KD to the Suns

[phrazbit]

In a few years this will be regarded as one of the worst trades in NBA history.

It's already bad. The theory was going "all in" for a championshp, but instead the 4 firsts will kill us, plus Bridges and Cam were valuable, and Jae was worth something (he got 5 seconds for Brooklyn). Now would be be worse right now without KD and still having those players? Maybe, but then we'd have a high lotto pick and many more, and could still trade those guys for even more picks and put ourselves in a position like OKC was with their war chest of picks or Brooklyn. Instead it looks bleak. Memphis would have offered 4 first for Bridges...NY offered a bunch. Cam will probably fetch at least one. Then if we had really wanted to tear it down we could have traded Book for some sort of Paul George to LAC package and maybe get a really good young players (like they got Shai) plus a bunch more picks.

Fans may have been pissed trading guys for picks, but our fans (at least the hard core ones) usually get excited about watching young growing prospects, etc. We seem a lot like the 2010-11 and 2011-12 Suns that had Steve Nash, Grant Hill, Jason Richardson, Vince Carter, Gortat, Frye, etc, thinking we could compete after the Amare trade. We also had Dragic, who we dealt for Brooks.

We finished 10th before finally trading Nash off for 2 firsts and going in the tank for 7 or 8 years besides that one semi-exciting year. And that was when we did have high picks during those years.

Agreed.

Although, I think we'd be significantly better, right now... last year... and even in 2023 without the KD trade. IMO we got worse from the jump. The chemistry was ruined, the roster balance was way off... we saw no benefit at all.

I know there are a lot of KD stans out there who get blue in the face saying this isn't his fault, but he is a passive aggressive, coach killing weirdo who burns bridges everywhere he's been. Booker used to be a hyper competitive freak and KD has rubbed off on him in all the wrong ways. Losing used to kill Booker and now he says stuff like "we chill" while the team is circling the drain.

Now... you factor in the picks, and good lord, what a disaster. Real good chance that we are going to dumpster fire for much of the next 6 years while owing our picks to a myriad of different teams. Even if we blew it all up, tanking doesn't help, we'd just give top 5 picks to the Nets, Rockets, Grizzlies and Wizards.

I like Ishbia's attitude, I like how he wants to do anything to win, I love that he wants the fan experience to be great... but it really sucks that within hours of him buying the team he forced one of the most ruinous trades in sports history.

[bwgood77]

In a few years this will be regarded as one of the worst trades in NBA history.

It's already bad. The theory was going "all in" for a championshp, but instead the 4 firsts will kill us, plus Bridges and Cam were valuable, and Jae was worth something (he got 5 seconds for Brooklyn). Now would be be worse right now without KD and still having those players? Maybe, but then we'd have a high lotto pick and many more, and could still trade those guys for even more picks and put ourselves in a position like OKC was with their war chest of picks or Brooklyn. Instead it looks bleak. Memphis would have offered 4 first for Bridges...NY offered a bunch. Cam will probably fetch at least one. Then if we had really wanted to tear it down we could have traded Book for some sort of Paul George to LAC package and maybe get a really good young players (like they got Shai) plus a bunch more picks.

Fans may have been pissed trading guys for picks, but our fans (at least the hard core ones) usually get excited about watching young growing prospects, etc. We seem a lot like the 2010-11 and 2011-12 Suns that had Steve Nash, Grant Hill, Jason Richardson, Vince Carter, Gortat, Frye, etc, thinking we could compete after the Amare trade. We also had Dragic, who we dealt for Brooks.

We finished 10th before finally trading Nash off for 2 firsts and going in the tank for 7 or 8 years besides that one semi-exciting year. And that was when we did have high picks during those years.

Agreed.

Although, I think we'd be significantly better, right now... last year... and even in 2023 without the KD trade. IMO we got worse from the jump. The chemistry was ruined, the roster balance was way off... we saw no benefit at all.

I know there are a lot of KD stans out there who get blue in the face saying this isn't his fault, but he is a passive aggressive, coach killing weirdo who burns bridges everywhere he's been. Booker used to be a hyper competitive freak and KD has rubbed off on him in all the wrong ways. Losing used to kill Booker and now he says stuff like "we chill" while the team is circling the drain.

Now... you factor in the picks, and good lord, what a disaster. Real good chance that we are going to dumpster fire for much of the next 6 years while owing our picks to a myriad of different teams. Even if we blew it all up, tanking doesn't help, we'd just give top 5 picks to the Nets, Rockets, Grizzlies and Wizards.

I like Ishbia's attitude, I like how he wants to do anything to win, I love that he wants the fan experience to be great... but it really sucks that within hours of him buying the team he forced one of the most ruinous trades in sports history.

I think we would be better too. I even think if we did the Beal trade and ran out him with Book, Bridges and Cam it would have looked better now and we wouldn't be 2nd apron

Though if we cleared enough cap space allowing Paul and Shamet to expire, and not do the Beal trade, could have maybe signed Tyus Jones or another PG and looked good, and already have the 2023 pick in his 2nd year, and now the 2025 pick in a deep draft class.

We had just learned how to play, after having Paul, and should have stuck with younger up and coming guys, like OKC did after they had Paul, instead of feeling like we were suddenly some sort of juggernaut ready to win a championship, especially if we jettisoned 2 starters, the 6th man, a bunch of picks, and even Ayton for Nurk and Allen. Oh well, what's done is done.

Hopefully Ishbia wakes up and sees the writing on the wall before KD has no value and Booker's starts to really drop and teams know we need to trade him, or worse yet, he asks out.

[Calvin Klein]

In a few years this will be regarded as one of the worst trades in NBA history.

It's already bad. The theory was going "all in" for a championshp, but instead the 4 firsts will kill us, plus Bridges and Cam were valuable, and Jae was worth something (he got 5 seconds for Brooklyn). Now would be be worse right now without KD and still having those players? Maybe, but then we'd have a high lotto pick and many more, and could still trade those guys for even more picks and put ourselves in a position like OKC was with their war chest of picks or Brooklyn. Instead it looks bleak. Memphis would have offered 4 first for Bridges...NY offered a bunch. Cam will probably fetch at least one. Then if we had really wanted to tear it down we could have traded Book for some sort of Paul George to LAC package and maybe get a really good young players (like they got Shai) plus a bunch more picks.

Fans may have been pissed trading guys for picks, but our fans (at least the hard core ones) usually get excited about watching young growing prospects, etc. We seem a lot like the 2010-11 and 2011-12 Suns that had Steve Nash, Grant Hill, Jason Richardson, Vince Carter, Gortat, Frye, etc, thinking we could compete after the Amare trade. We also had Dragic, who we dealt for Brooks.

We finished 10th before finally trading Nash off for 2 firsts and going in the tank for 7 or 8 years besides that one semi-exciting year. And that was when we did have high picks during those years.

Agreed.

Although, I think we'd be significantly better, right now... last year... and even in 2023 without the KD trade. IMO we got worse from the jump. The chemistry was ruined, the roster balance was way off... we saw no benefit at all.

I know there are a lot of KD stans out there who get blue in the face saying this isn't his fault, but he is a passive aggressive, coach killing weirdo who burns bridges everywhere he's been. Booker used to be a hyper competitive freak and KD has rubbed off on him in all the wrong ways. Losing used to kill Booker and now he says stuff like "we chill" while the team is circling the drain.

Now... you factor in the picks, and good lord, what a disaster. Real good chance that we are going to dumpster fire for much of the next 6 years while owing our picks to a myriad of different teams. Even if we blew it all up, tanking doesn't help, we'd just give top 5 picks to the Nets, Rockets, Grizzlies and Wizards.

I like Ishbia's attitude, I like how he wants to do anything to win, I love that he wants the fan experience to be great... but it really sucks that within hours of him buying the team he forced one of the most ruinous trades in sports history.

This is how I feel as well. Except I don't think Ishbia's doing anything to win. He's just spending money in idiotic ways, has been extremely reckless and has worsened the product to the point nobody seems to care anymore.

[bwgood77]

I remember Ishbia said no on the final day of trading for KD, after saying he would not sacrifice our future in a press conference the previous day.

Then he went out with buddies for dinner and called James Jones late at night saying to "do it..trade all they want for KD".

I felt like he was out partying and talking to his buddies. Obviously that's an assumption but it's also definitely not far fetched.

Kind of made me think of a car accident I got in one time....when I was making a left turn across traffic and two lanes left opening and waved me on, so I went through and a car came through in the middle lane and plowed right into me. Then I looked back at those who waved me along and they put their heads down and drove on through....that's probably what Ishbia's friends feel like.

The worst part was that middle lane where the car hit me was in a lane where the traffics switched ways depending on morning and evening rush hour, and it was a little after 4pm and should have switched to the other way, so I wasn't thinking there would be any car coming towards me. When I told the cop is was after 4 and traffic should have been going the other way he said it was reasonable they were going towards me.

This was in Tucson when I was going to finish up registration, etc, the summer before I started college there.

I know, "cool story, bro"

I just thought of those people waving me by...."oops, my bad"...feels like Ishbia's friends talked him into the trade.

Our picks in this 27 and 29 (and swap in 28) could be very very high picks, but even this year we would have the 10th pick right now, and there is a chance our spot will jump into the top 4.

[garrick]

It's a star driven league and KD is one of the all time greats. Going to be fun watching him. You need the best player on the floor to win a championship. This is the ultimate championship or bust move. I like it.

Sent from my SM-G986U using RealGM mobile app

If we traded for a 32 year old KD even this might have been worth it but he's 34 and clearly on the decline as evidenced by last years playoffs when KD struggled to get to his spots against a much younger Boston team and just looked a step slow in their playoff defeat.

The fact that we gave up 4 UNPROTECTED picks is just inexcusable as well, how can you not put any sort of protection on any of those picks? If this move backfires we will be in a tough spot in a couple years with no draft picks and having KD's massive salary on the books.

I went back and found my post on the KD trade, looks like 70 percent of RealGM was optimistic about this trade and the naysayers were in the minority.

To make matters worse Ishbia pick swapped the remaining picks, then traded away almost all our 2nd's and traded for an almost untradeable Bradley Beal doubling down on his all in win now move. I really think the window to win was when we faced Denver in the semis and took them to 6 games with a non existent bench but I fear our window has been firmly shut now with the changing of the guard.

LBJ, KD and Harden are still hanging on but they are in their twilight years and their era is just about over now.

Look at how Cam Jo has progressed this season and how Mikail progressed with the Nets though he seems to have regressed a bit in NY this year plus having our draft picks shows we really didn't need to blow it up with the KD trade.

CP3 was obviously on the decline but we should have just eaten his contract and looked for his replacement and pushed hard for Tyus Jones or a similar PG and then added more size and depth to be real contenders.

[Saberestar]

[sunsbg]

Booker in his prime may not make ASG. Yikes.

[bwgood77]

Booker in his prime may not make ASG. Yikes.

He may get in because of injury again with Ja, Luka dealing with injuries. I have been curious if media, coaches, would put him ahead of guys like Fox and Ja though.

I didn't really think of Harden though I guess he has been the best player on a team higher in the standings. His shooting/scoring has been really down too, even worse than Book (not from 3, but from 2 and overall, though I guess he takes over half his shots from 3).

HIs efg% is sub 500 as well though, and his TS% down around 57% like too.

Feels like most media and coaches would put Book higher though.

[Calvin Klein]

Booker in his prime may not make ASG. Yikes.

He did this to himself though. He could have stayed the franchise player but went this way instead.

[Saberestar]

Read on Twitter

[Saberestar]

Read on Twitter

[Saberestar]

Watch on YouTube

Those last two shots were unreal.

[Saberestar]

[Saberestar]

Making his 15th NBA AllStar appearance... Kevin Durant of the Suns.

Drafted as the 2nd pick in 2007 out of Texas, Kevin Durant is averaging 27.2 PPG, 6.5 RPG and 4.1 APG for the Suns this season.

[Saberestar]

Watch on YouTube

[Saberestar]

KD is the master of trash talking lol.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/jMW5d2FUN8

[bwgood77]

KD is the master of trash talking lol.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/jMW5d2FUN8

Though he's wrong. Payton started every game when he was 36 for the Celtics who got the 3rd seed, though they lost to the 6 seed Pacers in 7 in the first round.

That was the first year of our SSOL Suns...good times.

[ChuckS]

KD is the master of trash talking lol.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/jMW5d2FUN8

Though he's wrong. Payton started every game when he was 36 for the Celtics who got the 3rd seed, though they lost to the 6 seed Pacers in 7 in the first round.

That was the first year of our SSOL Suns...good times.

Gary Payton at 36: 11.3 points, 33 min, 46.8/32.6/76.1%

KD at 36: 27.1 points, 36 min, 52.6/40.8/82.5%

[bwgood77]

KD is the master of trash talking lol.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/jMW5d2FUN8

Though he's wrong. Payton started every game when he was 36 for the Celtics who got the 3rd seed, though they lost to the 6 seed Pacers in 7 in the first round.

That was the first year of our SSOL Suns...good times.

Gary Payton at 36: 11.3 points, 33 min, 46.8/32.6/76.1%

KD at 36: 27.1 points, 36 min, 52.6/40.8/82.5%

Yeah, KD has a lot better stats, but his trash talk referred to being the 8th man on the bench.

[ChuckS]

Though he's wrong. Payton started every game when he was 36 for the Celtics who got the 3rd seed, though they lost to the 6 seed Pacers in 7 in the first round.

That was the first year of our SSOL Suns...good times.

Gary Payton at 36: 11.3 points, 33 min, 46.8/32.6/76.1%

KD at 36: 27.1 points, 36 min, 52.6/40.8/82.5%

Yeah, KD has a lot better stats, but his trash talk referred to being the 8th man on the bench.

I was referring to KD raising his arm to the ceiling for him and to his chest for Payton, to suggest that he wasn't wrong on the important matter.