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Hi Suns Fans, I wanted to ask you guys how you felt about James Jones picking Jalen Smith over Haliburton. I feel like Haliburton would have been a great back court mate for Booker when CP3 retires, and he would have been great off the bench in the meantime. Have you all seen anything from Jalen Smith that makes you feel better about the pick?

At first I hated the pick because you already have Ayton, but I have heard Suns fans say he is a power forward. Is he really a power forward or is he a center? Does he really have the lateral quickness to guard 4's? And I also did not see a great need for another big because you guys already drafted Cam Johnson last year, who I thought would be your starting 4.

I'll be honest, I was excited when Haliburton fell to us and disappointed/shocked when Smith was picked and obviously nothing since then has happened to change my mind on that lol.

But it is still so early, so you don't know how things will pan out for both players. A lot can change, especially with a raw big man and we have seen guards come in and contribute immediately and then fall away before.....Tyreke, Jennings, MCW are recent examples.

So the jury is still out and will be for some time, but at this point, yes I wish we had taken Haliburton.

Personally I am OK with Jalen Smith, he had an ankle injury and right after that he got COVID so he has not really play this season.

We need to be patient, he has nice physical tools and is known as a hard worker.

I think Haliburton is starting to be overrated by fans, I think he is playing well but I am not impressed.

We will see, only 25 games into their rookie seasons so it is too early to talk about it...but Cam Johnson was another surprising pick by James Jones and he nailed it, so I have faith in him.

I am pretty sure 80%-90% of our board would have definitely preferred Haliburton, though about half or more of those people still like Smith at least...and his skillset.

One of our biggest needs for our longer term future with such a young core is a second starting guard though, and since Booker handles quite a bit, Haliburton would be great to play on or off ball with solid defense and shooting...just an all around real player, so I definitely feel it was a miss.

Still a long way from being an All-Star type, if he's anything less you can find them in FA like a Brogdan.

I think though James Jones doesn't really like drafting and it shows, probably prefer to save the picks for a big package.

I think when you looked at our roster at that time....a big man was a need. (Cue classic drafting for need vs BPA debate)

I think we were probably surprised that Crowder was available at that price, and obviously couldn't predict that things would happen with Frank the way they did.

Our big man rotation was THIN and our guard rotation looked pretty set with Book, CP3 and Payne locked up. We've seen long term pros who have proven it over and over in this league in Galloway and Moore struggle to get consistent guard minutes. Were we really going to have time to let a rookie grow and develop in those spots? I think it's easy to see a guy doing well for another team and think the grass is greener, but who knows if he would have that same trajectory here?

It's the same debate as Rondo during the Nash era. If we had kept him we'd finally have a backup PG who could adequately spell Nash....but would D'Antoni have played him enough for him to develop the way he did in Boston? Unlikely.

Why do we get trolls like this? We are in 4th place in the west, and have a lot of depth.

Halliburton is blessed to be at the Kings, because we wouldn't know how he would develop or what kind of minutes he would get us right out of the bat. It is situational for every rookie.

Yes, obviously he is doing good and it looks like a bad pick right now, but we are winning. so FOH with this post

I wanted Haliburton so can't really argue this. But as others have mentioned it's way too early to write off Smith. His potential skill set of 3pt shooting, rebounding, and rim protection is a useful player archetype.

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I think we all are enjoying the winning, but in the larger scheme of things, this does matter, and is one of my long-term concerns with Jones.

Jones has come in and raised the floor of this team by making trades for good high-character veterans - Rubio, Saric, Baynes and of course now Paul. That'll hopefully take us to the playoffs, but it won't turn us into contenders.

The only route to contention is to (i) either sign /trade for stars; or (ii) consistently draft well and have a strong player development culture.

The first route isn't available for us, so we HAVE to make sure we become a consistently good drafting and player developing team. The last 10 years have been egregious for us in the draft - several busts and several low-character guys selected. Booker and Warren were the only exceptions.

Jones has come in and drafted 3 players - Cam, Jerome and Smith.

Now Cam looks like a nice pick (and it's not a pick I absolutely hated) and should have a nice long career in the NBA, but it's worth mentioning that players like Herro, Washington, Clarke, NAW, Keldon were drafted after him, and look like nice players too. Overall a decent pick, but not some absolute gem.

Jerome is a bust and will be out of the NBA in a year or two. Likes of Keldon, Jordan Poole, Horton-Tucker, Paschall were picked after him, and would have been better picks.

Smith over Haliburton rankles. I have nothing against Smith or his archetype. I just dispute his ceiling or potential. The Ibaka comparisons are way off - Smith simply isn't as good an athlete, and most draft experts had him as a late 1st rounder. Chances are that he becomes a JaMychal Green type rotation big. Not a terrible pick, but nothing to write home about. Especially when Haliburton was available - I think pretty much every Suns fan and casual would have picked Haliburton at the #10, not just because he was a high-floor, high-character guy, but also because he fit the most important NEED for the team. And he's already showing that he's going to be a Brogdon type starter in this league. Having that sort of guy on a cost-controlled deal for 7 years would have been very very useful for the short AND long term future of this team.

^^Yep, JJ is bit of a tool. But since we have been so absymal in the last 10 years, he gets applauded here just becouse he makes obvious moves that my dog could have made on his better days, and even some of those moves leave somethings to be desired, or make you wonder "was this really the best move we could do?". Floor raised, and we got his guys, damn the (opportunity) costs - not much else achieved. The way our roster/future looks we won't be any better soon, especially if we draft guys 15 spots too soon, while leaving better (even consensus) players on the board.

(just to put this into context: I was one of the first guys who predicted we'd be between 4 and 6 in the west and I stand by that. And I did like our FA signings this year, predicted before the season that bench would win us games, and that we'd "win" a lot of 2nd quarters. Moore/Galloway were my guys, liked the Saric/Crowder money too.)

Bogyo wrote:^^Yep, JJ is bit of a tool. But since we have been so absymal in the last 10 years, he gets applauded here just becouse he makes obvious moves that my dog could have made on his better days, and even some of those moves leave somethings to be desired, or make you wonder "was this really the best move we could do?". Floor raised, and we got his guys, damn the (opportunity) costs - not much else achieved. The way our roster/future looks we won't be any better soon, especially if we draft guys 15 spots too soon, while leaving better (even consensus) players on the board.

(just to put this into context: I was one of the first guys who predicted we'd be between 4 and 6 in the west and I stand by that. And I did like our FA signings this year, predicted before the season that bench would win us games, and that we'd "win" a lot of 2nd quarters. Moore/Galloway were my guys, liked the Saric/Crowder money too.)

I totally disagree.

I mean, more than half of the board here and reddit did not want to trade Rubio&Oubre for CP3 and they were saying that it was a high risky move...but now it was "an obvious move". Yeah.

He got Crowder for the MLE when a lot of people thought that he would be back to Miami for a big one year deal. Yeah...obvious move.

He preferred Saric over Baynes as a first backup big...and he nailed it. It was that another obvious move?

And a lot more but I do not want to make a large post.

I am grateful to James Jones because he has improved big time this franchise in a short period of time. That is not an easy thing to do and it shows that he is a great GM.

I doubt we sign Crowder w/out CP here. Might get the same type FA benefit next yr.

Jones has done some good things, but they are sprinkled around mediocre GMing. Passing on Haliburton was an opportunity lost, and will be a flat out bungle if Smith doesn’t produce. And there is little indication we’ll get anything out of him this yr. so then why even draft for position needs? Clearly, the BPA was Haliburton. These type of mis-steps are unmeasurable.

I think the overall strategy of acquiring CP was an all in two yr run for contention, before some hard cap decisions had to be made (Bridges and Deyawndre) Let’s hope we won’t have too many holes in this roster when it shakes out, as we really don’t have any youngsters to cultivate/elevate. We’ve left a few promising kids on the table, but, every organization has. Jones seems to have very basic rules of accountability of who he wants here.... but that doesn’t always result in the best talent.

Problem with these quick takes is it's sort of like criticizing the loser of a game that hasn't been played yet. While it's easy enough to like Haliburton (and I do too), it's impossible to pass judgment on Smith right now.

I wonder if he'll suit up for today's game? I'm hoping I can find a stream. I was checking some G League highlights yesterday and noticed 1 My man Paul Reed killing it, 2 GoK's man Riller playing OK, and 3 Kevin Porter Jr straight murdering out there. Too bad he's a headcase or I'd be interested.

Payne's breakout is likely why we passed on Haliburton. Also, the fact we didn't have Frank anymore. Realistically, Smith fit in like a glove.

It seems we're banking on Payne being a long term 6th man for us. If you could tell me that he'll have a very solid 5-8 years with us as the first guard off the bench, I think I'll take that over the uncertainty of drafting Haliburton.

All that said, I wanted Haliburton and was shocked and disappointed we took Smith.

RedIndian wrote:I think we all are enjoying the winning, but in the larger scheme of things, this does matter, and is one of my long-term concerns with Jones.

Jones has come in and raised the floor of this team by making trades for good high-character veterans - Rubio, Saric, Baynes and of course now Paul. That'll hopefully take us to the playoffs, but it won't turn us into contenders.

The only route to contention is to (i) either sign /trade for stars; or (ii) consistently draft well and have a strong player development culture.

The first route isn't available for us, so we HAVE to make sure we become a consistently good drafting and player developing team. The last 10 years have been egregious for us in the draft - several busts and several low-character guys selected. Booker and Warren were the only exceptions.

Jones has come in and drafted 3 players - Cam, Jerome and Smith.

Now Cam looks like a nice pick (and it's not a pick I absolutely hated) and should have a nice long career in the NBA, but it's worth mentioning that players like Herro, Washington, Clarke, NAW, Keldon were drafted after him, and look like nice players too. Overall a decent pick, but not some absolute gem.

Jerome is a bust and will be out of the NBA in a year or two. Likes of Keldon, Jordan Poole, Horton-Tucker, Paschall were picked after him, and would have been better picks.

Smith over Haliburton rankles. I have nothing against Smith or his archetype. I just dispute his ceiling or potential. The Ibaka comparisons are way off - Smith simply isn't as good an athlete, and most draft experts had him as a late 1st rounder. Chances are that he becomes a JaMychal Green type rotation big. Not a terrible pick, but nothing to write home about. Especially when Haliburton was available - I think pretty much every Suns fan and casual would have picked Haliburton at the #10, not just because he was a high-floor, high-character guy, but also because he fit the most important NEED for the team. And he's already showing that he's going to be a Brogdon type starter in this league. Having that sort of guy on a cost-controlled deal for 7 years would have been very very useful for the short AND long term future of this team.

I thought it was dumb not to take Haliburton but I also think Smith has a very rare skillset as a shot blocking/3 pt shooting PF/C in a skinny Serge Ibaka mold...perhaps a Kleber type with higher upside due to age.

Haliburton seems like a perfect long term fit next to Booker...

The trading of the Bucks pick which was used to take Desmond Bane was worse because he is a player, in the top 10 on the rookie ladder, and I know the Suns really liked him, so I imagine they would have taken him in that spot, so if we had Smith and Bane this year and only Cam last year I'd probably prefer Smith and Bane to Jerome.

Still WAY too early to come to any conclusion regarding Smith. We are deep and Frank knows our system...Jones not playing anyway. We have 3 legit 4s...to allow us to go small or big...4 of them if you include Saric, and 3 legit 5s including Frank and Saric.

But Frank will be gone, Smith provides insurance long term behind Ayton and Saric as a nice 3rd big who should get plenty of minutes against bigger teams.

I don't understand why we don't have more elite 3 pt shooters though...that is one thing Haliburton is very good at, at over 44% from 3...

And I read that 44% is good for like 22nd in the league.

I don't know if we have a regular rotation player who has played a lot of games who is even at 40%, and you'd think Cam, Bridges and Booker should be..given what they were doing in college. Booker the biggest disappointment here even given the defensive attention...it doesn't bother Curry, or did it Klay, and these were the guys he competed against in the 3 pt contest. I could understand more in previous years when there was little talent, but with our talent he can get better 3 pt looks if he takes fewer pull ups, though I know he will have some monster games doing that like the last one.

It is more understandable with Beal, with so little talent around him on that team..they have some decent young talent but not enough to not cheat off them, especially starting a rookie, 2nd year and 3rd year guy all at times. The Lillard, who is near 40%, is playing with lesser talent with McCollum out.

If these 3 guys were at 40%, we would be a lot tougher....I think Galloway is over it, but rarely plays, and Moore should be close too at some point as a career 39% 3 pt guy.

Luckily we have 2 of the best midrange guys in the NBA, some great cutters with one of the smartest/best PG passers, and a big who can clean up a lot of misses.

I liked Haliburton a lot as a prospect because I dig those high BBIQ guys. But as far as his long term fit with Booker I'd put it in the category of 'could work' but far from a perfect fit. Hali is really a good passing SG more than a true PG in today's NBA, I actually think his fit with Fox is better than his fit with Booker. The perfect PG next to booker is a guy who can break down a D, hit an open 3, and guard quick athletic pgs.

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No one is considering that Haliburton did not want to play for the Suns.

He specifically wanted to go to the Kings and he was not a super talented prospect who you would draft whatever he says. We are not talking about Zion here.

That is an important factor and I agree with drafting a prospect that is OK with playing for your franchise.

Too soon to speak. We don't know Jalen's or Haliburton's roof.

Lamelo Ball > Halliburton.

Wilber85 wrote:Lamelo Ball > Halliburton.

Sure, but that's kind of a moot point since he wasn't available when drafting.