Suns Offseason Thread 2: The Hunt for a Blazer Continues!

[WeekapaugGroove]

Monroe to the bucks is a little troubling for the suns lma hopes. Word was Monroe was the spurs backup plan, this might be a sign he was tipped off that lma was going to San Antonio so he took the Milwaukee offer.

It is pretty funny that NY and LA are just getting stone walled again in free agency lol

[rsavaj]

Sounds like the Morris twins are going to be hard to trade. God, we might be on the precipice of landing our first star free agent in a decade and of course those two have to be messing it up.

Math-wise, it looks like it's more likely than not that Bledsoe might have to be shipped out, but given how vehemently Coro, Gambo and McD have said he's not being traded, McDonough MUST have a plan to free up all of that cap room(and it is a LOT of cap room).

Odds are McD has 10 different plans on how to make this work. No way we make this hard of a pitch to not be able to clear room without giving up essential pieces.

So we have to clear 15-16 million in space either way.

Morris twins make 13. Any one of Tucker, Warren, or Archie attached would give us room.

[Walt_Uoob]

I don't know if this actually works but maybe we could do a triple sign-and-trade in which Wright goes from Suns to Grizzlies, Chandler goes from Mavs to Suns, and Kosta Koufos goes from Grizzlies to Mavs might work. We throw in draft picks and maybe also sign-and-trade Gerald Green and/or Marcus Thornton to get everyone on board and make the numbers match. Any idea if that could work?

[Barkley6]

Monroe to the bucks is a little troubling for the suns lma hopes. Word was Monroe was the spurs backup plan, this might be a sign he was tipped off that lma was going to San Antonio so he took the Milwaukee offer.

It is pretty funny that NY and LA are just getting stone walled again in free agency lol

More likely Monroe didn't want to wait and wanted to get his money now. No way the Spurs are offering him a max deal, and he doesn't want to sit around waiting to be their second choice.

[bwgood77]

Sounds like the Morris twins are going to be hard to trade. God, we might be on the precipice of landing our first star free agent in a decade and of course those two have to be messing it up.

Math-wise, it looks like it's more likely than not that Bledsoe might have to be shipped out, but given how vehemently Coro, Gambo and McD have said he's not being traded, McDonough MUST have a plan to free up all of that cap room(and it is a LOT of cap room).

If the Knicks would do Bledsoe for Porzingis, I think having LMA with Porzingis as a backup would be great.

But if we keep Bledsoe, I think I figured another possible way to do it. If they waived the twins (because they are untrade-able) and used the stretch provision, they would count $5.77 against the cap, saving us $7.223 in cap space. Then if you can dump Goodwin, Tucker, Granger, McNeal and Bullock, that is about $10.857 in savings, which adds up to a little over $18 million.

That gets us awfully close. I don't know if we can dump Leuer too. If so, we could probably get to the max (or only be $100K short or so).

I'm not 100% sure on my math, but I think it's pretty close.

[Barkley6]

I don't know if this actually works but maybe we could do a triple sign-and-trade in which Wright goes from Suns to Grizzlies, Chandler goes from Mavs to Suns, and Kosta Koufos goes from Grizzlies to Mavs might work. We throw in draft picks and maybe also sign-and-trade Gerald Green and/or Marcus Thornton to get everyone on board and make the numbers match. Any idea if that could work?

If that does work, that would be a genius move.

[bwgood77]

I don't know if this actually works but maybe we could do a triple sign-and-trade in which Wright goes from Suns to Grizzlies, Chandler goes from Mavs to Suns, and Kosta Koufos goes from Grizzlies to Mavs might work. We throw in draft picks and maybe also sign-and-trade Gerald Green and/or Marcus Thornton to get everyone on board and make the numbers match. Any idea if that could work?

If that does work, that would be a genius move.

That's a great idea.

[Barkley6]

Sounds like the Morris twins are going to be hard to trade. God, we might be on the precipice of landing our first star free agent in a decade and of course those two have to be messing it up.

Math-wise, it looks like it's more likely than not that Bledsoe might have to be shipped out, but given how vehemently Coro, Gambo and McD have said he's not being traded, McDonough MUST have a plan to free up all of that cap room(and it is a LOT of cap room).

If the Knicks would do Bledsoe for Porzingis, I think having LMA with Porzingis as a backup would be great.

But if we keep Bledsoe, I think I figured another possible way to do it. If they waived the twins and used the stretch provision, they would count $5.77 against the cap, saving us $7.223 in cap space. Then if you can dump Goodwin, Tucker, Granger, McNeal and Bullock, that is about $10.857 in savings, which adds up to a little over $18 million.

That gets us awfully close. I don't know if we can dump Leuer too. If so, we could probably get to the max (or only be $100K short or so).

I'm not 100% sure on my math, but I think it's pretty close.

No way we waive the twins. For all of their attitude problems and now this legal trouble, they have a lot of value on the basketball court and someone would be willing to trade for them. I personally think Granger and Tucker both stay. I think the Suns really want to have a better locker room culture and see Chandler, Tucker, Granger and hopefully LMA as the cornerstones of that.

[Qwigglez]

It really depends on what the first year salary of Tyson Chandler's deal is. If, say, the Suns backloaded the deal, and he's only making $9-10m in year one, we have a little more flexibility.

Anyone know what the allowable increases are and what the lowest 1st-yr salary could be for Chandler?

I think 4.5%, so if that's the case, he'd have to start over 12 (starting at 12 with those raises only gets to 51.338M)

What about when both Asik and Lin had contracts that were like... 5mil a year for the first two years and then the final year they were each making 15mil. Can't we do something like that? Or how the heck did they pull that off?

[bwgood77]

No way we waive the twins. For all of their attitude problems and now this legal trouble, they have a lot of value on the basketball court and someone would be willing to trade for them. I personally think Granger and Tucker both stay. I think the Suns really want to have a better locker room culture and see Chandler, Tucker, Granger and hopefully LMA as the cornerstones of that.

If someone would trade for them great. I'm just saying in the case they can't be traded, due to not being allowed to leave the state with felony charges pending or if no one wants them with felony charges pending. What if a team traded for them and they went to prison?

I think it is HIGHLY unlikely they go to prison, but even if that is a remote possibility, would any team take that risk? I think if they got picked up by other teams later it would save Sarver money too.

[JTrain]

Wow, Bucks are in great shape. With Parker coming back as well, they could easily be top four seed in the East.

[bwgood77]

Anyone know what the allowable increases are and what the lowest 1st-yr salary could be for Chandler?

I think 4.5%, so if that's the case, he'd have to start over 12 (starting at 12 with those raises only gets to 51.338M)

What about when both Asik and Lin had contracts that were like... 5mil a year for the first two years and then the final year they were each making 15mil. Can't we do something like that? Or how the heck did they pull that off?

I think that was only in the case where they were not every on a salary scale because they were second round picks.

[BobbieL]

I don't know if this actually works but maybe we could do a triple sign-and-trade in which Wright goes from Suns to Grizzlies, Chandler goes from Mavs to Suns, and Kosta Koufos goes from Grizzlies to Mavs might work. We throw in draft picks and maybe also sign-and-trade Gerald Green and/or Marcus Thornton to get everyone on board and make the numbers match. Any idea if that could work?

I like that idea. I had an idea of using Green to some team with the Mavs and Suns but Koufos does make a lot of sense. The Mavericks I think lost a big man to Portland; they lost a big man to the Suns - they might need Kosta Koufos - very good thinking.

And it will take that kind of deal - where either Green is used in a sign and trade or Wright is used - in three team deals - to make this works

[Qwigglez]

Wow, Bucks are in great shape. With Parker coming back as well, they could easily be top four seed in the East.

IDK, is Monroe running center? Is Parker and Giannis capable of playing the 2/3?

[Qwigglez]

What about when both Asik and Lin had contracts that were like... 5mil a year for the first two years and then the final year they were each making 15mil. Can't we do something like that? Or how the heck did they pull that off?

I think that was only in the case where they were not every on a salary scale because they were second round picks.

Well dang. Thanks for the tip. I didn't realize that loophole with second round picks.

[Walt_Uoob]

Sounds like the Morris twins are going to be hard to trade. God, we might be on the precipice of landing our first star free agent in a decade and of course those two have to be messing it up.

Math-wise, it looks like it's more likely than not that Bledsoe might have to be shipped out, but given how vehemently Coro, Gambo and McD have said he's not being traded, McDonough MUST have a plan to free up all of that cap room(and it is a LOT of cap room).

If the Knicks would do Bledsoe for Porzingis, I think having LMA with Porzingis as a backup would be great.

But if we keep Bledsoe, I think I figured another possible way to do it. If they waived the twins and used the stretch provision, they would count $5.77 against the cap, saving us $7.223 in cap space. Then if you can dump Goodwin, Tucker, Granger, McNeal and Bullock, that is about $10.857 in savings, which adds up to a little over $18 million.

That gets us awfully close. I don't know if we can dump Leuer too. If so, we could probably get to the max (or only be $100K short or so).

I'm not 100% sure on my math, but I think it's pretty close.

No way we waive the twins. For all of their attitude problems and now this legal trouble, they have a lot of value on the basketball court and someone would be willing to trade for them. I personally think Granger and Tucker both stay. I think the Suns really want to have a better locker room culture and see Chandler, Tucker, Granger and hopefully LMA as the cornerstones of that.

Hm, what happens cap-wise though if you waive a player and another team picks them up off the waiver wire? Would we be free and clear of their salary? If so, and we are willing to bet that someone would snap up those players, it's not really much different from using those players in a sign-and-trade with Portland.

[RunDogGun]

Lin went undrafted.

[rsavaj]

Just looking at the cap sheet again, clearing 15-17 mill(without trading Bledsoe) becomes difficult, but not impossible, if you don't move Markieff

Tucker: 5.5
Marcus: 5
Granger: 2.17
Goodwin: 1.16
Bullock: 1.17

puts you at 15. Releasing McNeal puts you at 16. Trading Leuer gives you 17.

SAC just got pilfered by PHI in exchange for a salary dump; if we go that route, Hinikie is gonna demand Warren, Goodwin, future picks, etc. Haywood's contract in CLE is a possibility, but they're going to be cautious about who they use it on.

Still...ASSUMING you can move those 5-7 guys, then you have a very interesting group:

Knight/?
Bledsoe/Booker?
Warren?/?
LMA/Markieff/Leuer(maybe?)
Len/Len

But then you have potentially 8 guys on the roster, and you need to add 5 more using the Dragic trade exception(which goes away if we don't operate as an above the cap team, AKA if we don't do a s/t with Dallas and another with Portland) plus the MLE(which also goes away if we're not an "over the cap" team. You can get two nice rotation guys for those exceptions.

Then you just need 3 end of the bench dudes for the vet min. Maybe bring Alec Brown up as a body to fill a roster spot, sign Ish Smith, get Amare...+your two exception guys, and you're okay.

So sign and trades, not salary dumps, are the way to go.

Gosh, too many moving parts.

[bwgood77]

If the Knicks would do Bledsoe for Porzingis, I think having LMA with Porzingis as a backup would be great.

But if we keep Bledsoe, I think I figured another possible way to do it. If they waived the twins and used the stretch provision, they would count $5.77 against the cap, saving us $7.223 in cap space. Then if you can dump Goodwin, Tucker, Granger, McNeal and Bullock, that is about $10.857 in savings, which adds up to a little over $18 million.

That gets us awfully close. I don't know if we can dump Leuer too. If so, we could probably get to the max (or only be $100K short or so).

I'm not 100% sure on my math, but I think it's pretty close.

No way we waive the twins. For all of their attitude problems and now this legal trouble, they have a lot of value on the basketball court and someone would be willing to trade for them. I personally think Granger and Tucker both stay. I think the Suns really want to have a better locker room culture and see Chandler, Tucker, Granger and hopefully LMA as the cornerstones of that.

Hm, what happens cap-wise though if you waive a player and another team picks them up off the waiver wire? Would we be free and clear of their salary? If so, and we are willing to bet that someone would snap up those players, it's not really much different from using those players in a sign-and-trade with Portland.

I think you still take the cap hit, but with the rising cap, I don't think it would be that big of deal if we had a pretty full roster with some nice young pieces. But Sarver could end up saving money if there was eventually a bidding war....there could be for Kieff. I bet he could fetch more than $8 million which would get Sarver out from under that contract altogether. Marcus might get at least 5 as well.

Here is an excerpt from an article about Josh Smith

Because Smith was waived after the Sep. 1 stretch provision deadline, he’ll take in the full $13.5 million he’s owed this year, and the stretched-out payments won’t start until next season – at $5.4 million a year stretched out over five years. Should Smith sign with another team this season, a virtual certainty despite his terrible play, the Pistons will be on the hook for whatever the chasm is between his new team’s salary and his guaranteed Piston money. The same goes for this offseason and beyond, when Smith could presumably sign a long-term deal with another squad.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/why-the-pistons-waived-josh-smith--and-what-could-happen-next-182934531.html

[bwgood77]

Here is part of a Pelton article..

During 2013-14, the Phoenix Suns unexpectedly contended for a playoff spot, and that screwed up everything. Phoenix entered that season -- Ryan McDonough's first as general manager -- expecting to rebuild. The overachieving campaign put the Suns in an awkward position between committing to their young players and trying to win immediately. The result was a frustrating 2014-15 season. Phoenix's addition of Isaiah Thomas created a logjam that ultimately led to Goran Dragic forcing his way out at the trade deadline. The Suns ended up winning nine fewer games than the season before.

This summer, with the departures of Dragic and Thomas creating cap space, the Suns faced another crossroads. This time, they have clearly chosen trying to contend. On Wednesday, the first day of NBA free agency, Phoenix agreed with 32-year-old center Tyson Chandler on a reported four-year, $52 million contract. Chandler immediately accelerates Phoenix's timetable.

Projecting the Suns with Chandler

Even without an offseason upgrade, Phoenix was likely to be better than it was a season ago. The Suns collapsed after trading Dragic and Thomas at the deadline, going 10-18 (.357) to slip out of playoff contention in the Western Conference. Jeff Hornacek never got a real chance to coach his new backcourt, with deadline pickup Brandon Knight playing just 11 of those games due to a severely sprained ankle.

When it became clear Phoenix wasn't making the postseason, Hornacek used the final weeks of the schedule as an open tryout for young players like Archie Goodwin and T.J. Warren. After peaking at 38-33, the Suns lost 10 of their final 11 games.

Having quickly locked up Knight (a restricted free agent) to a five-year, $70 million deal, the Suns will have their full complement of players available from the start of next season. And that group will now include Chandler, coming off a bounce-back season for the Dallas Mavericks.

Chandler fills the biggest short-term need in the Suns' lineup. They had a young prospect at the position in 2013 lottery pick Alex Len, who replaced since-departed Miles Plumlee as the starting center midseason. After a promising start, however, Len faded in the second half, and he's not yet a playoff-caliber starter at age 22.

There's no question Chandler fits that bill when healthy. His 14-year career has featured a largely unpredictable series of disappointing, injury-plagued seasons mixed with healthy, productive ones. After missing a combined 43 games due to injury his last two seasons with the New York Knicks, Chandler played all but seven in Dallas, a major reason he was so much more effective.

That's why the best aspect of the move might be Chandler going from one highly regarded athletic training staff to another. In the six years I've been tracking injury data, the Mavericks have lost the fifth-fewest games to injury. During that span, Phoenix has lost the fewest, and the Suns' training staff has succeeded in keeping aging, injury-prone veterans on the court. And with Len as a backup, Phoenix can limit Chandler's minutes, as Dallas did last season.

Though the Suns can still expect a little regression from Chandler given his age, ESPN's real plus-minus projects him as worth about seven wins above replacement (WAR) in 2015-16. Add Len, and Phoenix could get 10 WAR from the position, which provided about three WAR last season.

Thanks to that upgrade, a preliminary RPM projection shows the Suns as about a 46-win team next season. That would probably be enough to claim a low playoff seed in the Western Conference, though Phoenix will face stiff competition. The Oklahoma City Thunder are sure to return to the postseason, and the Utah Jazz surpassed the Suns as the rising West lottery team in the second half of 2014-15.

The wins Chandler provides on the court next season might not be his most important selling point. It's no coincidence the Phoenix front office wrapped up the deal in time to bring Chandler to a meeting with LaMarcus Aldridge. Specifically, playing next to a defensive-minded center like Chandler should appeal to Aldridge. More generally, adding a veteran in a win-now move helps legitimize the Suns as a destination for top free agents.

A source told ESPN's Marc Stein that Phoenix already had "moved into a contending position" to sign Aldridge. The Suns were once a major destination for free agents, and have the ability to become so again if they can also present stars a credible chance to contend.

To make the next step from playoff contender to actual threat in the West, the Suns will probably need to add a star to their young core of Knight, Eric Bledsoe and forward Markieff Morris. If Chandler helps the Suns do so, the $52 million they spent on him will have been a great investment.

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/13186152/nba-tyson-chandler-signing-means-phoenix-suns-want-win-now