Free agency and trade ideas: Which wings do we go after this summer?

[lilfishi22]

Agreed,

Jackson is likely percieved as negative value, due to his inconsistent play on the court, and even further devalued by his history of poor decision making off of the court.

And Warren, despite his increased shooting percentages from three, is perceived as only slightly better than neutral.

This is due to his inability or unwillingness to play defense, his tendency to have tunnel vision, and above all, his inability to stay healthy and actually see the court.

These are factors that diminish his value in the eyes of prospective trade partners. If unsure of his percieved trade value, just enquire on the trade board. You might end up disappointed though.

I disagree on TJ. At the very least, he's a valuable 6th man which in this league of pace and space, is a valuable asset to bring off the bench. When you're the 1st man off the bench, things like defense is kind of overlooked if you're able to put points up on the board. Jamal Crawford has won the 6MOY title like 3 times and Lou has won it twice, neither of them play a lick of defense but they are good at what they do off the bench. I just think that he's a really good spark off the bench and with quite a cap friendly deal, I think he's a valuable player. His injury history is a bit concerning so I can see how he'll lose some value there.

Noted, I'm just going off of what others have said about how they perceive his perspective value, When I enquired as to how other teams viewed his percieved value on the trade board.

As in terms of his fit with other teams, and with consideration to his production and contract value of course.

Again, it's his injury history that unfortunately diminishes his overall value the most. The other issues in his game, were just additional factors that were mentioned as further decreasing his value in a trade or with respect to his value to their respective teams.

I know I'm going to come off as a homer but I do think the trade board tends to undervalue most players once they're on their 2nd contract because it's rare that players get underpaid (or even paid fairly) in this league for their production. I'm certainly guilty of that too. But I do think that's also true in a lot of cases where players are excessively overpaid which we see a lot of players become once they move onto their 2nd big contract. Booker will become that and Oubre will soon become that too imo. I just don't think it applies fully to TJ because his deal isn't really that expensive in today's NBA where there are $110m salary caps. In the case of TJ, this was his first season on his new deal (at $11.75m) but he's also added a very reliable 3PT shot. So while he's not the super cheap (a bit over $3m) 20ppg scorer, he's now a 20ppg (per36) scorer with a 3PT shot now while being paid a touch over 11% of the salary cap.

[Wilber85]

any way to convince K Leonard to come to Phoenix?

[lilfishi22]

As opposed to just leaving the roster as is..... Because that's obviously carried us to a very impressive 19 wins???

I'm curious as to what your plan is for improving the team??

I'm just curious, as I've heard your version of constructive criticism , But no legitimate counter proposal.

I don't see the point of trading away positive assets (like the picks and TJ) in order to open up cap space for a player that in all honesty will not sign with the Suns even if you throw them a max deal plus some shady under the table stuff. You just don't salary dump valuable players like TJ. You just don't. Especially if the fallback moves to a failed bid for superstar talent is paying Warrick, Pietrus and Childress type of players MLE money. If you have to move him, you get an NBA player back in return.

Moving TJ for cap space would be like instead of using your hard earned arcade tickets to redeem a prize, you redeem tokens to play another game of chance.

I respect your perspective, I really do.

But it's important to consider two things:

1- With respect to Warren's value, Just because we see his value as being fair to high, Doesn't mean other teams share that perspective of his value.

In being so bad for so long, We've become enamored as fans with the slightest sign of positive progression with our players.

However to other teams, it's viewed as us overvaluing our own players. Which of course, All teams are guilty of to some degree.

And Jackson as we know, Is perceived to have negative value. Due to his statistical inconsistency. As well as his really poor judgment off the court too.

So with respect to those factors, What teams are expected to take these players, without some modicum of compensation?

2- Also having trade proposals, even to the point of setting the framework of a potential trade ( with which to explore the possibilities) does not automatically mean that we'd head into free agency without a tangible plan.

It's quite possible that just as Jones himself had stated a while back, That we already have specific free agent targets ( 5 to be precise per his comments).

So obviously he'd gauge the targeted free agents level of interest in coming here before fully going through with any trade to create cap space.

And honestly, at any point in my proposal did I mention picks coming back? No, because I said we'd be able to head into free agency with $$ amount of cap space.

That can obviously happen within the first few days of free agency, which logically would also be the very soonest that Griffin would entertain any such proposals for Davis anyways. ( As Boston can't even field a contending offer before then, due to the " Rose rule"). So everyone can relax..........

Lastly, I'd have to believe that Jones wouldn't just throw money at players as mediocre as what Warrick , Childress, and Pietrus are. Again, He'd as he's already stated, have specific targets in mind, beforehand.

I mean it's not like Sarver is running our free agency decisions now is it???

Even if you don't consider TJ's value to be much more than just above average, that's still enough to get you an NBA player in return. I just don't get the logic behind salary dumping positively valued players. I think it's an incredible waste of an asset and with respect to TJ, millions of dollars and effort in player development. It's just not a good use of an asset of value in the NBA when most teams (including our own) don't have those in excess.

Of course you have to go into free agency with a plan. But if the plan is the get KD or Kyrie or some other max level player by salary dumping whatever we can for a shot then it's an incredibly poor one. And in all honesty, you're not going to get a nod from those types of caliber of player to join the Suns when they could literally go anywhere. I have no doubt Jones has some targets in mind (5 as per your recollection), it doesn't necessarily mean they are elite level free agents. They could really just be those Aminu, Collison or Beverley types. Who knows who he really has in mind. Does it mean that Jones won't try and make a splash with a max offer? No but I think it's probably unlikely we'll even get there considering how much would need to be done (precursor trades) and how much asset value you have to spend just to give him an opportunity to be a player.

You'd like to believe we won't spend on mediocre players but the reason why we spent money on those scrubs is precisely because we dropped the ball with our "star" free agent and was relegated to whatever players were left in free agency. So certainly that was bad planning on our end but when you have that much money in free agency (along with a lot of other teams) created from the salary dump of our players, there's a real chance we end up with well overpaying fairly average players just to get them on board.

I am of the view that salary cap space in a lot of cases is more a curse than a blessing. Especially for teams that doesn't have a whole lot going for them, haven't been a free agent destination in a long time, has a questionable front office/ownership, coaching instability and (with the aforementioned salary dump) a crap ton of cap space. I am far more comfortable with us having $10-15m of cap space because there's only so much we can F up as opposed to max or near max cap space.

[Ghost of Kleine]

I don't see the point of trading away positive assets (like the picks and TJ) in order to open up cap space for a player that in all honesty will not sign with the Suns even if you throw them a max deal plus some shady under the table stuff. You just don't salary dump valuable players like TJ. You just don't. Especially if the fallback moves to a failed bid for superstar talent is paying Warrick, Pietrus and Childress type of players MLE money. If you have to move him, you get an NBA player back in return.

Moving TJ for cap space would be like instead of using your hard earned arcade tickets to redeem a prize, you redeem tokens to play another game of chance.

I respect your perspective, I really do.

But it's important to consider two things:

1- With respect to Warren's value, Just because we see his value as being fair to high, Doesn't mean other teams share that perspective of his value.

In being so bad for so long, We've become enamored as fans with the slightest sign of positive progression with our players.

However to other teams, it's viewed as us overvaluing our own players. Which of course, All teams are guilty of to some degree.

And Jackson as we know, Is perceived to have negative value. Due to his statistical inconsistency. As well as his really poor judgment off the court too.

So with respect to those factors, What teams are expected to take these players, without some modicum of compensation?

2- Also having trade proposals, even to the point of setting the framework of a potential trade ( with which to explore the possibilities) does not automatically mean that we'd head into free agency without a tangible plan.

It's quite possible that just as Jones himself had stated a while back, That we already have specific free agent targets ( 5 to be precise per his comments).

So obviously he'd gauge the targeted free agents level of interest in coming here before fully going through with any trade to create cap space.

And honestly, at any point in my proposal did I mention picks coming back? No, because I said we'd be able to head into free agency with $$ amount of cap space.

That can obviously happen within the first few days of free agency, which logically would also be the very soonest that Griffin would entertain any such proposals for Davis anyways. ( As Boston can't even field a contending offer before then, due to the " Rose rule"). So everyone can relax..........

Lastly, I'd have to believe that Jones wouldn't just throw money at players as mediocre as what Warrick , Childress, and Pietrus are. Again, He'd as he's already stated, have specific targets in mind, beforehand.

I mean it's not like Sarver is running our free agency decisions now is it???

Even if you don't consider TJ's value to be much more than just above average, that's still enough to get you an NBA player in return. I just don't get the logic behind salary dumping positively valued players. I think it's an incredible waste of an asset and with respect to TJ, millions of dollars and effort in player development. It's just not a good use of an asset of value in the NBA when most teams (including our own) don't have those in excess.

Of course you have to go into free agency with a plan. But if the plan is the get KD or Kyrie or some other max level player by salary dumping whatever we can for a shot then it's an incredibly poor one. And in all honesty, you're not going to get a nod from those types of caliber of player to join the Suns when they could literally go anywhere. I have no doubt Jones has some targets in mind (5 as per your recollection), it doesn't necessarily mean they are elite level free agents. They could really just be those Aminu, Collison or Beverley types. Who knows who he really has in mind. Does it mean that Jones won't try and make a splash with a max offer? No but I think it's probably unlikely we'll even get there considering how much would need to be done (precursor trades) and how much asset value you have to spend just to give him an opportunity to be a player.

You'd like to believe we won't spend on mediocre players but the reason why we spent money on those scrubs is precisely because we dropped the ball with our "star" free agent and was relegated to whatever players were left in free agency. So certainly that was bad planning on our end but when you have that much money in free agency (along with a lot of other teams) created from the salary dump of our players, there's a real chance we end up with well overpaying fairly average players just to get them on board.

I am of the view that salary cap space in a lot of cases is more a curse than a blessing. Especially for teams that doesn't have a whole lot going for them, haven't been a free agent destination in a long time, has a questionable front office/ownership, coaching instability and (with the aforementioned salary dump) a crap ton of cap space. I am far more comfortable with us having $10-15m of cap space because there's only so much we can F up as opposed to max or near max cap space.

Fair points man.

I'm totally fine with trading Warren for an equally good nba player, Although I'm not sure with context to a trade, Who that'd be exactly.....Maybe for Marcus Smart, Maybe for John Henson and a 2nd, If were salary matching?

I'm honestly open to suggestions..........Also I'd love to be able to trade Jackson to Sacramento for Bjelica, Or Indiana for TJ Leaf and their 18th pick perhaps.

In the end, I just want to be able to improve our roster and become more competitive, maybe even sneak into the playoffs if possible......

And again, these discussions being nothing more than hypotheticals at best mean we'll just have to wait and see how the front office plans to remedy the very issues that you mentioned.

I for one am quite intrigued to see how it turns out.

[lilfishi22]

I respect your perspective, I really do.

But it's important to consider two things:

1- With respect to Warren's value, Just because we see his value as being fair to high, Doesn't mean other teams share that perspective of his value.

In being so bad for so long, We've become enamored as fans with the slightest sign of positive progression with our players.

However to other teams, it's viewed as us overvaluing our own players. Which of course, All teams are guilty of to some degree.

And Jackson as we know, Is perceived to have negative value. Due to his statistical inconsistency. As well as his really poor judgment off the court too.

So with respect to those factors, What teams are expected to take these players, without some modicum of compensation?

2- Also having trade proposals, even to the point of setting the framework of a potential trade ( with which to explore the possibilities) does not automatically mean that we'd head into free agency without a tangible plan.

It's quite possible that just as Jones himself had stated a while back, That we already have specific free agent targets ( 5 to be precise per his comments).

So obviously he'd gauge the targeted free agents level of interest in coming here before fully going through with any trade to create cap space.

And honestly, at any point in my proposal did I mention picks coming back? No, because I said we'd be able to head into free agency with $$ amount of cap space.

That can obviously happen within the first few days of free agency, which logically would also be the very soonest that Griffin would entertain any such proposals for Davis anyways. ( As Boston can't even field a contending offer before then, due to the " Rose rule"). So everyone can relax..........

Lastly, I'd have to believe that Jones wouldn't just throw money at players as mediocre as what Warrick , Childress, and Pietrus are. Again, He'd as he's already stated, have specific targets in mind, beforehand.

I mean it's not like Sarver is running our free agency decisions now is it???

Even if you don't consider TJ's value to be much more than just above average, that's still enough to get you an NBA player in return. I just don't get the logic behind salary dumping positively valued players. I think it's an incredible waste of an asset and with respect to TJ, millions of dollars and effort in player development. It's just not a good use of an asset of value in the NBA when most teams (including our own) don't have those in excess.

Of course you have to go into free agency with a plan. But if the plan is the get KD or Kyrie or some other max level player by salary dumping whatever we can for a shot then it's an incredibly poor one. And in all honesty, you're not going to get a nod from those types of caliber of player to join the Suns when they could literally go anywhere. I have no doubt Jones has some targets in mind (5 as per your recollection), it doesn't necessarily mean they are elite level free agents. They could really just be those Aminu, Collison or Beverley types. Who knows who he really has in mind. Does it mean that Jones won't try and make a splash with a max offer? No but I think it's probably unlikely we'll even get there considering how much would need to be done (precursor trades) and how much asset value you have to spend just to give him an opportunity to be a player.

You'd like to believe we won't spend on mediocre players but the reason why we spent money on those scrubs is precisely because we dropped the ball with our "star" free agent and was relegated to whatever players were left in free agency. So certainly that was bad planning on our end but when you have that much money in free agency (along with a lot of other teams) created from the salary dump of our players, there's a real chance we end up with well overpaying fairly average players just to get them on board.

I am of the view that salary cap space in a lot of cases is more a curse than a blessing. Especially for teams that doesn't have a whole lot going for them, haven't been a free agent destination in a long time, has a questionable front office/ownership, coaching instability and (with the aforementioned salary dump) a crap ton of cap space. I am far more comfortable with us having $10-15m of cap space because there's only so much we can F up as opposed to max or near max cap space.

Fair points man.

And again, these discussions being nothing more than hypotheticals at best mean we'll just have to wait and see how the front office plans to remedy the very issues that you mentioned.

I for one am quite intrigued to see how it turns out.

Yeah my position is that we're not a player for one of those big FA's like KD, Kawhi, Kyrie etc with so many other teams (with better front offices like Dallas, Clips and even Pacers) having far more cap space on day one. Teams that wanted to be a player in this upcoming free agency have already done their work to plan and position themselves to become a player. For us, with a new front office, to really start now by trying to find takers for the likes of TJ, JJ and Johnson now for cap space reasons just puts us behind those teams who will have money and a plan as soon as free agency opens. Even for teams with money and a plan, things will change and won't always go to plan so there will be losers among them too. I'd rather just be diligent, make the smart deals while everyone else is still focused and keeping the big bucks for those top free agents.

[Ghost of Kleine]

Even if you don't consider TJ's value to be much more than just above average, that's still enough to get you an NBA player in return. I just don't get the logic behind salary dumping positively valued players. I think it's an incredible waste of an asset and with respect to TJ, millions of dollars and effort in player development. It's just not a good use of an asset of value in the NBA when most teams (including our own) don't have those in excess.

Of course you have to go into free agency with a plan. But if the plan is the get KD or Kyrie or some other max level player by salary dumping whatever we can for a shot then it's an incredibly poor one. And in all honesty, you're not going to get a nod from those types of caliber of player to join the Suns when they could literally go anywhere. I have no doubt Jones has some targets in mind (5 as per your recollection), it doesn't necessarily mean they are elite level free agents. They could really just be those Aminu, Collison or Beverley types. Who knows who he really has in mind. Does it mean that Jones won't try and make a splash with a max offer? No but I think it's probably unlikely we'll even get there considering how much would need to be done (precursor trades) and how much asset value you have to spend just to give him an opportunity to be a player.

You'd like to believe we won't spend on mediocre players but the reason why we spent money on those scrubs is precisely because we dropped the ball with our "star" free agent and was relegated to whatever players were left in free agency. So certainly that was bad planning on our end but when you have that much money in free agency (along with a lot of other teams) created from the salary dump of our players, there's a real chance we end up with well overpaying fairly average players just to get them on board.

I am of the view that salary cap space in a lot of cases is more a curse than a blessing. Especially for teams that doesn't have a whole lot going for them, haven't been a free agent destination in a long time, has a questionable front office/ownership, coaching instability and (with the aforementioned salary dump) a crap ton of cap space. I am far more comfortable with us having $10-15m of cap space because there's only so much we can F up as opposed to max or near max cap space.

Fair points man.

And again, these discussions being nothing more than hypotheticals at best mean we'll just have to wait and see how the front office plans to remedy the very issues that you mentioned.

I for one am quite intrigued to see how it turns out.

Yeah my position is that we're not a player for one of those big FA's like KD, Kawhi, Kyrie etc with so many other teams (with better front offices like Dallas, Clips and even Pacers) having far more cap space on day one. Teams that wanted to be a player in this upcoming free agency have already done their work to plan and position themselves to become a player. For us, with a new front office, to really start now by trying to find takers for the likes of TJ, JJ and Johnson now for cap space reasons just puts us behind those teams who will have money and a plan as soon as free agency opens. Even for teams with money and a plan, things will change and won't always go to plan so there will be losers among them too. I'd rather just be diligent, make the smart deals while everyone else is still focused and keeping the big bucks for those top free agents.

Nothing wrong with that man......

For the first time in a long time, I'm actually fairly confident in the capabilities of Jones from what I've seen so far. I guess I might also be anxious to see us get better finally too.

That's what I hate about the offseason, everything just slows down and gets dragged out for so long before you see the results.

But hopefully it comes in the form of steal of a rookie prospect, a much improved roster through free agency, and an increased level of winning and excitment.............fingers crossed!!!

[Slim Charless]

I'd agree with this. KD and Kawhi and guys on that lvl aren't even gonna give us a meeting most like. So I dont really see the point in just giving away assets for no reason. TJ had 1 of the highest 3pt % in the league this yr. We need more of that.

I'm fine with packaging him up with other assets and grabbing a legitimate piece but to just give him and Jackson away for a maybe shot at someone when there will be alot of teams w/ cap room seems...meh

[lilfishi22]

I won't judge Jones on what McD/Sarver have done in the past but a rookie GM is still a rookie GM, even with Bower being an advisor. He has done some decent work bringing in Johnson, I guess Crawford and even the accidental Oubre trade but I think this is his first real test. We'll have some cap space and he'll have had a season to get to know the lay of the land (in Phoenix) so we'll see how he goes about using our cap space and assets to make us better.

If you look at some of the best front offices in the league, they seem to be able to do nearly as much with no cap space and just the MLE as poor front offices with a solid amount. So I think the test of a good GM is not if they can salary dump their way to near max cap space (we'll see how that works for Scott Perry and the Knicks) and just try and hand it out to every second high level player but rather what they can do when they are limited. McD for example have had plenty of opportunities to use cap space and he wasted a lot of that on guys like Chandler and Ariza while attempting to target star level players like Lebron and LMA. So if Jones is a good GM, he'll be able to figure out how to get the most out of what he has.

[bigfoot]

Chris Paul ... weird

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/suns-could-have-interest-in-chris-paul-says-espns-zach-lowe/ar-AABANvg

[Blonde]

Chris Paul ... weird

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/suns-could-have-interest-in-chris-paul-says-espns-zach-lowe/ar-AABANvg

I would be shocked if the Suns had any interest whatsoever in Paul.

[suns12345]

Chris Paul ... weird

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/suns-could-have-interest-in-chris-paul-says-espns-zach-lowe/ar-AABANvg

I would be shocked if the Suns had any interest whatsoever in Paul.

In his podcast he says he heard people say we could be a potential landing place for Paul and he said he doesn't believe we could be that dumb.

In no way does he think it will happen

[lilfishi22]

Chris Paul ... weird

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/suns-could-have-interest-in-chris-paul-says-espns-zach-lowe/ar-AABANvg

Yeah I listened to the pod and didn't think much of it.

He is 100% right though. We would have to be incredibly dumb to give up anything for CP3

[Slim Charless]

Chris Paul ... weird

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/suns-could-have-interest-in-chris-paul-says-espns-zach-lowe/ar-AABANvg

Yeah I listened to the pod and didn't think much of it.

He is 100% right though. We would have to be incredibly dumb to give up anything for CP3

Yeah: 2009 Chris Paul-
2019 Chris Paul-

[Crives]

For anybody that wants to see us trade #6 for cap to get Tobias Harris, you realize we already have a similar player who could be better then Harris next year at a fraction of the cost?

Per 100 stats

Harris
HT: 6’9
WT: 235
Points: 24.6
Rebounds: 10.7
3p%: .326
2p%: .542
Steals: 0.6
Blocks: 0.7

Warren
HT: 6’8
WT: 215
Points: 27.1
Rebounds: 6.1
3p%: .428
2p%: .510
Steals: 1.8
Blocks: 1.0

Not saying I want to run Warren as our starting PF. But giving assets to get Harris on a max to replace Warren doesn’t make much sense to me.

We need to keep Warren.

[Crives]

What would your long term plan be at starting SF 2-3 years from now. If Oubre and Bridges both play well, do you keep Bridges on the bench forever?

[Crives]

Read on Twitter

?s=21

[darmani]

I'd like to remind you that Tyler Johnson's deadline to opt in is on June 29th, which means we can't trade him on the draft night unless he opts in 2 weeks earlier than he has to.

[Saberestar]

What would your long term plan be at starting SF 2-3 years from now. If Oubre and Bridges both play well, do you keep Bridges on the bench forever?

Look our roster from 3 years away.

Yeah, not too many guys on that team are on the team now...and less of them are gonna be in September.

Probably none of Bridges or Oubre are gonna be on our team in 2/3 years, it is the league's nature.

So do not be bother about that...if a player is good he will find a way to play big minutes.

[sunsbum]

What would your long term plan be at starting SF 2-3 years from now. If Oubre and Bridges both play well, do you keep Bridges on the bench forever?

Look our roster from 3 years away.

Yeah, not too many guys on that team are on the team now...and less of them are gonna be in September.

Probably none of Bridges or Oubre are gonna be on our team in 2/3 years, it is the league's nature.

So do not be bother about that...if a player is good he will find a way to play big minutes.

Wait what? We have Bridges under contract for like 25 years and Kelly is about to sign a 10 year deal.

[Qwigglez]

What would your long term plan be at starting SF 2-3 years from now. If Oubre and Bridges both play well, do you keep Bridges on the bench forever?

Look our roster from 3 years away.

Yeah, not too many guys on that team are on the team now...and less of them are gonna be in September.

Probably none of Bridges or Oubre are gonna be on our team in 2/3 years, it is the league's nature.

So do not be bother about that...if a player is good he will find a way to play big minutes.

Wait what? We have Bridges under contract for like 25 years and Kelly is about to sign a 10 year deal.

With the way the league is going, why can't we just start both of them at the 3/4? I thought Oubre did an exceptional job averaging 1.4 steals and 1 block per game. He has that quick burst jump like Marion. I like the length both Oubre and Bridges provide for the wings too, I think both of them have 7'2 wingspans (at least 7 foot). Not many teams can compete with that kind of athleticism IMO. Just need a quality veteran PG leader to put it all together.