BobbieL wrote:WeekapaugGroove wrote:As this team moves into more of the win now phase of the rebuild I really hope they learn from the mistakes of the D'Antoni era and never stop developing young players. I truly believe that their constant trading of draft picks and refusal to develop young players cost them a championship. Had they hit on just one of those picks they gave away it could have been the guy that put them over the top. Smart teams are always trying to add young cheap controllable talent. Heck look at the crazy stacked Warriors team they have bought early second round picks that got them Bell and McCaw.
Now I'm not saying you can't trade any picks if there's some opportunist deal available for a veteran but you shouldn't go to that well too often or you get yourself in trouble.
I agree. The Suns the one year had picks 17 and 18 - which turned out to be Sergio Rodriguez and Rajon Rondo - when the Suns needed a back up PG. What did Sarver and Mike D'A do - they traded those two picks for $3m each along with Brian Grant as the Celtics took his contract - $2m/
What did Mike D than do a few weeks later, sign Marcus Banks for 21/5. Now, even keeping one of those guys was a 4 year like 6m contract - so cap certainty
I am still ticked the Suns let Bell pass them by. Nothing against Reed but Bell and Josh Jackson seemed like perfect two players to add for defense, rebounding hustle
So yes, keep your picks. The Suns have 6 first rounders between 18 and 21 (not counting Milwaukee as I have no idea what that will be). So, maybe 2 of those picks can be traded - at most three but not the Suns 20018 or the Heat 2021. Along with the I think three second rounders this year (though I think the Suns should keep their own or at least use them on stash guys). But yes, keep the young cheap players churning your roster.
There's a fine line. There's selling your picks for cash, for no reason other than to avoid having to pay for a rookie, and then there is trading a pick or two in order to sweeten a deal in order to get the player we want/need.
The good thing is, McD seems to err on the side of caution with picks, and doesn't trade them often. I think he got caught up in trying to immediately replace Dragic/IT, and felt he HAD to make the BK deal, when in actuality, we still had Bledsoe; there was absolutely no need to panic. The good think is McD realizes his mistake, and we likely will never see that stupid of a trade from him again.
The fact of the matter is, however, that I feel he needs to make a couple of tough decisions for the betterment of the team. Having two top-10 PFs from the same draft just isn't not the best utilization of resources. And I will apologize in advance, BW, for rehashing this again, but we really need to identify one of the two as our future by season's end, and allow the other to attempt to develop as a starter for someone else. Same with SF and Warren/JJ. Neither of them should be a bench player...not when we are in dire need of starters at two other positions. If by the trade deadline, he can use two of them, and any number of the 'extra' picks to bring in either a young, stud PG or C, or both, then he should do it, then leave OUR pick alone, and we pick the BPA.
I think if McD had a little more clarity about what exactly we needed to come out of the draft with, we'd be in much better shape; and the best way to do that is to 'clean up' the roster to identify exactly whether we need to take the best PG, or the best C available, because we already traded for the other at the deadline, and got a feel for how good or bad that player will be for us with the remaining 30+ games left after the Deadline. If the player is promising...voila' we go after the other position.
We then ID the player(s) we want, and do anything we can to make sure we are there and available to select the player we want, within reason, of course.
OH NOOOOO!!!! Another trade proposal from Nav... (for you older gents out there that remember...)

But anyway, face it. The Magic are done this season. That said, they have pieces that are conducive to a quick rebuild, and we could aid that, while they aid our attempt to reach the Playoffs...remember...this is for us to reach the playoffs, or at worst, will get us close, so our pick is looking no better than 13th, likely.
http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=y8rb3brg + BOTH...Suns '18 1st + Mil '20 lightly protected 1st
It could be smaller...I just added Ross for Daniels so we'd eat some salary to make it more appealing.
Payton / Booker / Warren / Gordon / Biyombo
And we can still use Mia '18 1st to bring a BPA type. Orlando continues to 'tank' this season, gets their top 3 pick, plus ours, so they surely get, let's say Young...
Young / Fournier / JJ / Isaac / Vucevic with still Bender and Hezonja on the roster...they look good on paper.
Anyway, that's the type of scenario where it would be wise to use picks to make us better...