2024-25 Season Discussion and Speculation Part III

[bwgood77]

Ishbia brought the SUNS as a target for superstars (Aging?).
I believe this was the plan from the beginning - to make Phoenix an attractive destination with an owner who gives a crazy amount of money.

Of course, the NBA is not working like that, and selling all your future to take whoever superstar could be available randomly, usually leads to ruined franchises for years.

Not having a GM with balls in such situations is a huge problem as well.

Now, when he sees that the experiment with Durant didn`t work, he will try to flip him for Butler and try again next year.
Until next time...

Dark, dark years coming for our fanbase.

I think his mission statement is something like "Trade picks for superstars that are at least 30, and add role players that are at least 25. The draft is mostly worthless but since the Stepien rule forces us to keep some picks, we will, but we will try to trade them unprotected for lesser valuable picks so we have 2 quarters, a dime and a nickel in our very small trade war chest instead of only a one dollar bill. Then add journeymen role players and below avg centers. But always talk fast and confident. He likes to go by the mantra who a very successful businessman politician has gone by in his life "Never admit defeat, never admit you are wrong, always appear confident, and brag about achievements". The last part has been hard, but has had to boil down to statements like "KD wants to be here and is happy here".

[bwgood77]

The Warriors package for KD is garbage. If I was Ishbia I would not accept it. Those two Blazers losses were not good but Blazers just beat the Pacers and blew them out. They are playing well right now.

I want Butler on this team if it costs us Beal but not if we have to give up Durant.

Have you always been a Suns fan or are more of a Bulls fan and KD fan? Just curious because if you are mainly here because of being a KD fan, why want to subject yourself to being a Suns fan? Wouldn't you rather him be on a team with a better chance?

[bwgood77]

Ishbia is not changing course a week after he traded our last chance of a top 2 pick for 7 years

He can possibly get what he wants plus Kuminga and a pick to appease

It's still pretty damn ludicrous he made that trade with nothing lined up. I can only laugh typing this. I mean what a joke.

[bwgood77]

And 2 years ago everyone was so excited....
I miss the twins. Sus would have been a better team with a better future, all their picks. All that was needed were some decent role plaers for bench depth and a starting PG to replace CP.

Yeah, if we just kept that team...yeah a disappointing loss to Dallas. CP3 was obviously injured and maybe bad enough he would never be the same. But that was Luka, on a mission. He beat OKC last year.

We had just won 64 games. Now, the argument is, this team won't go anywhere, but the core was young, we had all our picks, and could trade Crowder for a piece and Ayton for something better than Nurkic.

Make good picks. Retool. Come back stronger with good chemistry. Instead he destroyed it in the blink of an eye. People act like the KD deal was good. But the prevailing thought was it will be worth it if we win a championship in the next 2 years and many thought we would. But we lost in the second round with KD, while still having CP3 and Ayton, and then deal for Nurkic, Allen, Beal and get swept.

And now we are worse than last year and want to trade more picks (you may as well call picks young players) for old aging players when we already are the oldest team with the highest payroll tied for 10th in the west with by far the toughest schedule left.

[BobbieL]

Ishbia brought the SUNS as a target for superstars (Aging?).
I believe this was the plan from the beginning - to make Phoenix an attractive destination with an owner who gives a crazy amount of money.

Of course, the NBA is not working like that, and selling all your future to take whoever superstar could be available randomly, usually leads to ruined franchises for years.

Not having a GM with balls in such situations is a huge problem as well.

Now, when he sees that the experiment with Durant didn`t work, he will try to flip him for Butler and try again next year.
Until next time...

Dark, dark years coming for our fanbase.

I think his mission statement is something like "Trade picks for superstars that are at least 30, and add role players that are at least 25. The draft is mostly worthless but since the Stepien rule forces us to keep some picks, we will, but we will try to trade them unprotected for lesser valuable picks so we have 2 quarters, a dime and a nickel in our very small trade war chest instead of only a one dollar bill. Then add journeymen role players and below avg centers. But always talk fast and confident. He likes to go by the mantra who a very successful businessman politician has gone by in his life "Never admit defeat, never admit you are wrong, always appear confident, and brag about achievements". The last part has been hard, but has had to boil down to statements like "KD wants to be here and is happy here".

Milwaukee can trade easier for Beal now

They were in on Levine

Maybe that’s the Suns plan with Durant - moving Beal too

[bwgood77]

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Everyone else saying it’s dumb (which is correct) is probably exact reason why Ishbia would do this.

God damn we really need someone to come out with a harassment and racism suit against Ishbia. Sad thing is that he’s rich and “not cheap” so even if he was a sexual predator or racist, he would just pay them off on the side and do NDAs so he never gets caught which is what Sarver wasn’t willing to do.

This is why Pelinka made sure Nico didn't make a peep about their trade...it would have been tweets like this x a million and it never would have happened. If the media, fans, etc, got an inkling of that deal or that Luka would get traded at all....they would have gone nuts.

The funny thing is, even if they got the better deal with 2 picks and Knecht, they'd be just as mad they traded Luka, just unaware that it could have been even worse.

[bwgood77]

And 2 years ago everyone was so excited....
I miss the twins. Sus would have been a better team with a better future, all their picks. All that was needed were some decent role plaers for bench depth and a starting PG to replace CP.

Not everybody. I was not a fan of the trade

I remember the one time I was pro KD was against the Mavs where he hit a tough 15 footer to win the game and thought "he is one of like 3 players in the league who could make that exact shot."

But at the time, thought it was a HUGE overpay for a 34 year old Durant

Windhorst was on Getup
1) he talked how the Suns tried to use the 3 FRPs to separate teams to move Beal - no luck
2) he talked how the Suns might acquire Butler for Durant -
--that makes no sense unless you ship Wiggins to Miami and still get Kuminga and Pod - meaning young players. But I thought you trade for Butler to add to Durant

3) Windhorst also mentioned this could be a 4 team, 12 player trade
4) Booker is going nowhere at this trading deadline

But if I am trading Durant, I am getting younger, not Butler. The only way I take Butler is if somehow Beal is traded

I thought Schank was saying 2 years ago everyone was excited with the KD trade at fist, but I'm thinking he's saying everyone was excited prior to the KD trade 2 years ago.

If you recall we were REALLY banged up that year...only MIkal and Ayton healthy for a long stretch and everyone had just gotten healthy and we were starting to look REALLY good. I remember Mikal after the trade saying "wow, everyone had gotten healthy, and I had added to my game because I had to with everyone out, and we were feeling so good about how we were playing, like we could beat anyone, so the news was shocking, and emotional in the hotel."

[bwgood77]

For those thinking it would just be KD for Butler and picks, you're out of your mind.

You don't go from Beal and a couple of bad firsts for Butler to KD for Butler and picks.
Whatever happens, it'll be a massive trade.

The worst I would accept is Butler, Kuminga, and a slew of picks.

I'd prefer to get younger however. KD is our only chance we have to retool around Booker. We need to get some youth in here. Butler, and his future extension doesn't help with that. This is our chance to fix some of what we lost when acquiring him.

Ultimately, if/when this goes down, I think whatever the final deal is, it'll make our heads spin (good or bad). Don't be surprised if guys like Morris, Jones, Lee, Bol, Mason are spun out too

You think 36 year old KD has the trade value of Butler, Kuming and a slew of picks? That's a lot. I mean it almost sounds like as much as we gave up for him, and that was an awful trade, and KD is 2 years older with probably 2 years left, when he had 4 years left then and was under contract for 4.

[BobbieL]

Ishbia is not changing course a week after he traded our last chance of a top 2 pick for 7 years

He can possibly get what he wants plus Kuminga and a pick to appease

It's still pretty damn ludicrous he made that trade with nothing lined up. I can only laugh typing this. I mean what a joke.

The only way trading for three picks is if you blow it up now so that the goal is to be good when that pick comes back around

Trading Durant could help that goal

Trading for butler would not help that long term play

[bwgood77]

Read on Twitter

Every single report so far says Luka never asked out, didn’t want out and that he was shocked by this.

Stop the f****ing idiotic crap of posting some dumbass trying to be a reporter on twitter. Seriously, if any of you actually follow that guy on twitter and post his stuff here, that actually speaks very poorly about you.

I think it's pretty obvious he was probably going to leave or ask out publicly and that his agent let it be known. Sure they will say all the right things to Shams/Stein to try and not make Luka out to be a bad guy (from Luka's side) and the Mavs GM will talk up AD (and I think he does love AD). I do think they could have gotten more but I would bet a lot that Luka was going to be gone one way or another and they could have ended up like OKC did when KD left them for nothing (they recovered well though because Presti).

I do find it crazy though that the two teams the Suns have battled for decades, for a long time with either Shaq/Kobe or Duncan/Kawhi/Ginobili or prior to that Magic/Worthy or Robinson/Elliot or Rodman now have the two best (by far) 25 or younger players in the NBA, two generational players that will likely go down as top 10 players or close by the end of their careers.

Luka will be the biggest superstar ever maybe since Jordan. This is like Larry Bird being in LA. Like he is the most exciting guy to watch with his passing, etc, and his confidence to take over a game and win is higher than anyone's, and if you challenge him, he is a killer. He also is the best at making others better along with Jokic.

Yup that sums up the Suns luck.

And I disagree about Luka not re-signing thing. Luka was asked this yesterday and said fact out that it’s not true and he was going to re-sign. He apparently just bought a $15M house in Dallas a few weeks ago too. Those aren’t moves a guy that plans on leaving within few months or a year would be doing imo.

One thing about Euro star players is that they are far more loyal than American star players imo.

That's an old post from right after the trade. It was the ONLY thing that made sense given the return and no other teams being mentioned.

But given what we learned a few days ago, I was obviously very wrong and Nico got bamboozled. He was obviously frustrated with Luka's conditioning and probably said that to Rob in a coffee date and Rob started to plant seeds to make him seem it was probably a good idea to trade him. And then get him to reduce the offer and convince him taking Luka is a risk with his weight/injury issues and massive upcoming contract.

But yeah, I was way off on that. It is the only thing that made reasonable sense on such a crappy return, that they had no leverage because he was likely leaving, and they freaked out.

But no, the story is completely ludicrous.

[Slim Charless]

For those thinking it would just be KD for Butler and picks, you're out of your mind.

You don't go from Beal and a couple of bad firsts for Butler to KD for Butler and picks.
Whatever happens, it'll be a massive trade.

The worst I would accept is Butler, Kuminga, and a slew of picks.

I'd prefer to get younger however. KD is our only chance we have to retool around Booker. We need to get some youth in here. Butler, and his future extension doesn't help with that. This is our chance to fix some of what we lost when acquiring him.

Ultimately, if/when this goes down, I think whatever the final deal is, it'll make our heads spin (good or bad). Don't be surprised if guys like Morris, Jones, Lee, Bol, Mason are spun out too

You think 36 year old KD has the trade value of Butler, Kuming and a slew of picks? That's a lot. I mean it almost sounds like as much as we gave up for him, and that was an awful trade, and KD is 2 years older with probably 2 years left, when he had 4 years left then and was under contract for 4.

So what do you think he's worth? Butler straight up or do we need to add picks to get rid of this awful player Kevin Durant....lol

Jesus.

[bwgood77]

Read on Twitter

KD to Dallas? What could they offer? What would/ should we demand back if trading him to Dallas? Just like Memphis, they'd have to gut their roster a bit. But we could get some interesting pieces back and a few 1sts?

They don't have too much for picks. They have the one they got from the Lakers but I looked at them the other day. They may be able to trade a far out one but they may not.

I don't know what players they would trade.They likely wouldn't trade Lively, who would be great to get. I don't know how they could come up with that much salary.

An the fact we can only to 1 for 1 trades makes it impossible since Kyrie and AD won't be moved.

We basically have to take back 1 huge contract..which is why it's like Wiggins, Butler, etc.

[Revived]

And 2 years ago everyone was so excited....
I miss the twins. Sus would have been a better team with a better future, all their picks. All that was needed were some decent role plaers for bench depth and a starting PG to replace CP.

Yeah, if we just kept that team...yeah a disappointing loss to Dallas. CP3 was obviously injured an maybe bad enough he would never be the same. But that was Luka, on a mission. He beat OKC last year.

We had just won 64 games. Now, the argument is, this team won't go anywhere, but the core was young, we had all our picks, and could trade Crowder for a piece and Ayton for something better than Nurkic.

Make good picks. Retool. Come back stronger with good chemistry. Instead he destroyed it in the blink of an eye. People act like the KD deal was good. But the prevailing thought was it will be worth it if we win a championship in the next 2 years and many thought we would. But we lost in the second round with KD, while still having CP3 and Ayton, and then deal for Nurkic, Allen, Beal an get swept.

And now we are worse than last year and want to trade more picks (you may as well call picks young players) for old aging players when we already are the oldest team with the highest payroll tied for 10th in the west with by far the toughest schedule left.

I wonder where we would be if we had just replaced Monty with a better coach after that season and kept Booker/Mikal/Ayton/Johnson/CP3.

Also if gonna trade Ayton, then traded Ayton to Indiana for Turner when we had the chance.

[BobbieL]

For those thinking it would just be KD for Butler and picks, you're out of your mind.

You don't go from Beal and a couple of bad firsts for Butler to KD for Butler and picks.
Whatever happens, it'll be a massive trade.

The worst I would accept is Butler, Kuminga, and a slew of picks.

I'd prefer to get younger however. KD is our only chance we have to retool around Booker. We need to get some youth in here. Butler, and his future extension doesn't help with that. This is our chance to fix some of what we lost when acquiring him.

Ultimately, if/when this goes down, I think whatever the final deal is, it'll make our heads spin (good or bad). Don't be surprised if guys like Morris, Jones, Lee, Bol, Mason are spun out too

You think 36 year old KD has the trade value of Butler, Kuming and a slew of picks? That's a lot. I mean it almost sounds like as much as we gave up for him, and that was an awful trade, and KD is 2 years older with probably 2 years left, when he had 4 years left then and was under contract for 4.

It was an awful trade

Not getting close to what they gave up and taking Butler decreases the value even more unless you can pawn Nurk off somehow

[Calvin Klein]

I haven't said Ishbia is a **** moron for a couple of hours yet, so here it is.

**** moron.

[bwgood77]

Ishbia brought the SUNS as a target for superstars (Aging?).
I believe this was the plan from the beginning - to make Phoenix an attractive destination with an owner who gives a crazy amount of money.

Of course, the NBA is not working like that, and selling all your future to take whoever superstar could be available randomly, usually leads to ruined franchises for years.

Not having a GM with balls in such situations is a huge problem as well.

Now, when he sees that the experiment with Durant didn`t work, he will try to flip him for Butler and try again next year.
Until next time...

Dark, dark years coming for our fanbase.

I think his mission statement is something like "Trade picks for superstars that are at least 30, and add role players that are at least 25. The draft is mostly worthless but since the Stepien rule forces us to keep some picks, we will, but we will try to trade them unprotected for lesser valuable picks so we have 2 quarters, a dime and a nickel in our very small trade war chest instead of only a one dollar bill. Then add journeymen role players and below avg centers. But always talk fast and confident. He likes to go by the mantra who a very successful businessman politician has gone by in his life "Never admit defeat, never admit you are wrong, always appear confident, and brag about achievements". The last part has been hard, but has had to boil down to statements like "KD wants to be here and is happy here".

Milwaukee can trade easier for Beal now

They were in on Levine

Maybe that’s the Suns plan with Durant - moving Beal too

They are not trading for Beal to pair with Lillard. The rumor then was in part of a Middleton deal. Kuzma is a good return for Middleton at this point. I don't think they do much more.

And why are we talking about Beal still? I don't think anyone wants him and he is unlikely to waive his NTC anyway, so it's pointless. But I think it's less about not waiving it since we haven't heard any reports of "a trade was agreed upon but Beal didn't approve/waive his NTC". They have all been "no one wants Beal".

[Revived]

I have a feeling the Suns are about to make a terrible trade within the next 24 hours.

[schnakenpopanz]

I haven't said Ishbia is a **** moron for a couple of hours yet, so here it is.

**** moron.

I heard he is a BUSINESS MAN!!!!

Gesendet von meinem Pixel 8 Pro mit Tapatalk

[Saberestar]

Breaking: The Milwaukee Bucks are trading Khris Middleton, AJ Johnson and a pick swap to the Washington Wizards for Kyle Kuzma, Patrick Baldwin Jr. and second-round draft compensation, sources tell ESPN.

Interesting trade for the Bucks. Kuzma can play PF and Anteto at C a good amount of minutes per game.

[Calvin Klein]

I haven't said Ishbia is a **** moron for a couple of hours yet, so here it is.

**** moron.

I heard he is a BUSINESS MAN!!!!

Gesendet von meinem Pixel 8 Pro mit Tapatalk

He has money and he played basketball. He should be a genius!!!