Official Suns Free Agent/Trade/Transaction Thread

[phx#7]

Wasn't plan A in the big FA frenzy of capspace clearing Kobe + Nash? And Q was significantly down the priority list?

The rumor was the Suns were going to sign Kobe and trade for McGrady but they never met with Kobe and the McGrady trade fell through because the Suns were offering Marion/Jacobsen/1st Rnd pick and the Magic wanted JJ put in instead of Jacobsen.

The Suns thought Iggy was a lock for a top 3 pick which is why they agreed to the trade(like the Warriors did with the Suns in 2009 only the Suns didn't re-neg like the Warriors did when their guy was available).

[Frank Lee]

I also disagree with trading Goodwin He is a very good investment/value that we have locked up cheap for the next 3-4 yrs. Besides, we don't want to have to take 1Upzy's and sf88's shoelaces from them.

that's right the Mad Kan't have shoelaces.

had to edit in sf88 on the 'lace watch' too.

TheMadKant ? I forgot about him....yet he has never left?

[RunDogGun]

I also disagree with trading Goodwin He is a very good investment/value that we have locked up cheap for the next 3-4 yrs. Besides, we don't want to have to take 1Upzy's and sf88's shoelaces from them.

that's right the Mad Kan't have shoelaces.

had to edit in sf88 on the 'lace watch' too.

TheMadKant ? I forgot about him....yet he has never left?

You 1up'd me.

[phrazbit]

I am a U of A guy also and I also liked Iggy. But when you make a deal in this or other businesses you stick to it unless it becomes untenable. As a lawyer, I deal with this crap all of the time. When parties in a closed market go back on their word, they lose the trust of those they have to deal with in the future. It becomes very hard to deal with a party that does this.

We think the the Warriors did it to us and we were not too thrilled about it, the Warriors say the deal was never in place. The Warriors did a couple of other dirty dealings with other teams and it got to the point that no one would deal with them until they let Nelson go and brought in some trustworthy people. Even then it took a long time and ultimately a change in ownership before other teams began to trust them again.

I am not saying I like what the Suns did with that pick, because I do not, but there is a principle in dealing with your colleagues in this type of environment. If they lose trust in you, you cannot get anything done in the future. The "scorched earth" approach would not have worked well when it came time for the next Suns deal or the ones after that.

Thats all fine, but they still did not have to make the deal even leading up to the draft. They could have easily said "We will draft Deng for you IF (blank) player we prefer is not on the board at the time". I dont doubt those kind of verbal agreements are made all the time in a draft.

I dont think there is any perpetuation of an urban legend here, we could have drafted anyone we felt like with that pick, it was our pick. Nothing forced us to agree to a trade with Chicago, be it an hour before the draft or a week before. They didnt need to make the agreement in the first place.

[JDLAW]

Yes, they did not have to make the deal to start with, but once they did, however bad as it might seem now in hindsight, they were bound to go through with it. You do not renege. That is my point.

At the time, the deal did not look as bad because Q Rich came in and had a career year - leading the NBA in 3 point field goals, won the 3 point shootout at the all star game and the team raced to team record 62 wins, which they would not have achieved at the time if they had drafted Deng or Iggy. Everyone was getting awards D'Antoni, (COY) Nash (MVP), Brian Colangelo (Exec of Yr), etc.. and the Suns had a 2005 replacement pick.

It started to look bad the next off season when Q.Rich was traded to the Knicks along with Nate Robinson for Kurt Thomas.

As for going after McGrady and Kobe - I recall that being Gambadoro's wet dream, but I also recall the Suns pulling out of any trade for McGrady because Orlando was becoming very difficult to deal with and Rockets decided to trade their whole backcourt for him. I recall Kobe taking a call from the Suns at the start of the free agent period, but telling the Suns he was not interested and the Suns hightailed it to Dallas to sign Nash.

There is a lot of revisionist history that was going on about this time. The ownership change was in flux and roles in the front office were changing. The Colangelos were spending heavily and Sarver who had just committed about One-Half Billion Dollars to buy the team and give contacts to Nash, Stoudemire and Q.Rich drew the line in the sand when JJ wanted $5M more on his deal. He called it his worst mistake.

[bigfoot]

http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=nw32a4a

ATL get Asik
HOU get Frye/IND 1st
PHX get Milsap

So here is a trade you finally suggest that I can almost buy into. I was lobbying for Milsap before the season began. Only reason to dislike this trade is it makes Houston much, much better and they are in our conference. Frye and Howard would be an awesome front court (remember I highly value Frye and his stretch 4/5 abilities).

[Moochthemonkey]

The Colangelos were spending heavily and Sarver who had just committed about One-Half Billion Dollars to buy the team and give contacts to Nash, Stoudemire and Q.Rich drew the line in the sand when JJ wanted $5M more on his deal. He called it his worst mistake.

Wasn't Sarver willing to pay JJ his contract, but JJ wanted to be the man in Atlanta so Sarver respected his wishes? I'll have to find the link..

[thamadkant]

I would do a trade with the Bulls for Noah.
A package like this...
Noah + Hinrich

for

Okafor + Plumlee + Goodwin
Indy's 1st, Suns 1st (top 10 protected)

By the time his contract expires we can give Len the helm at center.

Such Len hopes.... right now, he couldn't beat out Plumlee, and there is nothing that says he ever will. Cut it out.
I'm going to go back to what we have. If we make no deals, and somehow get OK4 healthy enough to give 15-20 minutes a night, our front line becomes quite better. That in itself may be a longshot, but it is an easy fix for a playoff run.... IF we have that opportunity. AND it costs us nothing.

There is no desperation in the FO to do anything. McDo just went fishing with our picks is all. This draft coming up, and its a long ways off...has the potential to be one of the more enjoyable FAN-WISE that we have had in yrs/decades.


I also disagree with trading Goodwin He is a very good investment/value that we have locked up cheap for the next 3-4 yrs. Besides, we don't want to have to take 1Upzy's and sf88's shoelaces from them.

I'm definitely against trading Goodwin, and everyone here knows that.

But I'm no groupie by any means.

But Goodwin's potential + contract status + youth + work ethic is something you keep as an ace up your sleeve down the line. And I think the Suns FO agrees with that summation.

[thamadkant]

And the only thing I'd trade for Noah is Okafor's contract and maybe a couple of late first rounders.
That offer that includes Plumlee and Goodwin is HELL NO.
These two are my current favourite Suns players too.

Plumlee is on the Noah-mold minus the passion.... give Plumlee some caffeine tablets and get him emotionally involved and you have a poor man's Noah (~70% impact)....at 1/10th the cost.

[JDLAW]

The Colangelos were spending heavily and Sarver who had just committed about One-Half Billion Dollars to buy the team and give contacts to Nash, Stoudemire and Q.Rich drew the line in the sand when JJ wanted $5M more on his deal. He called it his worst mistake.

Wasn't Sarver willing to pay JJ his contract, but JJ wanted to be the man in Atlanta so Sarver respected his wishes? I'll have to find the link..

That was the following offseason when JJ became an RFA. I am referring to the extension negotiations in 2004 where the Suns were coming off a 28 win season and Colangelo was selling the team to Sarver. The Suns offered JJ a 5 yr $40M extension and JJ initially wanted $50M but dropped to $45M in order to meet in the middle. The Suns would not increase the offer.

[Moochthemonkey]

The Colangelos were spending heavily and Sarver who had just committed about One-Half Billion Dollars to buy the team and give contacts to Nash, Stoudemire and Q.Rich drew the line in the sand when JJ wanted $5M more on his deal. He called it his worst mistake.

Wasn't Sarver willing to pay JJ his contract, but JJ wanted to be the man in Atlanta so Sarver respected his wishes? I'll have to find the link..

That was the following offseason when JJ became an RFA. I am referring to the extension negotiations in 2004 where the Suns were coming off a 28 win season and Colangelo was selling the team to Sarver. The Suns offered JJ a 5 yr $40M extension and JJ initially wanted $50M but dropped to $45M in order to meet in the middle. The Suns would not increase the offer.

ahh, got it.

[Frank Lee]

Some how or another , we gained Loren Myer as the pick in that dealing recapped by JD. I can remember Chicago had a run that yr, and won something like 22 of 25 games. Each day it seemed, our draft pick slid down a rung.

That water under the bridge sometimes is more turbulent than expected. Just the thought of taking a few different paths and a shred of luck, we could have run with a squad of Iggy, Noah or Horford, Nash and the rest of the crew. Oh brother, what could have been.

I think it would be safe to say, across the league, this team/organization has a collection of wouldashouldacoulda transactions that are rivaled by non.... and it all started with a GD coin flip.

[Frank Lee]

While I think you are spot on with your post, nevetsov, I don't think Memphis will trade Gasol. Even if they bottom out, I think they will build around Conley, Gasol, their lottery pick and whatever they can get for Randolph. At least that is what the vibe in the league seems to be. They already have Ed Davis and Jon Leuer (who is playing surprisingly well to plug in for Randolph). They probably feel with those pieces and a swingman in the lottery, they will be right back.

A rolled by this post, but then, the thought of ZBo here became intriguing. Cant see it happening w/o Memphis spiraling down and being hungry for picks... but add that beast to this squad and the game changes. Yup, I'm piping.

Bled
Dragic Goodwin
Tucker CusMo
ZBo KeifMo
Frye Plum

[DRK]

I love me some Z-Bo. He's one of my favourite players in the league. But acquiring him would have a Terry Porter affect on this team.

If OKC spirals out this season, I would look heavily into acquiring Ibaka. He is exactly what we need at the PF/C spot.

[McD for MVP]

I think our best option is to right now or in the off season go after Love in a trade offering the twins and damn near all of our picks. If Minny says no then we should just stand pat for next season with basically the exact same roster. We should continue to improve and hopefully make a run in the playoffs.

The off season after that, we will have serious money to blow. The Rockets might make a play for Love, meaning they would have to let Parsons walk that off season. So, if Love goes to the Rockets, we have the money to overpay Parsons if necessary to for sure get him.

Bledsoe/Dragic
Dragic/Goodwin
Parsons/Marcus
Markieff/Frye
Len/Plumlee

We would probably trade Tucker and let Green walk. As for our draft picks which I assume we would trade up for a higher pick, we would probably draft a 4 or a 5. Maybe if the Lakers pick is a #4 we could package our 2014 picks with it and Tucker for a #1 or something to that extent. Who knows.

If Love signs here, which would be the best case scenario, we would look like this.

Bledsoe/Dragic
Dragic/Goodwin
Tucker/Marcus
Love/Markieff
Len/Plumlee

This would also be great because we could hopefully draft a stud small forward. Imagine if Lakers pick turns into a future all star SF. Whew.

I think we should go this route because I think the chances of Love going to someone other than the Rockets or Suns are very low .

[carey]

The off season after that, we will have serious money to blow.

Keep in mind that Goran can opt out after next season. We'll need to resign him (if we're inclined) so that will partly eat into how much money we have. If you figure max money for Bledsoe this off-season then I'm not sure we can give Love $20Mil and still pay Dragic $10Mil+. The best scenario is to trade for Love so we can use his bird rights and go over the cap instead of trying to fit them all under the cap.

[McD for MVP]

The off season after that, we will have money to blow.

Keep in mind that Goran can opt out after next season. We'll need to resign him (if we're inclined) so that will partly eat into how much money we have. If you figure max money for Bledsoe this off-season then I'm not sure we can give Love $20Mil and still pay Dragic $10Mil+. The best scenario is to trade for Love so we can use his bird rights and go over the cap instead of trying to fit them all under the cap.

Bledsoe-15
Dragic-11
Love-19

That's roughly 45 mill (could be slightly off, don't feel like looking up the exact numbers)

Twins-8.5
Tucker-3.5(?)
Frye-2
Goodwin, Len, Plumlee-6


Borderline cap. Would he a squeeze. Maybe Dragic can take a slight cut for a ring.

[bwgood77]

While I think you are spot on with your post, nevetsov, I don't think Memphis will trade Gasol. Even if they bottom out, I think they will build around Conley, Gasol, their lottery pick and whatever they can get for Randolph. At least that is what the vibe in the league seems to be. They already have Ed Davis and Jon Leuer (who is playing surprisingly well to plug in for Randolph). They probably feel with those pieces and a swingman in the lottery, they will be right back.

A rolled by this post, but then, the thought of ZBo here became intriguing. Cant see it happening w/o Memphis spiraling down and being hungry for picks... but add that beast to this squad and the game changes. Yup, I'm piping.

Bled
Dragic Goodwin
Tucker CusMo
ZBo KeifMo
Frye Plum

It's funny you guys mention ZBo now. I mentioned a few pages back that I wouldn't be surprised if he was a guy that became available and asked if people would want him. I don't think anyone responded (or maybe one person did and listed him among players they didn't want).

[Qwigglez]

I like Z-Bo's game, I just think he'd be a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. I can't imagine him being pursued by our FO.

[Christine-In-AZ]

I think our best option is to right now or in the off season go after Love in a trade offering the twins and damn near all of our picks.

...and if so, then the Suns can once again get back on that treadmill that has failed to produce a title for 45 years. A treadmill that puts almost all emphasis on the offensive end of the equation.. Love is a poor defense player...he'd cost the Suns a ton financially. Via a trade, the acquisition would not only cost the Suns bucks, they'd have to pay a hefty ransom of talent and picks. Kevin is a great offensive weapon...an all-star (whoopie!), but his true value towards winning a title at this time is more than a little inflated. Just say no to Love if offered. Don't get back on the tired & titleless treadmill. Build this core. Put more focus on defense. Add defensive prowess and B-ball IQ when opportunities come about over the next couple years. Don't repeat the fruitless past strategies once again.