Trade and free agency speculation

[bwoolf2]

You're a raps fan so help me understand the fascination with paying this guy a boatload of money. I can't wrap my head around a 4 year 60 million dollar deal backloaded for a backup pg, I get he's efficient, shoots the ball well, I guess it's the extrapolation where he gets starter's minutes he'd put up something like 14, 7 assists a game shooting efficiently? Does he play solid defense? he's short, kinda slow and unathletic, I don't get the pure fan love with him beyond a microwave efficient guy off the bench?

Ya I dont understand overpaying someone elses back ups. If he couldnt beat out Lowery who is a decent PG but nothing special, why should we assume he is going to be the great PG worth paying 15 million a year. I dont get it.

Kyle Lowry is one of the best point guards in the league. VanVleet was the best backup in the league other than maybe Tyus Jones.

Lowry ranks 4th in RPM for PGs http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/RPM/position/1

If you think Lowry is one of the best PGs in the league we have a significant difference of opinion on what that means. and you can give me all the stats you want he doesnt pass the eye test for me as far as best PG's in the league I can give you 10 I think are better without thinking much about it and more if I put in some effort.

[RaptorsLife]

Fred is a fantastic shooter. Also really good pick and roll player

Fred actually plays defense and bull dog at getting to paint

He was the reason raptors had the best bench last year.



He plays likes like a prime jameer Nelson with bit better shooting

[thamadkant]

Raptors... I beg of you... MATCH anything the Suns will offer for Van Vleet.


Save us...

[bwgood77]

TBH Knight is 10x than most of these Point guard we are targeting. Knight can easily average 20/6 a night for us. He sucked because we took the ball away from him and asked him to play shooting guard and sharing the backcourt with Bledsoe for us, let him play his natural position and he will shine for us.

Maybe 20/6 shooting like a 50-52% TS% along with 4 turnovers or so. It doesn't matter how many points you score if you take way more shots than the other team does (or many of your teammates) to do it...it just causes you to get further and further behind.

Do you truly believe Lou Williams is a better shooting guard than Devin Booker?

No, but last year he played about as well as Booker, particularly shooting, and passing (more assists, fewer turnovers). That's why he was in talks about being an all star..probably moreso than Booker. But given age, teammates, defensive attention Booker gets, knowing it was a career year for Lou, etc, I don't believe he's better.

But Knight has, for the most part, not been very good. At his best he was maybe average, other than a half year with the Bucks where he was slightly above average. His efficiency was never really above what league average is today. And he never does any better than like a 1.5 ast/to ratio.

This was all before he had a major injury too.

[Saberestar]

Fred is a fantastic shooter. Also really good pick and roll player

Fred actually plays defense and bull dog at getting to paint

He was the reason raptors had the best bench last year.



He plays likes like a prime jameer Nelson with bit better shooting

Do you think that he deserves a big contract?$36M/4 years?

[bwgood77]

Ya I dont understand overpaying someone elses back ups. If he couldnt beat out Lowery who is a decent PG but nothing special, why should we assume he is going to be the great PG worth paying 15 million a year. I dont get it.

Kyle Lowry is one of the best point guards in the league. VanVleet was the best backup in the league other than maybe Tyus Jones.

Lowry ranks 4th in RPM for PGs http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/RPM/position/1

If you think Lowry is one of the best PGs in the league we have a significant difference of opinion on what that means. and you can give me all the stats you want he doesnt pass the eye test for me as far as best PG's in the league I can give you 10 I think are better without thinking much about it and more if I put in some effort.

I'd say he's right around top 10, but there probably isn't much separation after the first handful.

[bigfoot]

TBH Knight is 10x than most of these Point guard we are targeting. Knight can easily average 20/6 a night for us. He sucked because we took the ball away from him and asked him to play shooting guard and sharing the backcourt with Bledsoe for us, let him play his natural position and he will shine for us.

Maybe 20/6 shooting like a 50-52% TS% along with 4 turnovers or so. It doesn't matter how many points you score if you take way more shots than the other team does (or many of your teammates) to do it...it just causes you to get further and further behind.

I think Brandon Knight's experiences, playing behind Booker, being benched, the injury, sitting on the bench for the season, might change his outlook. He watched Bledsoe be a complete azz last season. The lack of playmaking and defense we had at the PG spot. He might be just what the doctor ordered helping Booker and Ayton getting this team going in the right direction.

[SuperSunsFan]

not one analytic advocate has ever bothered to double check the accuracy of the model by looking at it results in the past to see if they had ever accurately predicted player performance in the past. If Pelton couldn't predict Kuzma could be a good prospect then what exactly is point of his model?

[WeekapaugGroove]

TBH Knight is 10x than most of these Point guard we are targeting. Knight can easily average 20/6 a night for us. He sucked because we took the ball away from him and asked him to play shooting guard and sharing the backcourt with Bledsoe for us, let him play his natural position and he will shine for us.

Maybe 20/6 shooting like a 50-52% TS% along with 4 turnovers or so. It doesn't matter how many points you score if you take way more shots than the other team does (or many of your teammates) to do it...it just causes you to get further and further behind.

Do you truly believe Lou Williams is a better shooting guard than Devin Booker?

Are we just judging by totality of last season? Because it's closer than you might think. Williams had an outstanding year and Booker missed a bunch of games.

The appeal of Booker is the projection of future growth. He took a nice step last season but he has to keep getting better or he won't live up to the contract he's about to get. He's a hard worker and I don't see any reason he can't keep growing but this thought by some suns fans that he's already arrived is a bit over the top. He just last season got efficient on a high volume but he still needs to cut down his turnovers and play at least a little defense.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using RealGM mobile app

[bwgood77]

TBH Knight is 10x than most of these Point guard we are targeting. Knight can easily average 20/6 a night for us. He sucked because we took the ball away from him and asked him to play shooting guard and sharing the backcourt with Bledsoe for us, let him play his natural position and he will shine for us.

Maybe 20/6 shooting like a 50-52% TS% along with 4 turnovers or so. It doesn't matter how many points you score if you take way more shots than the other team does (or many of your teammates) to do it...it just causes you to get further and further behind.

I think Brandon Knight's experiences, playing behind Booker, being benched, the injury, sitting on the bench for the season, might change his outlook. He watched Bledsoe be a complete azz last season. The lack of playmaking and defense we had at the PG spot. He might be just what the doctor ordered helping Booker and Ayton getting this team going in the right direction.

I agree "it might"...but I don't want to bank on it. We thought "he might" be sixth man of the year after going to the bench and he ended up being one of the worst players in the league. So I will take any be extremely cautiously optimistic with him.

[WeekapaugGroove]

TBH Knight is 10x than most of these Point guard we are targeting. Knight can easily average 20/6 a night for us. He sucked because we took the ball away from him and asked him to play shooting guard and sharing the backcourt with Bledsoe for us, let him play his natural position and he will shine for us.

Maybe 20/6 shooting like a 50-52% TS% along with 4 turnovers or so. It doesn't matter how many points you score if you take way more shots than the other team does (or many of your teammates) to do it...it just causes you to get further and further behind.

I think Brandon Knight's experiences, playing behind Booker, being benched, the injury, sitting on the bench for the season, might change his outlook. He watched Bledsoe be a complete azz last season. The lack of playmaking and defense we had at the PG spot. He might be just what the doctor ordered helping Booker and Ayton getting this team going in the right direction.

But knight is a bad defender and not a great distributor. Scoring was his best trait. Frankly he's just never been very good so I just can't trust he will give them anything this year.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using RealGM mobile app

[BobbieL]

RAptor fan here

This is from reliable raptors beat writer

Read on Twitter

?s=20

You're a raps fan so help me understand the fascination with paying this guy a boatload of money. I can't wrap my head around a 4 year 60 million dollar deal backloaded for a backup pg, I get he's efficient, shoots the ball well, I guess it's the extrapolation where he gets starter's minutes he'd put up something like 14, 7 assists a game shooting efficiently? Does he play solid defense? he's short, kinda slow and unathletic, I don't get the pure fan love with him beyond a microwave efficient guy off the bench?

Nobody’s giving him that much money, relax. He’s gonna make closer to half that.

In this market - there is no need to overpay for Van Vleet. Just some bloggers who don't have a clue that the most teams can offer Van Vleet is 9.5m in year one. My guess, if the Suns do sign him, will be 3/30.

I would still have discussions to see if Lowry is still available - for the right combination of players - maybe sending out less to take back more. As if this Van Vleet deal is truly what some are blogging because of a GM panicking - give me Lowry for two years as long as the right contracts go back to Raptor land

[bwoolf2]

Kyle Lowry is one of the best point guards in the league. VanVleet was the best backup in the league other than maybe Tyus Jones.

Lowry ranks 4th in RPM for PGs http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/RPM/position/1

If you think Lowry is one of the best PGs in the league we have a significant difference of opinion on what that means. and you can give me all the stats you want he doesnt pass the eye test for me as far as best PG's in the league I can give you 10 I think are better without thinking much about it and more if I put in some effort.

I'd say he's right around top 10, but there probably isn't much separation after the first handful.

The 1st 10 separate themselves from the rest then the next 5 or so kind of get grouped together he is in that group. With Knight etc, a healthy Knight on that Raptors team would have put up similar numbers and gotten them to similar win totals in my opinion. Just dont think Van Vleet is an upgrade over Knight so why tie up 25 million into that position for 2 mid tier PGs just doesnt make a lot of sense to me. Wait for the trade market to open up middle of the year. Get someone with more upside. Van Vleet is a great backup but he really doesnt have upside he is who he is.

[RaptorsLife]

Fred is a fantastic shooter. Also really good pick and roll player

Fred actually plays defense and bull dog at getting to paint

He was the reason raptors had the best bench last year.



He plays likes like a prime jameer Nelson with bit better shooting

Do you think that he deserves a big contract?$36M/4 years?

If that’s what the offer sheet is and raptors don’t match I would punch a wall through my garage lol

Read on Twitter

?s=20

Read on Twitter

?s=20

He’s just does the little things. A winning player. Refreshing from the whining attitude of Kyle Lowry

[bwgood77]

not one analytic advocate has ever bothered to double check the accuracy of the model by looking at it results in the past to see if they had ever accurately predicted player performance in the past. If Pelton couldn't predict Kuzma could be a good prospect then what exactly is point of his model?

What model are you talking about? TS% is just capturing how good you are at shooting from all three levels (and getting to the line).

[bwgood77]

If you think Lowry is one of the best PGs in the league we have a significant difference of opinion on what that means. and you can give me all the stats you want he doesnt pass the eye test for me as far as best PG's in the league I can give you 10 I think are better without thinking much about it and more if I put in some effort.

I'd say he's right around top 10, but there probably isn't much separation after the first handful.

The 1st 10 separate themselves from the rest then the next 5 or so kind of get grouped together he is in that group. With Knight etc, a healthy Knight on that Raptors team would have put up similar numbers and gotten them to similar win totals in my opinion. Just dont think Van Vleet is an upgrade over Knight so why tie up 25 million into that position for 2 mid tier PGs just doesnt make a lot of sense to me. Wait for the trade market to open up middle of the year. Get someone with more upside. Van Vleet is a great backup but he really doesnt have upside he is who he is.

Knight would have put up similar numbers and wins as Lowry? Or VanVleet. Either way, we are just going to definitely be disagreeing on this one.

[WeekapaugGroove]

You'll have to excuse suns fans for not recognizing winning type players.... It's been a long time since we've had those on the team.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using RealGM mobile app

[LukasBMW]

I don't like the idea of throwing big money at a backup point guard with underwhelming numbers just because advanced stats show potential.

Too many guys have one good year and then can't duplicate it.

I hate Brandon Knight and I don't have much hope for him, but I really would rather just try to make it work with him first...and then upgrade on the fly if needed.

[bwoolf2]

I'd say he's right around top 10, but there probably isn't much separation after the first handful.

The 1st 10 separate themselves from the rest then the next 5 or so kind of get grouped together he is in that group. With Knight etc, a healthy Knight on that Raptors team would have put up similar numbers and gotten them to similar win totals in my opinion. Just dont think Van Vleet is an upgrade over Knight so why tie up 25 million into that position for 2 mid tier PGs just doesnt make a lot of sense to me. Wait for the trade market to open up middle of the year. Get someone with more upside. Van Vleet is a great backup but he really doesnt have upside he is who he is.

Knight would have put up similar numbers and wins as Lowry? Or VanVleet. Either way, we are just going to definitely be disagreeing on this one.

I love him as a backup PG think he is the best in the league, I just dont love him as a starter thats all. and i dont like paying him starting money to be the best backup in the league. If we we could get him at 8 million a year for 3 I would be all in. but 12million + thats pushing it beyond what I would want to offer.

[LukasBMW]

I don’t see the Suns signing any of these free agents multiple years. We are going to see a lot of one year contracts or two with team option on second season. These free agents this year are hot garbage.

I hope the Suns can make a trade for better players. It’s go time McDonough.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This was my concern when we traded for Mikal. We used two good assets on him.

A lot of guys I respect on this board were for the trade, but I do feel like it might have been better to use #16 and Miami + possibly other stuff to upgrade at 1 and 4 via TRADE (as you said).

Instead, we drafted a 3 when we already have two great prospects at the 3 (JJ and TJ).

I'm not sold on any of these free agent point guards being better then Knight or Elf.

None of the realistic free agent 4's deserve to take time away from Chriss/Bender. And if Chriss/Bender suck, then I'd rather just run small with JJ/TJ.