nate33 wrote:The Consiglieri wrote:Kanyewest wrote:
The Suns have no incentive to tank since they don't control their pick until 2032.
When I talk about the Sun's tanking, I'm not talking about them trying to suck, I'm talking about them deciding to trade booker, and Durant because they aren't contending, are only getting worse, and have to get something for them if they want to avoid a total collapse inside that law of diminishing returns. By trading those guys, they are tanking indirectly, but also trying to recoup assets, and if they decide the assets to recoup are pick swaps, or future firsts from bad teams or likely to be bad teams, they would I think, do that, at some point, I just do not know when.
Phoenix is not going to be getting any better in a general sense, just older. Do they sell this summer or this winter, or just slowly decline?
Trend line is 45-49-36, and players are going to eventually be 3 years older than they were in that 45 win season of '22-'23. I don't know how they're gonna play it. We, for instance, lived in denial from January 2019 until June '22 when Beal finally pulled the rug out. Will they act preemptively, or go down with the sinking ship like we did? They don't own their own picks, that's true, but their assets are declining in value, and WILL NOT increase in value over the coming years. Do they ride the ship slowly into the ground and blow apart, or do they throw off their assets for the best return? That's the question....I'm not saying they will tank deliberately, but honestly, whats the difference between tanking deliberately, and them trading Durant and Booker for futures? I can't see any. I could see it if they tried a lateral trade for younger, in prime say 24-27 year old vets, that would be different and might not cause a tanking effect, but generally historically speaking, unless you're the Lakers, or Miami, when you age out, you age out, and that's a wrap, and the Sun's are aging out, and have to make these trades, or just suck, suck even worse, and then totally suck. Something's gonna happen, we just don't know when or what.
A team in their situation doesn't trade away current talent for picks. What they would try to do is trade an older player for a younger player and try to at least remain competitive enough to fill seats. So they will likely trade Durant, but they will be looking to get back a decent younger player(s). Something like Durant to Houston for Jabari Smith and Cam Whitmore would be the type of deal to make. Although a lot of that is complicated by their 2nd Apron status.
What I'm saying is that Phoenix may be bad just because they can't control their decline, but they won't be awful because being awful does NOTHING for them except lose fan support.
I get your reasoning, i just don't know if such a trade (which I also think is distinctly possible, indeed probable, especially if they're sane) really makes much of a difference. If I'm hired on to clean up the mess they made, that is the kind of trades I'd put together, but I'd probably pursue trades to create a kind of golden loom scenario where I flip attractive young assets acquired for more picks and more young players kind of like a reverse Deni trade, where I'm moving Booker for a Deni in '25 level guy and a 1st kind of thing and Durant for some talent who hits in the 7th-12th zone, isn't a star, and flip him and on and on, because none of the roads they can pursue will go in a positive direction long term other than piling up picks from soon to be crappy teams in reverse. That's the best you can do. You probably end up giving great picks up over and over to teams you owe swaps to and direct pick transactions for years, but if the picks acquired are worthwhile, it may give you the ammo eventually to pile up an actual build indirectly.
Sticking with the guys is a non-starter long term.
Trading laterally is largely a non-starter unless you get genuine mystery pick bags back.
For me personally, I'd eat the ---- show disaster that was '25-31 or whatever, and just working on golden looming mystery first opportunities through perpetually flipping.
I get that owners and fans might hate this, but every other move left is a move to 30-40 win irrelevance in an absolutely loaded conference for a decade, at least the mystery loom option presents the possibility of a 1 in 20 kind of miracle, the just trying to stay relevant angle just leaves them totally screwed far past 2032. I will totally say so, and I think a lot of us said it even last year, that what the Suns had done was in many ways build a far worse situation that anything we've been in the past four decades. We've had very little hope, but there were always distant possiblities with lotto access to '92-'96, and '10-'13 and '18-'25 or whatever, it didn't work out, so far, but there was at least a chance. The Suns literally are like the Nets were circa 2013, just totally screwed for a decade running or nearly so, there are no outs other than breaking it up.
I think they will end up tanking indirectly because of the moves made, if they're smart anyway that's what they'll do, and take all the bad press, if they're stupid, they'll keep doing lateral moves to tread 30-40 win water for no apparent reason, same as the idiot Mavs.
