Season Speculation, Trade Ideas & Discussion Pt. 4

[King4Day]

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Wonder if the Marc Gasol rumblngs turn into a trade? From what I've read the Grizz don't appear to be interested in blowing it up, may be they're hoping things turn around when Conley returns?

If they can get the Nets pick off of Cleveland, then they should do it. Otherwise, I don't know that there's enough value in any player on the market to make it worth it. They need to make sure they keep fans coming too.

[gaspar]

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[Waylay13]

Most companies have a 5 year strategic plan and also yearly objectives which they look to meet in order to achieve the vision set out in the 5 year plan. But they don't just blindly stick to the 5 year plan. Good companies review the 5 year strategic plan every couple of years to ensure it's still fit for purpose and still relevant in the constantly changing the landscape. This is where we're at right now. We're basically two years into our 5 year strategic plan aka "the timeline" and we need to review this plan.

So what do you think that we could do that would put the Suns in contention and wouldnt hurt our future? Give up the Suns draft pick this year? and if it ends up being a top 5 pick that could give the Suns another all-star to match up with Booker. Trade JJ and in 5 years when he is the best player from this draft. How about signing a shoot first point guard like Kyrie who is only averaging 5 assists a game. No offense but there are no easy answers that we can sign or trade for a player that would give us the answer of the future. Also remember it is much harder to sign players due to the ability of teams to sign players for much higher and keep them. There are no Steve Nash's that will turn this team around out there to turn this team into a championship team.

[Jdiddy701]

Anybody able to copy and paste Woj’s + Bobby Marks article on ESPN here?


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[pelifan]

OK...but I truly am curious. You were 'mum' on how you expect to able to afford a Max for Boogie...when you can't...

What 'moves' do you intend to make in order to free up room? You've got an Asik contract that is about as attractive as our Chandler contract. Ajinca isn't much better, but at least it's lower. Moore, is 'meh'...

Again, if you attempt to Max Boogie, you are sitting at $95M with just 4 players? And the rest of your contracts take you over the luxury tax total max. And that's without any draft picks...

if my math is correct (and it is) we're at 93.5 with 9 players before signing Cousins, so we don't have to really do much of anything. We'd only be about 2 million over the tax with 10 players after signing Cousins with the 120 million Luxury Tax projection, which is really on the low side. The hard cap for this season was 125 million, Next season is supposedly around 128 million. Throw in the FRP and roster charges and you are near the hard cap, but not over it. So yea we have to do nothing.

Ajinca is expiring, Asik will be close to an expiring with only has 3 million guaranteed the following offseason, you can package those two with Frank Jackson, Diallo or a FRP for teams interested in getting some value out of players they don't want be within the 150% rule but take in less money than you have going out and you've already done it. Worst comes to worst the Pelicans can just stretch Asik which saves 8 million this year, even though it won't get that far.

Also you had Jackson being owed the QO? that's not right. Moore is not a meh contract but nice try.

I'm not going to debate this with you any further as you are clearly just trying to tear down the Pelicans, because clearly the Pelicans can afford Cousins. they'll have to be a tax team but to argue they'd be over the hardcap is nonsense

[Saberestar]

Chriss OR Bender + Monroe + Mil Pick for Marc Gasol?

Booker + Warren + Marc + 18 pick would be a decent core.

[Jdiddy701]

Damn, Marc Gasol is 32 years old?


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[AtheJ415]

Chriss OR Bender + Monroe + Mil Pick for Marc Gasol?

Booker + Warren + Marc + 18 pick would be a decent core.

Vomit-worthy to an extreme level. Not only would that team still fail to make the playoffs, but it would lead us to the late lottery land while giving up a future 1st and a player with upside in the process, while also eliminating all cap space this offseason. If yo look at the opportunity cost we have effectively traded Chriss or Bender, our cap space, a future 1st, a top 5 pick of this draft, and a max FA all for Marc Gasol, who is way too old for the rest of the team.

[AtheJ415]

Damn, Marc Gasol is 32 years old?


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Yup. This would be Tyson 2.0. Remember Tyson was something like 3rd in the NBA in win shares when we signed him, a move the "win-now" crowd lauded. Where did that get us? But yes, let's keep just repeating that draft picks aren't sure things on a repeatable loop and forget that trades and FAs are no sure things themselves, particularly aging bigs with huge amounts of minutes played throughout their careers.

[pelifan]

My advice to the Suns is to just stick to building through the draft. I wouldn't be giving out mega deals or trading assets for stars yet. Being one of the few teams with capspace is powerful, and I'd personally go the accumulate assets route. Take salary dumps. If you see a FA who is undervalued and has a weak market go for it. But I wouldn't want to be the team that wants to be the high bid on Jabari Parker or DeAndre Jordan.

[bwgood77]

The thing is, the Pelicans are contenders. If Cousins and Davis are on, they are right there. They should have knocked off the Rockets and Davis wasn't even playing. I know Moore and others had huge games, but Gentry can play D'Antoni's game all too well. When you are missing one of the NBA's best players and you have the best team by the throat and lose, that's not necessarily a bad thing. You can build on that.

If you have AD and Cousins you have done well. If you can't win surrounding them with whoever else that's it..I don't think blame should be thrown other than on the players unless their guards and others are crap, and they are not...they are pretty solid as well..not great but Jrue is solid and some good shooter and if Rondo keeps playing like that it's a huge bonus.

No offense, mate, but it's clear you don't watch the Pelicans all that much. They are a mediocre team and they play nothing like a D'Antoni team. The only thing they are contenders of is for finishing at .500. They could get in the playoffs and make the 2nd round if everything clicks. Their bench is woefully thin. Lastly, counting on Rondo has been a fool's errand for a few years now.

No offense taken "mate"...you speaking aussie now?

The Pelicans can play with anyone. They are still adapting and have added new pieces. AD has missed like 5 games and Rondo half of them. Yes, I wouldn't count on Rondo necessarily, but I wouldn't count out any team with Cousins, AD and some shooters and passers.

They can play a lot with 4 out, and Lowe astutely pointed out that they score a ton at the rim and from the corners. If they can keep AD and Cousins on the court they are obliterating teams by almost 9 pts per 100 possessions, w hich is elite.

They are obviously a notch below the elite teams like Houston, GS, and a healthy Spurs team, but they are firmly in that next mix if they can stay healthy...but that's always been the big question mark with them.

[carey]

I think what we're seeing from the Marlins' fire sale is a reason we shouldn't be so quick to hope Sarver sells the team.
Marlins went from a cheap owner to an even cheaper ownership group.

That whole situation pisses me off to no end. MLB gifted Derek Jeter a team. Lauria ran it so poorly they were $400M in debt when the Jeter group bought it. Only they barely had enough money to buy the team. If they had operating income they at least could have held on to Stanton for a while, but they straight salary dumped him for 2 marginal prospects. They are doing this under the guise of rebuilding the farm system, but they only got something like the 10th and 20th best prospect in the Yankees system. I'm not even a Marlins fan and it upsets me. The Marlins market could be so good for MLB being the gateway to the Americas and all that. Only Manfred sells the team to a broke ownership group that so far looks even worse than Lauria. Oh, and Jeter is somehow paying himself $5M a year. Brian Cashman wasn't even making that kind of money until this year.

[carey]

No offense taken "mate"...you speaking aussie now?

The Pelicans can play with anyone. They are still adapting and have added new pieces. AD has missed like 5 games and Rondo half of them. Yes, I wouldn't count on Rondo necessarily, but I wouldn't count out any team with Cousins, AD and some shooters and passers.

They can play a lot with 4 out, and Lowe astutely pointed out that they score a ton at the rim and from the corners. If they can keep AD and Cousins on the court they are obliterating teams by almost 9 pts per 100 possessions, w hich is elite.

They are obviously a notch below the elite teams like Houston, GS, and a healthy Spurs team, but they are firmly in that next mix if they can stay healthy...but that's always been the big question mark with them.

I call everyone that on-line. Is this the first time you've read my posts?

I understand now. You're regurgitating a Lowe article but you haven't actually watched any Pelicans games. That's alright. Lowe is a smart guy and makes some good points.

[bwgood77]

No offense taken "mate"...you speaking aussie now?

The Pelicans can play with anyone. They are still adapting and have added new pieces. AD has missed like 5 games and Rondo half of them. Yes, I wouldn't count on Rondo necessarily, but I wouldn't count out any team with Cousins, AD and some shooters and passers.

They can play a lot with 4 out, and Lowe astutely pointed out that they score a ton at the rim and from the corners. If they can keep AD and Cousins on the court they are obliterating teams by almost 9 pts per 100 possessions, w hich is elite.

They are obviously a notch below the elite teams like Houston, GS, and a healthy Spurs team, but they are firmly in that next mix if they can stay healthy...but that's always been the big question mark with them.

I call everyone that on-line. Is this the first time you've read my posts?

I understand now. You're regurgitating a Lowe article but you haven't actually watched any Pelicans games. That's alright. Lowe is a smart guy and makes some good points.

Sure I've watched the Pelicans, and I read Lowe's articles. My Gentry "can play D'Antoni's game all too well" comment was in reference to the fact they had just played each other and Gentry took his offense and applied it to his Suns teams and helped implement parts of it on the Warriors and could easily do so to matchup with D'Antoni if he wanted. I wasn't saying the Pelicans play like a D'Antoni team. Sorry you misunderstood.

I don't watch every minute of every Pelicans game, so if you do, you may have a tad more insight than me on them, but I think they have the potential to be tough. I'm not saying they won't be 500 because they can't seem to stay healthy all the time, but I think they have potential to be a very tough knockout for one of the top teams in the playoffs.

[sunsbum]

I'm glad pelifan is here cause I'm getting real sick of reading 10 pages of fans ragging on a bunch of 20 year olds. Like someone said before did we not just go through this with Alex Len? I get it, waiting 4 years to figure out if a guy is going to be a basketball player sucks. Ryan knew this when he drafted Bender and Chriss (I still think Chriss was a Sarver pick) If you watched any highlights at all of bender overseas you knew he wasnt going to come in and set the world on fire and if you did you have no one to blame but yourself.

Do I think we should waste 4 years of Booker waiting for them. Absolutely not. But we can't crucify a team full of underage drinkers.

[bwgood77]

Whoa whoa whoa hold the phone. JJ certainly did not look like he was going to be an all-star. He was disappointing for several years before 04-05. We all wanted him to take Penny's spot but he never managed it. Inconsistent play, low intensity, missed shots. Nobody was calling him a future all-star. Not his rookie year, when he was traded after half a season for two bench players. Not during his second season, when at the age of 21, he averaged 10, 3 and 3 in 28 MPG, shooting 40% from the field. Not even during his third season, when he led the post-Marbury Suns in MPG with 40, averaged 16, 5 and 4, and shot 43% from the field and 30% from 3. JJ really broke out as a shooter the year Nash joined the team, and then broke out as a player with the Hawks in his fifth and sixth NBA seasons.

I was posting on Suns boards back then buddy, and no one, NOT NO ONE was saying that JJ looked like a future All-Star before his fourth NBA season, and even then such talk barely registered as a whisper. The guy was a distant fourth banana behind Nash-Amare-Marion. PLENTY of posters assumed he was a bust back then and were ready to move on.

So yeah, I'm familiar with the attitudes currently prevailing on this message board. NOTE that not only did the Celtics give up on Johnson too soon, but when we S&T'd him to Atlanta, we traded him for second-year player Boris Diaw -- whom Atlanta similarly gave up on way too early after a disappointing rookie season. It's not a new thing. Young players usually take time to develop!

But yeah, Amare looked like a beast pretty much immediately. Every player is different.

What are you talking about? JJ was a fan favorite. At least on the espn board. He averaged 16-4-4 and I remember that summer I was really pissed Sarver wouldn't give JJ his extension...he wanted 6-45 and Sarver only would go 6-40...it is ingrained in my mind that he would not extend him because he gave money to Q.

And in 04-05 he was a fan favorite, as I mentioned...sunsbum could tell you all about his bobblehead and all the talk about JJ that season. He was smooth as silk. I don't know what message board you were on then but JJ was certainly not an afterthought.

Going into Nash's season he was a prized piece. We traded two solid players at the time Tony "50 pt game" Delk and Rodney Rogers for him and it helped Boston advance in the playoffs.

I was on the azcentral message boards. I too remember the extension drama. I don't think I have a selective memory here... do you recall how you felt about JJ while he was backing up Penny Hardaway?

Taken literally, our two posts do not conflict, fwiw. I was actually surprised when I looked back at the stats how well they supported my recollection of JJ's early years.

My point here was that you don't always know whether your own young players are any good. Just looking at the numbers, how do you feel this board would react to a player drafted as a sophomore shooting 40%, 43% and 40% in his first three seasons, and being fairly unremarkable from any other athletic or statistical perspective? I think this board would call him a bust. I'm surprised you think otherwise.

I don't know. I remember wanting him to take over for Penny in 02-03 and thought he was good. I think in 03-04 when he became a starter and averaged 16-4-4 that it was pretty exciting having a young guard who could score 20 and also got that many assists as well while not being a PG. He shot poorly from 3 that year but it was probably overlooked a bit because I wanted a young player to be good and take over for the older player with recurring injury problems in Penny.

Seeing the boards now I'm sure some people would have been crying bust about him if the same situation existed but it's a lot louder when the team is awful. At least in the 02-03 season (the year before he had the 16-4-4) we had made the playoffs and taken the Spurs to 6 games and had the excitement of Amare being rookie of the year. There just wasn't much focus on JJ that year. The following year was when I think some may have thought all star potential regularly scoring 20+ and averaging over 4 assists and 4 boards a game in his 3rd year.

[bwgood77]

Chriss OR Bender + Monroe + Mil Pick for Marc Gasol?

Booker + Warren + Marc + 18 pick would be a decent core.

Vomit-worthy to an extreme level. Not only would that team still fail to make the playoffs, but it would lead us to the late lottery land while giving up a future 1st and a player with upside in the process, while also eliminating all cap space this offseason. If yo look at the opportunity cost we have effectively traded Chriss or Bender, our cap space, a future 1st, a top 5 pick of this draft, and a max FA all for Marc Gasol, who is way too old for the rest of the team.

I'm sure that offer is vomit worthy to an even more extreme level for Grizzlies fans.

[bwgood77]

My advice to the Suns is to just stick to building through the draft. I wouldn't be giving out mega deals or trading assets for stars yet. Being one of the few teams with capspace is powerful, and I'd personally go the accumulate assets route. Take salary dumps. If you see a FA who is undervalued and has a weak market go for it. But I wouldn't want to be the team that wants to be the high bid on Jabari Parker or DeAndre Jordan.

The vast majority seems to want to stick through building through the draft, though of course those that don't are more vocal because of impatience so it feels like a larger % want to make short sighted trades or moves.

[AtheJ415]

Chriss OR Bender + Monroe + Mil Pick for Marc Gasol?

Booker + Warren + Marc + 18 pick would be a decent core.

Vomit-worthy to an extreme level. Not only would that team still fail to make the playoffs, but it would lead us to the late lottery land while giving up a future 1st and a player with upside in the process, while also eliminating all cap space this offseason. If yo look at the opportunity cost we have effectively traded Chriss or Bender, our cap space, a future 1st, a top 5 pick of this draft, and a max FA all for Marc Gasol, who is way too old for the rest of the team.

I'm sure that offer is vomit worthy to an even more extreme level for Grizzlies fans.

It probably is. I don't see us as a good trade partner for them. What they want if they are looking to move Gasol, signalling they are giving up on the win now methodology for this season, is to rebuild and get out from under the contracts they've given to Gasol and likely Conley. To maximize value for both, they need to find teams who would value them the most. That should not be a team like Phoenix. It should be a team who is a center or PG away from contending. For instance, Boston might want someone like Gasol (though I don't know how the salaries would work) since they haven't had a traditional center, or maybe a team like Cleveland. Those teams ought to be willing to give up something better than the Milwaukee pick and Bender, which is what that offer comes down to.

[AtheJ415]

I'm glad pelifan is here cause I'm getting real sick of reading 10 pages of fans ragging on a bunch of 20 year olds. Like someone said before did we not just go through this with Alex Len? I get it, waiting 4 years to figure out if a guy is going to be a basketball player sucks. Ryan knew this when he drafted Bender and Chriss (I still think Chriss was a Sarver pick) If you watched any highlights at all of bender overseas you knew he wasnt going to come in and set the world on fire and if you did you have no one to blame but yourself.

Do I think we should waste 4 years of Booker waiting for them. Absolutely not. But we can't crucify a team full of underage drinkers.

This to an extreme. And on top of that those same people insist we are borderline vets at a couple positions away from the playoffs. We are not. We are not a good team but we have 1 young player who will be an MVP candidate at some point and 1 young player who looks to be a borderline all star, and then a bunch of young players who might end up good or might end up bad. If we choose to live in that reality and try to find the best course from there and watch the games with that expectation, then the year becomes a lot more watchable and entertaining, and a lot less miserable.