Suns Offseason Thread 2: The Hunt for a Blazer Continues!

[DRK]

Why would you guys get so anxious and freak out over that post? The poster was just messing with you and trying to get that reaction out of you. Dude's last post on the board was on March 23rd...

We're Suns fans. Years of heartbreak has rendered us all emotionally unstable.

[alphagorilla]

New day lets hope for best and expect the worst.... at the end of day Mook is gone, so at least we got that going for us.

[aIvin adams]

should we trade LMA for Love?

[DRK]

should we trade LMA for Love?

Doubt that'll sit well with our FO's reputation for loyalty.

Thats a Hinkie move right there

[DRK]

Dont get me wrong. I love LMA. I would LOVE him on our team. I desperately want that.

However one thing does sort of weigh on my mind: 20+mil a year for a guy who's 29. Will we see any decline in his game along that span? Is he worth 3 times Markieff Morris?

Not to be "that guy"at parties, however I do have a few concerns.

[King4Day]

Yeah what?

Big news can also mean bad news.

No one said it was good news.

Naturally people are going to get their hopes up and assume. That's how I head it at least.

[Barkley6]

I have a feeling the only "announcement" we'll get to day is that LMA is going to visit San Antonio and Phoenix. I think whether he visits Dallas or not is going to hinge on who DeAndre Jordan chooses (Mavs/Clips).

[bwgood77]

on the real tho, the man has half a million followers. He's probably getting thousands of tweets a day right now. LMA be all like

So true. I always find it funny when I see people tweeting personalized tweets to famous artists with like 10 million followers. They probably get so many they simply couldn't read them all even if they tried to.

[pvj22]

A few guys on the NBA channel (that sounds real credible right? ..lol) said they didn't expect a final decision until this weekend.

I'll be driving down to San Diego about noon, so if we do get him I'll be celebrating all by myself in a foreign city...I havent been this excited in a long time over the Suns..God forbid I find out in a public place...EVERYONE will hear me scream and they'll all be convinced I'm crazy.

[matt131]

A few guys on the NBA channel (that sounds real credible right? ..lol) said they didn't expect a final decision until this weekend.

I'll be driving down to San Diego about noon, so if we do get him I'll be celebrating all by myself in a foreign city...I havent been this excited in a long time over the Suns..God forbid I find out in a public place...EVERYONE will hear me scream and they'll all be convinced I'm crazy.

Gonna be where I'm celebrating, too

[bwgood77]

on the real tho, the man has half a million followers. He's probably getting thousands of tweets a day right now.

Whenever I tweet the Suns they always respond back. Paul Coro too. Dudley as well. Even Larry Fitzgerald (I tweeted em one time, he responded once). It's not hard to communicate with your fans now a days and I'm sure they read all their tweets (or most of em, lol.)

I think in a random day during the season, Aldridge probably only gets maybe 5-25 tweets a day, so it' easy to read them. But since he is the biggest pending free agent, for the past couple of days he is probably in the 200-1000 range. He could read them all, but it would take time and he's probably pretty busy. He probably has a PR guy reading them all though, and someone could summarize (ie - Spurs fans are obnoxious and annoying...Suns fans seem cool).

[NavLDO]

Blazers are toast unless LMA somehow comes back, and even then who's at SG and C?

Mavericks are done, they might struggle to field a 40 win team - no C, SG or PG right now. I could see them throwing crazy money at Koufos and maybe a guy like Reggie Jackson and hope DET doesn't match? Could see them going after Stuckey or Mo Williams too.

There's room to make a run at the playoffs - if we don't land LMA I'd throw a max at Tobias Harris, would mean we could keep Kieff I think?

TChandler
Kieff
Harris
Knight
Bledsoe
---
Len
Leuer
Tucker
Warren
Booker
Goodwin
PYoung?

Thin bench...need some vets

I really would play Harris as the 4--next to Len or Chandler, we'd still have plenty of size in the Front Court.

I've mentioned a couple of times, but IMO, we should go hard after Kyle O'Quinn with or without Harris...OORRRR...

Bledsoe, Len, Tucker for Fournier, Harris, O'Quinn--then sign Ish...and a couple of other cheap guys. Have no idea how themoney works with this, though...

http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=pof5sjd

Knight/Ish
Goodwin/Fournier/Booker
Harris/Warren
O'Quinn or Kieff/Leuer
Chandler/O'Quinn

[bwgood77]

Yes, but it's not because of the cap. Those rules above only applies to players that we sign or trade for. We can keep Archie and Booker regardless of what the cap is. We can even resign them to hypothetical max deals if they were RFA because we have their rights. That's why we can resign B-Knight to a 70/5 (exceeding the cap) even after Chandler and Aldridge have signed, and why Cleveland can afford three max contracts plus Tristan Thompson at 5/80, Shumpert at 4/40, Haywood at 10, Varejao at another amount.

Not talking about bird rights at all. I'm asking if having 2 mill more in cap space means we can avoid including either in a S&T for Chandler.

For instance, if the extra 2 mil put us "under the cap", we'd have to trade even dollars to remain under the cap, correct?

If the extra 2 mil was there and we were still "over the cap", we'd have to still trade within $5 mil.

So I'm wondering if the extra 2 mil would help us at all. A strict reading of the rules suggests no, but intuitively it should save us from having to get rid of $2 mil.

Oh, my mistake. Sorry. I could be incorrect in all this, but I digress:

I don't see how having 2 million increase in the cap would change what I said two responses ago though. So, Booker or Goodwin would have to be traded in the above scenario to make salaries match. The Suns are under the cap (currently), so for salaries sent out less than 9.8 million$ they can acquire up to 150% of that. The trading with 5 mil ONLY applies to outgoing salaries of 9.8-19.6 million.

In summary,
Leuer + Tucker + Mcneal = 7.38 mil, the maximum incoming salary is 11.07 mil
Leuer + Tucker + Mcneal + Booker = 9.15, the maximum incoming salary is 13.72 mil

Goodwin makes a little less than Booker, so swapping him above in a deal should work as well.

I'd MUCH rather keep Booker than Goodwin. We desperately need shooting. Not more guys with limited range.

[bwgood77]

what about Mo Williams as backup PG. He's a FA, not sure what he'll cost though

A couple others have mentioned him. He wouldn't be bad, but he might want more minutes than I'd like him to get...and would probably cost too much. I'd like to see Booker get the extra guard minutes. Knight is basically Bledsoe's backup and one will likely be on the floor 95% of the time, if not all the time.

[lilfishi22]

Dont get me wrong. I love LMA. I would LOVE him on our team. I desperately want that.

However one thing does sort of weigh on my mind: 20+mil a year for a guy who's 29. Will we see any decline in his game along that span? Is he worth 3 times Markieff Morris?

Not to be "that guy"at parties, however I do have a few concerns.

Big men reach their prime later. He's in the middle of his prime now

[bwgood77]

Dont get me wrong. I love LMA. I would LOVE him on our team. I desperately want that.

However one thing does sort of weigh on my mind: 20+mil a year for a guy who's 29. Will we see any decline in his game along that span? Is he worth 3 times Markieff Morris?

Not to be "that guy"at parties, however I do have a few concerns.

Funny thing is, I haven't really thought about his age as much, but he's never been a guy I would consider an enormous difference maker and a guy I would want as bad as I seemingly now do. He's definitely a huge upgrade, but I've just never given him much thought until about two days ago.

[NavLDO]

goodnight suns fans! your in for some big news in the morning

Cryptic post is cryptic.,...

I hope you all won't be sad when we lose out on LMA and cry "Tears of the Sun", because that's what we will get, or as they say in Spanish, "lágrimas del 'Ga'sol"...

oops, did I say too much--I better 'trade' that out, lest I become a 'Marc'ed man on this forum...

AND YES, I'M KIDDING, THERE IS ZERO TRUTH IN WHAT I JUSTED POSTED...(or is there??? )

Sorry, had to join in in the fun!!!

[RunDogGun]

On the plane ride home someone said we were out of the LMA race. Clearly that is untrue?

I didn't see anyone respond to this.
I went to bed thinking the same thing. Was that report (from a rockets writer I believe) more fluff? Can someone chime in?

Thanks for responding. The guy seemed pretty knowledgable about sports, and even told me a story of meeting Steven Hunter a few weeks ago. But good thing I refused to believe anything until I saw it.

[bwgood77]

A few guys on the NBA channel (that sounds real credible right? ..lol) said they didn't expect a final decision until this weekend.

I'll be driving down to San Diego about noon, so if we do get him I'll be celebrating all by myself in a foreign city...I havent been this excited in a long time over the Suns..God forbid I find out in a public place...EVERYONE will hear me scream and they'll all be convinced I'm crazy.

San Diego is a good foreign city to celebrate in. I used to drive down there all the time on the weekends during the summer. Hit PB and if I needed to watch sports, hit Moondoggies. I remember watching Horry crush the Kings chances of going up 3-1 in the WCF with a last second three following a Divac block. The place went nuts though...lots of Lakers fans.

[bwgood77]

Blazers are toast unless LMA somehow comes back, and even then who's at SG and C?

Mavericks are done, they might struggle to field a 40 win team - no C, SG or PG right now. I could see them throwing crazy money at Koufos and maybe a guy like Reggie Jackson and hope DET doesn't match? Could see them going after Stuckey or Mo Williams too.

There's room to make a run at the playoffs - if we don't land LMA I'd throw a max at Tobias Harris, would mean we could keep Kieff I think?

TChandler
Kieff
Harris
Knight
Bledsoe
---
Len
Leuer
Tucker
Warren
Booker
Goodwin
PYoung?

Thin bench...need some vets

I really would play Harris as the 4--next to Len or Chandler, we'd still have plenty of size in the Front Court.

I've mentioned a couple of times, but IMO, we should go hard after Kyle O'Quinn with or without Harris...OORRRR...

Bledsoe, Len, Tucker for Fournier, Harris, O'Quinn--then sign Ish...and a couple of other cheap guys. Have no idea how themoney works with this, though...

http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=pof5sjd

Knight/Ish
Goodwin/Fournier/Booker
Harris/Warren
O'Quinn or Kieff/Leuer
Chandler/O'Quinn

You want to trade Bledsoe and Len for THOSE guys?