the draft and after it was seen as a steal too:
https://www.numberfire.com/nba/news/5573/why-jerian-grant-is-the-steal-of-the-2015-nba-draft

I'm saying if they're going to trade Knight or whoever and actually embrace tanking and giving young guys minutes, if Archie isn't the PG of choice (think most of us can agree while his last 2 games have been great, he isn't a real point guard), then a guy like Grant is a good player to have in the fold on the cheap.

I'm not saying he's better than Archie or Price, but Price should be dealt to a contender if we get any type of 2nd for him or a useful expiring, while Archie should get 25-30mins regardless of whether he starts or is off the bench.

Well, he is not a bad player but I think that Knight has more value that Grant and expirings. I don't like Knight, but I think we can have a better player or pick for him, just that.

[ImNotMcDiSwear]

I think we should be patient with Knight. If the coaches can get him to run the offense - put the ball in others' hands; trust his teammates (like Archie has) - then he'll be great. He's simply trying to do too much.

[letsgosuns]

I think we should be patient with Knight. If the coaches can get him to run the offense - put the ball in others' hands; trust his teammates (like Archie has) - then he'll be great. He's simply trying to do too much.

If Knight was still in his second or third year in the league, then you can afford to be patient with him. But this is his fifth year. And age does not matter when you have been in the league for five seasons averaging 30+ minutes a game each year. He even played over 32 minutes per game as a rookie. I consider him a veteran.

The biggest issue is that he got a 5 year, 70 million dollar contract. That means you need to produce immediately. The time for developing into a productive player is over. He should be there already. Yet he makes countless boneheaded mistakes every game he plays. He also has never led a team anywhere. When Bledsoe went down, it was Knight's big chance to prove he could be "the man" at point guard like he wanted to be and it has been a disaster.

Watching Knight is hard to do because he is so bad at simple things. Outside of actual turnovers, he makes many passes that are telegraphed by the defense and get deflected but the Suns still retain possession. It happens so often I wonder if his skill level is that poor of if he is that stupid. Maybe it is both. Regardless, I can see it immediately with Knight. He has to go if this team wants to get better. He is too small and weak to play the two guard and is definitely not worth his contract.

[bwgood77]

I think a more realistic target would be Brooklyn's 2017 pick. How about http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=h8pj556 with CLE getting its own 1st back, and PHX taking DAL '16 and BKN '17?

Though, frankly, Longabardi's hiring probably makes a PHX trade less likely.

Why? I don't think an assistant coach has power to nix a trade. But I don't think Mike was fired because of a rif between he and players. If anything it might increase the possibility, for he already has knowledge of our players, their habits, and a connection that other coaches won't have from the jump.

Yeah, at first when I read that I thought "Makes sense...I doubt Longabardi wants Kieff" but Kieff usually didn't have a problem with coaches or players, and with reports of Longabardi possibly undermining Jeff trying to get in position to take over if Jeff got fired, he may have been telling Kieff he should be playing more or something (thus, Kieff throwing towel in Jeff's face).

Of course that is huge speculation, but it's possible.

[bwgood77]

I think we should be patient with Knight. If the coaches can get him to run the offense - put the ball in others' hands; trust his teammates (like Archie has) - then he'll be great. He's simply trying to do too much.

If Knight was still in his second or third year in the league, then you can afford to be patient with him. But this is his fifth year. And age does not matter when you have been in the league for five seasons averaging 30+ minutes a game each year. He even played over 32 minutes per game as a rookie. I consider him a veteran.

The biggest issue is that he got a 5 year, 70 million dollar contract. That means you need to produce immediately. The time for developing into a productive player is over. He should be there already. Yet he makes countless boneheaded mistakes every game he plays. He also has never led a team anywhere. When Bledsoe went down, it was Knight's big chance to prove he could be "the man" at point guard like he wanted to be and it has been a disaster.

Watching Knight is hard to do because he is so bad at simple things. Outside of actual turnovers, he makes many passes that are telegraphed by the defense and get deflected but the Suns still retain possession. It happens so often I wonder if his skill level is that poor of if he is that stupid. Maybe it is both. Regardless, I can see it immediately with Knight. He has to go if this team wants to get better. He is too small and weak to play the two guard and is definitely not worth his contract.

I want to trade Knight and I'm not a big fan, however, I'd be a little surprised if he was traded after McD gave up what he did for him.

As for age, it IS his 5th year, but he also came out after 1 year in college, so it's not really that much different than a four year college guy in his second year. He's also switched teams a few times, which could impact development when you keep going from coach to coach. He's already had Lawrence Frank, Larry Drew, Jason Kidd and now Hornacek.

I agree that he should be better, especially if he considers himself a point guard, and he should take smarter shots.

So I hope he improves, because he is probably hard to trade with that contract and a league full for good guards (especially point guards).

[kennydorglas]

If Longabardi helps us to get rid of Kieff with a decent offer, he'd be my hero for all the eternity.
If he stomps this Cleveland team even more, he'd be already in my HOF ballot.

[jcsunsfan]

Our memories are short with Knight. During the first month of this year he was looking great. That was when he didn't see himself as the only player left on the floor. He still is averaging almost 20 a game with nearly 5 assists. I am not saying that I want him as part of our future or anything, but he has value--to the Suns and others.

[bigfoot]

Every morning I wake up hoping to see Kieff traded ... disappointed yet again

[GetYourPHX]

Brandon Knight out for the upcoming road trip per the AZ Republic - http://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/nba/suns/2016/01/25/phoenix-suns-brandon-knight-sit-out-4-game-trip/79307070/?from=global&sessionKey=&autologin=

This is a mysterious injury for sure. Between the amount of time out and the trip to LA something is up with Knight.

The simple explanation is that he thought he had a sport hernia and wanted to make sure everything was good.

The fun explanation is that the Suns are showing him the door and deciding between deals.

[GetYourPHX]

My favorite rosterbation trade that I've come up with is with OKC

Suns trade Chandler and Knight for Kanter, Waiters, and Payne

Goodwin/Payne
Booker/Waiters
Warren/Tucker
Kanter/Mirza
Len/Kieff

It would be a fun 10 man rotation and give us a ton of flexibility. I know Kanter is a flawed player, but I'd rather watch him than Chandler over the next 4 years. His post game is top-notch and he straight up balls on the offensive end of the court. I absolutely love what Payne brings to the table as a backup for Bledsoe in the future, and bringing him aboard would make Goodwin a tasty asset to move over the summer. Being able to offer a team the bench scoring of Mirza/Waiters/Kieff before the deadline might be able to bring back some assets as well.

[bwgood77]

Every morning I wake up hoping to see Kieff traded ... disappointed yet again

Every afternoon I come across this post and it never fails to make me laugh.

[bwgood77]

Brandon Knight out for the upcoming road trip per the AZ Republic - http://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/nba/suns/2016/01/25/phoenix-suns-brandon-knight-sit-out-4-game-trip/79307070/?from=global&sessionKey=&autologin=

This is a mysterious injury for sure. Between the amount of time out and the trip to LA something is up with Knight.

The simple explanation is that he thought he had a sport hernia and wanted to make sure everything was good.

The fun explanation is that the Suns are showing him the door and deciding between deals.

Man if we somehow were able to trade Knight and Markieff for Love I would be overjoyed. The second game on the trip is against the Cavs too.

[RunDogGun]

Brandon Knight out for the upcoming road trip per the AZ Republic - http://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/nba/suns/2016/01/25/phoenix-suns-brandon-knight-sit-out-4-game-trip/79307070/?from=global&sessionKey=&autologin=

This is a mysterious injury for sure. Between the amount of time out and the trip to LA something is up with Knight.

The simple explanation is that he thought he had a sport hernia and wanted to make sure everything was good.

The fun explanation is that the Suns are showing him the door and deciding between deals.

Man if we somehow were able to trade Knight and Markieff for Love I would be overjoyed. The second game on the trip is against the Cavs too.

It would be great if it happened that day, so we would not have to face a disgruntled Morris. And we wouldn't be losing anything, because neither of the two we'd be giving up are playing for us. But I thought the choice was Blatt or Love, and Love won.

[bwgood77]

Brandon Knight out for the upcoming road trip per the AZ Republic - http://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/nba/suns/2016/01/25/phoenix-suns-brandon-knight-sit-out-4-game-trip/79307070/?from=global&sessionKey=&autologin=

This is a mysterious injury for sure. Between the amount of time out and the trip to LA something is up with Knight.

The simple explanation is that he thought he had a sport hernia and wanted to make sure everything was good.

The fun explanation is that the Suns are showing him the door and deciding between deals.

Man if we somehow were able to trade Knight and Markieff for Love I would be overjoyed. The second game on the trip is against the Cavs too.

It would be great if it happened that day, so we would not have to face a disgruntled Morris. And we wouldn't be losing anything, because neither of the two we'd be giving up are playing for us. But I thought the choice was Blatt or Love, and Love won.

I have no idea if keeping Lue means they can't keep Love, but Bill Simmons made a good point earlier when saying in finals, with top west teams going small, they can only play 1 of those 4 bigs at the same time. Also, if they go small, Knight actually fits better there because LeBron would NOT allow him to dribble the ball that much, so he'd turn into more of a spot up shooter.

So I guess it depends on if they want to pay that much to Thompson/Love when only one will likely be on the court in small lineups, or add depth in backcourt and get two super subs off the bench. I know most here don't like Kieff and many don't like Knight, but you can't deny in the right situation that they would be super subs.

Again, Simmons' tweet

[tweet]https://twitter.com/BillSimmons/status/690936259355631616[/tweet]

Also, listen to the Zach Lowe podcast (I posted in podcast thread) at least from minutes 7-12 and he makes some points about Love and whether or not it makes sense for a team to give him the max when he is not the first or second option.

[Damkac]

Because Love always wins

(that sad faces are Blatt's)

[grumpysaddle]

Grant is essentially a 1st round pick - he's a good player on a 4yr deal...

Grant is a backup rookie pg who can't get minutes on the Knicks, who are desperately in need of a pg. He shoots 34% from the field and 15% from the 3 CONSISTENTLY, like clockwork. Where is the good player in those numbers?

Ronnie Price and Archie Griffen are MUCH better players than Grant, and you want to trade Knight? Yikes.

Are you Anne Meyers DRYSdale?