2019 free agency and trade ideas: part 2 Downloading

[Qwigglez]

Warren has more value to us than just being a cash dump. Warren's value to the Suns is worth more than getting the 9th pick. If your proposal was for us to trade Warren to clear cap space and then sign someone like DLo (& additionally get us the 9th pick), then that is something I can get behind. The reality of it is this... the Suns are NOT going to trade Warren before/during the draft or before the start of free agency. It's too early in the process, and it's counting our chickens before they hatch. It's similar to the situation where the Suns traded Marcus Morris to clear enough cap space for us to sign LaMarcus Aldridge. It was too early in the process before Aldridge even agreed to a deal with us, and it blew up in our face. It doesn't make us better in the short term or long term unless that 9th pick turns into a hidden gem, but I don't count on that happening.

It sounds like you just want to make a trade for the sake of making a trade. We would go from being a 19 win team to being a 15 win team.

Again, The premise is in exactly that.....You're trying to accumulate cap space for the very reason that you mentioned. Take russell for instance, You can't make a competitive offer to Russell or even an offer to Brogdon either if you don't currently have the cap to do it. And the same premise applies to assuming that you'll be able to find a guaranteed way to rapidly create the necessary space in order to sign your player.

And for anybody who argues that you wait until you confirm their commitment first is deluding themselves. You can't realistically expect a player to just sit there and wait for you to figure out a way to create cap to sign him, whilst other teams are lined up to offer him just as much, if not more than us.

Our best chance is to bead into free agency with cash in hand, and be ready to sign that player first. Again, Our best chance is in beating the other teams to the punch first. Lest we wind up settling for leftover scraps once again.


Now with respect to my premise, You put Russell on our team with a core of Booker/ Ayton/ Oubre on offense and Bridges Hunter and Clarke on defense ( Hunter and Clarke being interchangeable at the 4), and tell me that you don't have something pretty solid there.


- Russell/ McConnell?
- Booker/ Bridges.
- Oubre/ Hunter.
- Clarke/ Hunter. ( Vonleh?) Free agent?
- Ayton/ Holmes? Or Dedmon perhaps?

That backcourt has incredible offensive potential. Also we'd have 3 ELITE positional defensive players ( 2 at all times on the court with Ayton). As both Clarke and Hunter are interchangeable. We'd have lockdown defense at both the 3 and 4.

You could also run so many different defensive combinations as well- Such as Booker or Russell at the point, Bridges at the 2, Hunter at the 3 and Clarke at the 4.

Or maybe- Booker at the point, bridges at the 2, oubre at the 3, and Hunter at the 4. The variations are countless honestly.

Offense: Russell/ Booker/ Oubre/ Ayton.

Defense: Bridges ( elite perimeter defender) / Hunter ( elite perimeter defender) / Clarke ( elite frontcourt/weakside defender).

Is that team not immensely competitive and likely a playoff contender?

The Free Agency Moratorium is a negotiation period from July 1-6 in which teams may not sign most free agents or make trades. Starting at 6:01 p.m. on June 30, teams may negotiate deals with free agents but cannot officially sign them until Noon on July 6.

First off, we don't need to trade Warren to have enough cap space to sign Russell. As I've mentioned numerous times already if we find a team to simply absorb Josh Jackson's salary, and then stretch Tyler Johnson we would have enough cap space to sign Russell. There is no reason to trade Warren to open up the cap space, unless we can't find someone to take Jackson, but I don't find that hard since there are a handful of teams with trade exceptions and cap space to do so.

[lilfishi22]

Can someone explain to me what is wrong with TJ Warren?

Pros
-Quiet and humble guy
-Seems to be a good teamate
-Works HARD
-Dedicated
-Efficient scorer
-Great finisher
-Unstoppable in the paint
-Good defender
-Now has 3 point range
-Great contract

Cons
-When he plays the 4, he can get abused in the paint if the other 4 is a "traditional" (bigger) 4.
-Has had some trouble with injuries

At times, TJ has looked like a KD lite. Yes....I said it.

If we trade him, we better get back something really REALLY good.

I'd be so very happy if Oubre and TJ start at the 3/4 as long as we sign a halfway decent vet "traditional" (bigger) 4 to play against the bruisers like Randle, Milsap, etc.

He's not really a good defender. He's willing to give effort on that end but he's not measurably good. His injuries are also a legitimate concern since he's barely played over 60% of games in his career. I think at this point most of us can count on him missing about 30 games a year on average which is a pretty poor figure.

[jredsaz]

Also, I'll say this with DLo.

If we add him and keep Oubre, our lineup is this:

DLo
Booker
Bridges
Oubre/Warren
Ayton

All of those guys are young enough where we could justify picking anybody in next year's draft regardless of position. So, if Russell isn't the ideal fit at the 1 and ends up not working out, next year's PG draft is deep and we'll be mid-late lottery in all likelihood given how absurd the West is, so we could still draft a PG.

Rumors are what they are but it looks like the Suns are trying to move Warren and Jackson for space and keep Johnson.

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And why is that? The only reason to actually want to dump Warren for us is if we are drafting Culver or need the max space for someone in particular. DLo is the only guy we seem to have a real shot with who is going to get that type of money. Jackson has plenty of reasons we could be moving him. TJ really doesn't.

The other thing is to make the space work, we'd need to either: Trade Warren & Jackson, stretch Tyler and trade one of them, or dump Tyler on another team. The latter is the most unrealistic given salary next year. So my guess is they want to trade 1 of those 2 and plan on stretching Tyler. But that's a guess. Not sure what the rules would be on bringing Tyler back on a different deal.

The Suns could clear the space by unloading Jackson and Warren. I think Johnsons large expiring, skill and his experience make him more valuable than either Jackson or Warren at this point.

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[Blonde]

TJ hype squad is undefeated....

[lilfishi22]

Rumors are what they are but it looks like the Suns are trying to move Warren and Jackson for space and keep Johnson.

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And why is that? The only reason to actually want to dump Warren for us is if we are drafting Culver or need the max space for someone in particular. DLo is the only guy we seem to have a real shot with who is going to get that type of money. Jackson has plenty of reasons we could be moving him. TJ really doesn't.

The other thing is to make the space work, we'd need to either: Trade Warren & Jackson, stretch Tyler and trade one of them, or dump Tyler on another team. The latter is the most unrealistic given salary next year. So my guess is they want to trade 1 of those 2 and plan on stretching Tyler. But that's a guess. Not sure what the rules would be on bringing Tyler back on a different deal.

The Suns could clear the space by unloading Jackson and Warren. I think Johnsons large expiring, skill and his experience make him more valuable than either Jackson or Warren at this point.

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Wait... at what point did Johnson become more valuable than TJ? Johnson's major value point is specifically that he's an expiring deal. That's his #1 value. The fact that he's playable and has some experience is a bonus.

[jredsaz]

And why is that? The only reason to actually want to dump Warren for us is if we are drafting Culver or need the max space for someone in particular. DLo is the only guy we seem to have a real shot with who is going to get that type of money. Jackson has plenty of reasons we could be moving him. TJ really doesn't.

The other thing is to make the space work, we'd need to either: Trade Warren & Jackson, stretch Tyler and trade one of them, or dump Tyler on another team. The latter is the most unrealistic given salary next year. So my guess is they want to trade 1 of those 2 and plan on stretching Tyler. But that's a guess. Not sure what the rules would be on bringing Tyler back on a different deal.

The Suns could clear the space by unloading Jackson and Warren. I think Johnsons large expiring, skill and his experience make him more valuable than either Jackson or Warren at this point.

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Wait... at what point did Johnson become more valuable than TJ? Johnson's major value point is specifically that he's an expiring deal. That's his #1 value. The fact that he's playable and has some experience is a bonus.

Thas what I mean. His expiring contract could add a better player at the deadline. I just dont know if you can say that Warren or Jackson could do the same. I also think he is a better player than either Warren or Jackson. Not significantly better than Warren by any means, but better. And I still want to believe in Josh's potential but that's about spent at this point

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[lilfishi22]

The Suns could clear the space by unloading Jackson and Warren. I think Johnsons large expiring, skill and his experience make him more valuable than either Jackson or Warren at this point.

Sent from my SM-G965U using RealGM mobile app

Wait... at what point did Johnson become more valuable than TJ? Johnson's major value point is specifically that he's an expiring deal. That's his #1 value. The fact that he's playable and has some experience is a bonus.

Thas what I mean. His expiring contract could add a better player at the deadline. I just dont know if you can say that Warren or Jackson could do the same. I also think he is a better player than either Warren or Jackson. Not significantly better than Warren by any means, but better. And I still want to believe in Josh's potential but that's about spent at this point

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That's where we disagree.

[jredsaz]

Wait... at what point did Johnson become more valuable than TJ? Johnson's major value point is specifically that he's an expiring deal. That's his #1 value. The fact that he's playable and has some experience is a bonus.

Thas what I mean. His expiring contract could add a better player at the deadline. I just dont know if you can say that Warren or Jackson could do the same. I also think he is a better player than either Warren or Jackson. Not significantly better than Warren by any means, but better. And I still want to believe in Josh's potential but that's about spent at this point

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That's where we disagree.

I get it. I like TJ. I'm interested to see what they do. If they can unload Jackson and stretch Johnson, then sign DLo, I'm fine with that too.

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[Slim Charless]

Not to be a " Debbie Downer". But with respect to Warren's percieved value currently.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1854828

It's a hard situation in that yes he's a good player on a value contract for us. But the rub is he's currently our only available asset that has some small measure of value too. Meaning it's going to be really tough for us to improve our roster. Technically we should hold onto him, but again, our current roster is only good for around 19-20 wins???

What's our solution?

What other posters think doesn't mean squat. Look at the numbers of TJ Warren, and then look at the numbers of Brandon Ingram and tell me who would you rather have on your team. I'd guess people would choose Warrens stats 8 times out of 10, yet Ingram has the higher perceived value.

If Warren barely has any value than you simply keep him. I'm not trading him for 10 cents on the dollar.

If we want to improve through free agency with having limited cap space we can actually come into free agency above the cap by not renouncing Bender, not declining Fredette's team option next year, and virtually keep everyone's bird rights (Troy Daniels, Jamal Crawford). We actually have $28M in cap holds, which would put us over the cap. We could then use the MLE, the bi-annual exception, and a lot of other things.

Looking at how Warren and Jackson are talked about you'd think they were as bad as Wiggins or John Wall's deals lol. Warren just shot top 10 in NBA in 3pt% and we're still near the bottom we need more guys like that, not less. If we're giving him up to upgrade on what we have sure, do that, but upgrade is the key word there. If Warren played for LAL or NYK you'd be hearing all the time about him. Its lame.

As to Jackson, if he sucks that much then let him play out his deal and don't offer him the team option. Give him the same shot Bender got. He blows it up after we decline his to extend his option-worse case scenario we have another valuable piece to use. If Jackson had stayed in college he'd be going into senior year-that's hardly old enough to say his career is done and we should give up on him. IF Dlo is truly gonna sign then we'll cross that bridges when we get there if we absolutely have to have that money.

[Ghost of Kleine]

I understand what you're saying man, But if you're referring to the list of trade ideas that would allow us to add cap space, the premise was obviously in that the front office would have interest in moving one of Warren and/or Jackson for cap space. And yes, until any deal happens, it's merely nothing more than speculation.

Also, whilst I agree that it's true that the draft happens prior to free agency, That doesn't mean that teams couldn't or wouldn't agree to, or finalize trades for picks with the understanding, planning for that acquired space and assets/ players even, To be traded or used towards the further aquisition of that teams targeted player.

And with respect to the argument that it's too risky for teams to formulate such plans prior to free agency without an agreement in place.

It happens every year. And the best franchises understand that you have to be willing to take risks in order to reap the rewards. And it's the front offices' job to plan accordingly. And communicate, occasionally gamble and have an alternative plan in case your primary option falls through. If we don't have a competitive amount of cap space, and we also aren't willing to add talent to our asset pool through the draft, How are we supposed to realistically take that next jump?

Again, if we don't have that free agent appeal yet, and also don't have the cap space to outbid other teams for better players that we need in order to make a discernible impact, what avenues of improvement are available to us to become more competitive?

I guess maybe we could sweet talk high impact quality free agents into taking less money in order to sign with us. That should work well.

Please go over the deals that occur every year that has teams trading for cap space prior to free agency, getting rid of quality players and in turn they end up getting a top tier free agent.

You don't make those kind of gambles, those are the kind of gambles that could easily break your team. Which is what happened to us with McD at the helm.

The deals are littered about amongst varying teams, But are not blatantly obvious or listed as straight cap space moves outright. Making it difficult to properly categorize them accordingly.

Most trades were/ are in the context of sending out players and taking back expiring contracts, cash considerations, players for unguaranteed 2nd round picks, team options, players with contracts that have buyouts or can be waived. Trading for these players that can be waived or are expiring, obviously helped capped out teams sign impact players never the less. A few more obvious examples would be................

Back in 2016 I think, Golden state traded Boguts' 7 million contract to Dallas for ZaZa Pachulias' contract at 2 million. Helping them clear space for Durant to sign. ( They traded Bogut to create cap space to be able to sign Durant).

In 2017, The lakers traded Russell and Mozgov to the Nets to clear cap space for Lebron and George. They did sign lebron however.

Also, Most recently Dallas traded 2 first round picks and Courtney Lee, Wesley Mathews, DeAndre Jordan, and Dennis Smith Jr.( expiring contracts and buyout contracts were inclusive) to New York , and got back Porzingis. And cap space to not only resign Porzingis, But to be able to add another max contract for free agency.
( point being Dallas traded two firsts for the cap space they received).


Brooklyn just recently traded Allen Crabbes' contract to Atlanta. Atlanta received a slew of draft picks, that they can now use to move up into the top part of the lottery. And Brooklyn got back Prince and more importantly cap space with now has them in prime position to sign Irving.
( In trading Crabbes' contract, They can now sign Irving in free agency).

Last season, The Clippers traded Harris to Philly for picks and players on much smaller contracts, creating cap space to be able to sign a marquee player such as Kwahi, Durant, etc.

The point is that you can't offer cap space, If you don't have any to offer. In free agency your trying to outbid a bunch of other teams for your targets. The teams that aren't big markets, prime free agent destinations, or have a desirable reputation need to have that available cap space in order to be able to outbid the competing franchises for the targeted player.

With respect to trading quality players, What other assets do we have that possess enough value to actually bring back a quality return? Much less a top tier free agent?

Also, when talking of taking gambles that could break your team, You do realize that we're currently only a 19 win team right? So what exactly are we risking honestly by acquiring additional assets and cap space that would allow us much better free agent options than what we can bid for with only 10 million in cap space.

Yes, Warren is a quality player for us. But our current roster has only afforded us 19 wins and the 2nd worst record in the entire league. People desperately want us to get better and be able to compete. But if we can't trade for better players or additional assets to use in trades, because we're unwilling to trade any players with value. Then how do we improve our roster???

Do we assume that other teams will just take pity on us and gift us nice players and assets for nothing of value. Also, you say that taking risks are the reason McD lost his Job. I disagree. McD did a poor job scouting prospects, leading to poor outcomes in our past drafts.

Also, his inability to secure a point guard for our core. Now how much of this can be truly attributed to his own mistakes or Sarvers' control issues will never be truly known. But we can choose to just sit by and be too timid to take any risks and keep hovering around 20 wins for a few more years.

Or we can nut up as a franchise and aggressively pursue higher caliber options with cap space in hand to sign our target outright, instead of asking them to wait for us to catch up with everybody else in free agency.

[grumpysaddle]

Can someone explain to me what is wrong with TJ Warren?

Pros
-Quiet and humble guy
-Seems to be a good teamate
-Works HARD
-Dedicated
-Efficient scorer
-Great finisher
-Unstoppable in the paint
-Good defender
-Now has 3 point range
-Great contract

Cons
-When he plays the 4, he can get abused in the paint if the other 4 is a "traditional" (bigger) 4.
-Has had some trouble with injuries

At times, TJ has looked like a KD lite. Yes....I said it.

If we trade him, we better get back something really REALLY good.

I'd be so very happy if Oubre and TJ start at the 3/4 as long as we sign a halfway decent vet "traditional" (bigger) 4 to play against the bruisers like Randle, Milsap, etc.

He's not really a good defender. He's willing to give effort on that end but he's not measurably good. His injuries are also a legitimate concern since he's barely played over 60% of games in his career. I think at this point most of us can count on him missing about 30 games a year on average which is a pretty poor figure.

At least 3 of his seasons were blatant tanking seasons under McD though. I can almost guarantee half or more of the games he sat out for injury were moreso because of the tanking. He contributes to winning, which is a bad thing on a tanking team. I think a lot of his injury missed games are suspect. Sure he's gotten his fair share of injuries, but none of them scream out as something to be concerned about. They are either minor things or freak injuries (that are also minor, really).

[grumpysaddle]

I understand what you're saying man, But if you're referring to the list of trade ideas that would allow us to add cap space, the premise was obviously in that the front office would have interest in moving one of Warren and/or Jackson for cap space. And yes, until any deal happens, it's merely nothing more than speculation.

Also, whilst I agree that it's true that the draft happens prior to free agency, That doesn't mean that teams couldn't or wouldn't agree to, or finalize trades for picks with the understanding, planning for that acquired space and assets/ players even, To be traded or used towards the further aquisition of that teams targeted player.

And with respect to the argument that it's too risky for teams to formulate such plans prior to free agency without an agreement in place.

It happens every year. And the best franchises understand that you have to be willing to take risks in order to reap the rewards. And it's the front offices' job to plan accordingly. And communicate, occasionally gamble and have an alternative plan in case your primary option falls through. If we don't have a competitive amount of cap space, and we also aren't willing to add talent to our asset pool through the draft, How are we supposed to realistically take that next jump?

Again, if we don't have that free agent appeal yet, and also don't have the cap space to outbid other teams for better players that we need in order to make a discernible impact, what avenues of improvement are available to us to become more competitive?

I guess maybe we could sweet talk high impact quality free agents into taking less money in order to sign with us. That should work well.

Please go over the deals that occur every year that has teams trading for cap space prior to free agency, getting rid of quality players and in turn they end up getting a top tier free agent.

You don't make those kind of gambles, those are the kind of gambles that could easily break your team. Which is what happened to us with McD at the helm.

The deals are littered about amongst varying teams, But are not blatantly obvious or listed as straight cap space moves outright. Making it difficult to properly categorize them accordingly.

Most trades were/ are in the context of sending out players and taking back expiring contracts, cash considerations, players for unguaranteed 2nd round picks, team options, players with contracts that have buyouts or can be waived. Trading for these players that can be waived or are expiring, obviously helped capped out teams sign impact players never the less. A few more obvious examples would be................

Back in 2016 I think, Golden state traded Boguts' 7 million contract to Dallas for ZaZa Pachulias' contract at 2 million. Helping them clear space for Durant to sign. ( They traded Bogut to create cap space to be able to sign Durant).

In 2017, The lakers traded Russell and Mozgov to the Nets to clear cap space for Lebron and George. They did sign lebron however.

Also, Most recently Dallas traded 2 first round picks and Courtney Lee, Wesley Mathews, DeAndre Jordan, and Dennis Smith Jr.( expiring contracts and buyout contracts were inclusive) to New York , and got back Porzingis. And cap space to not only resign Porzingis, But to be able to add another max contract for free agency.
( point being Dallas traded two firsts for the cap space they received).


Brooklyn just recently traded Allen Crabbes' contract to Atlanta. Atlanta received a slew of draft picks, that they can now use to move up into the top part of the lottery. And Brooklyn got back Prince and more importantly cap space with now has them in prime position to sign Irving.
( In trading Crabbes' contract, They can now sign Irving in free agency).

Last season, The Clippers traded Harris to Philly for picks and players on much smaller contracts, creating cap space to be able to sign a marquee player such as Kwahi, Durant, etc.

The point is that you can't offer cap space, If you don't have any to offer. In free agency your trying to outbid a bunch of other teams for your targets. The teams that aren't big markets, prime free agent destinations, or have a desirable reputation need to have that available cap space in order to be able to outbid the competing franchises for the targeted player.

With respect to trading quality players, What other assets do we have that possess enough value to actually bring back a quality return? Much less a top tier free agent?

Also, when talking of taking gambles that could break your team, You do realize that we're currently only a 19 win team right? So what exactly are we risking honestly by acquiring additional assets and cap space that would allow us much better free agent options than what we can bid for with only 10 million in cap space.

Yes, Warren is a quality player for us. But our current roster has only afforded us 19 wins and the 2nd worst record in the entire league. People desperately want us to get better and be able to compete. But if we can't trade for better players or additional assets to use in trades, because we're unwilling to trade any players with value. Then how do we improve our roster???

Do we assume that other teams will just take pity on us and gift us nice players and assets for nothing of value. Also, you say that taking risks are the reason McD lost his Job. I disagree. McD did a poor job scouting prospects, leading to poor outcomes in our past drafts.

Also, his inability to secure a point guard for our core. Now how much of this can be truly attributed to his own mistakes or Sarvers' control issues will never be truly known. But we can choose to just sit by and be too timid to take any risks and keep hovering around 20 wins for a few more years.

Or we can nut up as a franchise and aggressively pursue higher caliber options with cap space in hand to sign our target outright, instead of asking them to wait for us to catch up with everybody else in free agency.

Show me on the doll where TJ Warren hurt you.

[Crives]

Warren has more value to us than just being a cash dump. Warren's value to the Suns is worth more than getting the 9th pick. If your proposal was for us to trade Warren to clear cap space and then sign someone like DLo (& additionally get us the 9th pick), then that is something I can get behind. The reality of it is this... the Suns are NOT going to trade Warren before/during the draft or before the start of free agency. It's too early in the process, and it's counting our chickens before they hatch. It's similar to the situation where the Suns traded Marcus Morris to clear enough cap space for us to sign LaMarcus Aldridge. It was too early in the process before Aldridge even agreed to a deal with us, and it blew up in our face. It doesn't make us better in the short term or long term unless that 9th pick turns into a hidden gem, but I don't count on that happening.

It sounds like you just want to make a trade for the sake of making a trade. We would go from being a 19 win team to being a 15 win team.

Again, The premise is in exactly that.....You're trying to accumulate cap space for the very reason that you mentioned. Take russell for instance, You can't make a competitive offer to Russell or even an offer to Brogdon either if you don't currently have the cap to do it. And the same premise applies to assuming that you'll be able to find a guaranteed way to rapidly create the necessary space in order to sign your player.

And for anybody who argues that you wait until you confirm their commitment first is deluding themselves. You can't realistically expect a player to just sit there and wait for you to figure out a way to create cap to sign him, whilst other teams are lined up to offer him just as much, if not more than us.

Our best chance is to bead into free agency with cash in hand, and be ready to sign that player first. Again, Our best chance is in beating the other teams to the punch first. Lest we wind up settling for leftover scraps once again.


Now with respect to my premise, You put Russell on our team with a core of Booker/ Ayton/ Oubre on offense and Bridges Hunter and Clarke on defense ( Hunter and Clarke being interchangeable at the 4), and tell me that you don't have something pretty solid there.


- Russell/ McConnell?
- Booker/ Bridges.
- Oubre/ Hunter.
- Clarke/ Hunter. ( Vonleh?) Free agent?
- Ayton/ Holmes? Or Dedmon perhaps?

That backcourt has incredible offensive potential. Also we'd have 3 ELITE positional defensive players ( 2 at all times on the court with Ayton). As both Clarke and Hunter are interchangeable. We'd have lockdown defense at both the 3 and 4.

You could also run so many different defensive combinations as well- Such as Booker or Russell at the point, Bridges at the 2, Hunter at the 3 and Clarke at the 4.

Or maybe- Booker at the point, bridges at the 2, oubre at the 3, and Hunter at the 4. The variations are countless honestly.

Offense: Russell/ Booker/ Oubre/ Ayton.

Defense: Bridges ( elite perimeter defender) / Hunter ( elite perimeter defender) / Clarke ( elite frontcourt/weakside defender).

Is that team not immensely competitive and likely a playoff contender?

You can easily dump players once you have a player's commitment...and in FA you have like a week moratorium to figure it out if you haven't already...you don't just dump players to create cap space you're not sure you can use for an upgrade...well, smart teams don't unless they are at the beginning of the rebuild and want to create cap space to absorb people and add assets (something else McD pretty much failed to do...he just signed old washed up guys to big contracts for the hell of it instead of getting picks to take those types of guys on).

No, that team doesn't compete for a playoff spot...it likely finishes 13th-14th in the west. Though I have a hard time seeing many iterations of us climbing much higher given the toughness of the west.

I do like that team, but it would be at least a year away from knocking on the playoff door....in the west probably at least two.

Whatever we do.. we need to be careful if we move Warren before agreeing to a deal with Oubre. Would be disaster to lose both.

[Slim Charless]

Can someone explain to me what is wrong with TJ Warren?

Pros
-Quiet and humble guy
-Seems to be a good teamate
-Works HARD
-Dedicated
-Efficient scorer
-Great finisher
-Unstoppable in the paint
-Good defender
-Now has 3 point range
-Great contract

Cons
-When he plays the 4, he can get abused in the paint if the other 4 is a "traditional" (bigger) 4.
-Has had some trouble with injuries

At times, TJ has looked like a KD lite. Yes....I said it.

If we trade him, we better get back something really REALLY good.

I'd be so very happy if Oubre and TJ start at the 3/4 as long as we sign a halfway decent vet "traditional" (bigger) 4 to play against the bruisers like Randle, Milsap, etc.

He's not really a good defender. He's willing to give effort on that end but he's not measurably good. His injuries are also a legitimate concern since he's barely played over 60% of games in his career. I think at this point most of us can count on him missing about 30 games a year on average which is a pretty poor figure.

At least 3 of his seasons were blatant tanking seasons under McD though. I can almost guarantee half or more of the games he sat out for injury were moreso because of the tanking. He contributes to winning, which is a bad thing on a tanking team. I think a lot of his injury missed games are suspect. Sure he's gotten his fair share of injuries, but none of them scream out as something to be concerned about. They are either minor things or freak injuries (that are also minor, really).

I don't think this gets brought up enough when talking about our players missing time. We were obviously tanking towards the latter part of the last 3 seasons. What's the easiest and most popular way to tank in the NBA? To pull your players with BS injuries. Not that these guys weren't hurt in one way or another but if we were actually playing in games that had some meaning then guys woulda toughed it out some more and played through it. Instead we wanted more ping pong balls and sat dudes accordingly.

[Ghost of Kleine]

Warren has more value to us than just being a cash dump. Warren's value to the Suns is worth more than getting the 9th pick. If your proposal was for us to trade Warren to clear cap space and then sign someone like DLo (& additionally get us the 9th pick), then that is something I can get behind. The reality of it is this... the Suns are NOT going to trade Warren before/during the draft or before the start of free agency. It's too early in the process, and it's counting our chickens before they hatch. It's similar to the situation where the Suns traded Marcus Morris to clear enough cap space for us to sign LaMarcus Aldridge. It was too early in the process before Aldridge even agreed to a deal with us, and it blew up in our face. It doesn't make us better in the short term or long term unless that 9th pick turns into a hidden gem, but I don't count on that happening.

It sounds like you just want to make a trade for the sake of making a trade. We would go from being a 19 win team to being a 15 win team.

Again, The premise is in exactly that.....You're trying to accumulate cap space for the very reason that you mentioned. Take russell for instance, You can't make a competitive offer to Russell or even an offer to Brogdon either if you don't currently have the cap to do it. And the same premise applies to assuming that you'll be able to find a guaranteed way to rapidly create the necessary space in order to sign your player.

And for anybody who argues that you wait until you confirm their commitment first is deluding themselves. You can't realistically expect a player to just sit there and wait for you to figure out a way to create cap to sign him, whilst other teams are lined up to offer him just as much, if not more than us.

Our best chance is to bead into free agency with cash in hand, and be ready to sign that player first. Again, Our best chance is in beating the other teams to the punch first. Lest we wind up settling for leftover scraps once again.


Now with respect to my premise, You put Russell on our team with a core of Booker/ Ayton/ Oubre on offense and Bridges Hunter and Clarke on defense ( Hunter and Clarke being interchangeable at the 4), and tell me that you don't have something pretty solid there.


- Russell/ McConnell?
- Booker/ Bridges.
- Oubre/ Hunter.
- Clarke/ Hunter. ( Vonleh?) Free agent?
- Ayton/ Holmes? Or Dedmon perhaps?

That backcourt has incredible offensive potential. Also we'd have 3 ELITE positional defensive players ( 2 at all times on the court with Ayton). As both Clarke and Hunter are interchangeable. We'd have lockdown defense at both the 3 and 4.

You could also run so many different defensive combinations as well- Such as Booker or Russell at the point, Bridges at the 2, Hunter at the 3 and Clarke at the 4.

Or maybe- Booker at the point, bridges at the 2, oubre at the 3, and Hunter at the 4. The variations are countless honestly.

Offense: Russell/ Booker/ Oubre/ Ayton.

Defense: Bridges ( elite perimeter defender) / Hunter ( elite perimeter defender) / Clarke ( elite frontcourt/weakside defender).

Is that team not immensely competitive and likely a playoff contender?

The Free Agency Moratorium is a negotiation period from July 1-6 in which teams may not sign most free agents or make trades. Starting at 6:01 p.m. on June 30, teams may negotiate deals with free agents but cannot officially sign them until Noon on July 6.

First off, we don't need to trade Warren to have enough cap space to sign Russell. As I've mentioned numerous times already if we find a team to simply absorb Josh Jackson's salary, and then stretch Tyler Johnson we would have enough cap space to sign Russell. There is no reason to trade Warren to open up the cap space, unless we can't find someone to take Jackson, but I don't find that hard since there are a handful of teams with trade exceptions and cap space to do so.

I really hope that you're right man, But I just don't see it being as easy as you might think it'll be in terms of getting someone to just absorb Jackson with his current negative value and soon to be 9 million in salary too. Also, as good an option as it might be,

I personally don't see them stretching Johnson, as even Monty himself was indicating his interest in him as part of the core going forward. But then again, who knows........And again as I've said before, IF they can do that and find a way to keep Warren, I'm fine with that! I'd like him as a 6th man scorer.

But again, No reason for everyone to get so triggered, IF you all are right about Warren and the front office shares your views on him. Then he won't be traded anyways. It's just my opinion based on the reports coming out, that they'll choose to trade Warren and/or Jackson. There's been multiple reports indicating as such. It's also only logical that they're considering this, due to their professed interest in Oubre and Bridges as their core players.

I just imagine that they intend to clear up the congestion at the wing position,
and balance the roster using the only one of our only available assets of value. Regardless, I can see that we're going to be of opposing opinions on this subject. I guess we'll just have to see how it turns out in the end ........... Then we'll know for sure how they view Warren.

[Slim Charless]

Again, The premise is in exactly that.....You're trying to accumulate cap space for the very reason that you mentioned. Take russell for instance, You can't make a competitive offer to Russell or even an offer to Brogdon either if you don't currently have the cap to do it. And the same premise applies to assuming that you'll be able to find a guaranteed way to rapidly create the necessary space in order to sign your player.

And for anybody who argues that you wait until you confirm their commitment first is deluding themselves. You can't realistically expect a player to just sit there and wait for you to figure out a way to create cap to sign him, whilst other teams are lined up to offer him just as much, if not more than us.

Our best chance is to bead into free agency with cash in hand, and be ready to sign that player first. Again, Our best chance is in beating the other teams to the punch first. Lest we wind up settling for leftover scraps once again.


Now with respect to my premise, You put Russell on our team with a core of Booker/ Ayton/ Oubre on offense and Bridges Hunter and Clarke on defense ( Hunter and Clarke being interchangeable at the 4), and tell me that you don't have something pretty solid there.


- Russell/ McConnell?
- Booker/ Bridges.
- Oubre/ Hunter.
- Clarke/ Hunter. ( Vonleh?) Free agent?
- Ayton/ Holmes? Or Dedmon perhaps?

That backcourt has incredible offensive potential. Also we'd have 3 ELITE positional defensive players ( 2 at all times on the court with Ayton). As both Clarke and Hunter are interchangeable. We'd have lockdown defense at both the 3 and 4.

You could also run so many different defensive combinations as well- Such as Booker or Russell at the point, Bridges at the 2, Hunter at the 3 and Clarke at the 4.

Or maybe- Booker at the point, bridges at the 2, oubre at the 3, and Hunter at the 4. The variations are countless honestly.

Offense: Russell/ Booker/ Oubre/ Ayton.

Defense: Bridges ( elite perimeter defender) / Hunter ( elite perimeter defender) / Clarke ( elite frontcourt/weakside defender).

Is that team not immensely competitive and likely a playoff contender?

You can easily dump players once you have a player's commitment...and in FA you have like a week moratorium to figure it out if you haven't already...you don't just dump players to create cap space you're not sure you can use for an upgrade...well, smart teams don't unless they are at the beginning of the rebuild and want to create cap space to absorb people and add assets (something else McD pretty much failed to do...he just signed old washed up guys to big contracts for the hell of it instead of getting picks to take those types of guys on).

No, that team doesn't compete for a playoff spot...it likely finishes 13th-14th in the west. Though I have a hard time seeing many iterations of us climbing much higher given the toughness of the west.

I do like that team, but it would be at least a year away from knocking on the playoff door....in the west probably at least two.

Whatever we do.. we need to be careful if we move Warren before agreeing to a deal with Oubre. Would be disaster to lose both.

Might get flamed for this and I know he's beloved on this board but if we wanna save money and gear up to make a run at Dlo then there's a great way to start. With Warren, Bridges, and even Jackson we have enough guys who can play the 3 and swiss-army knife it to provide different things at different times. We don't necessarily need to hand over 15 mill/yr to KO (or whatever it's gonna cost). We find a way to get rid of Johnson, decline a KO deal and with our expirings we should have enough to offer up a deal to Dlo. Then we can draft Clarke to fill in the PF spot who's hopefully as good as a lot of people seem to think he is.

[Ghost of Kleine]

Please go over the deals that occur every year that has teams trading for cap space prior to free agency, getting rid of quality players and in turn they end up getting a top tier free agent.

You don't make those kind of gambles, those are the kind of gambles that could easily break your team. Which is what happened to us with McD at the helm.

The deals are littered about amongst varying teams, But are not blatantly obvious or listed as straight cap space moves outright. Making it difficult to properly categorize them accordingly.

Most trades were/ are in the context of sending out players and taking back expiring contracts, cash considerations, players for unguaranteed 2nd round picks, team options, players with contracts that have buyouts or can be waived. Trading for these players that can be waived or are expiring, obviously helped capped out teams sign impact players never the less. A few more obvious examples would be................

Back in 2016 I think, Golden state traded Boguts' 7 million contract to Dallas for ZaZa Pachulias' contract at 2 million. Helping them clear space for Durant to sign. ( They traded Bogut to create cap space to be able to sign Durant).

In 2017, The lakers traded Russell and Mozgov to the Nets to clear cap space for Lebron and George. They did sign lebron however.

Also, Most recently Dallas traded 2 first round picks and Courtney Lee, Wesley Mathews, DeAndre Jordan, and Dennis Smith Jr.( expiring contracts and buyout contracts were inclusive) to New York , and got back Porzingis. And cap space to not only resign Porzingis, But to be able to add another max contract for free agency.
( point being Dallas traded two firsts for the cap space they received).


Brooklyn just recently traded Allen Crabbes' contract to Atlanta. Atlanta received a slew of draft picks, that they can now use to move up into the top part of the lottery. And Brooklyn got back Prince and more importantly cap space with now has them in prime position to sign Irving.
( In trading Crabbes' contract, They can now sign Irving in free agency).

Last season, The Clippers traded Harris to Philly for picks and players on much smaller contracts, creating cap space to be able to sign a marquee player such as Kwahi, Durant, etc.

The point is that you can't offer cap space, If you don't have any to offer. In free agency your trying to outbid a bunch of other teams for your targets. The teams that aren't big markets, prime free agent destinations, or have a desirable reputation need to have that available cap space in order to be able to outbid the competing franchises for the targeted player.

With respect to trading quality players, What other assets do we have that possess enough value to actually bring back a quality return? Much less a top tier free agent?

Also, when talking of taking gambles that could break your team, You do realize that we're currently only a 19 win team right? So what exactly are we risking honestly by acquiring additional assets and cap space that would allow us much better free agent options than what we can bid for with only 10 million in cap space.

Yes, Warren is a quality player for us. But our current roster has only afforded us 19 wins and the 2nd worst record in the entire league. People desperately want us to get better and be able to compete. But if we can't trade for better players or additional assets to use in trades, because we're unwilling to trade any players with value. Then how do we improve our roster???

Do we assume that other teams will just take pity on us and gift us nice players and assets for nothing of value. Also, you say that taking risks are the reason McD lost his Job. I disagree. McD did a poor job scouting prospects, leading to poor outcomes in our past drafts.

Also, his inability to secure a point guard for our core. Now how much of this can be truly attributed to his own mistakes or Sarvers' control issues will never be truly known. But we can choose to just sit by and be too timid to take any risks and keep hovering around 20 wins for a few more years.

Or we can nut up as a franchise and aggressively pursue higher caliber options with cap space in hand to sign our target outright, instead of asking them to wait for us to catch up with everybody else in free agency.

Show me on the doll where TJ Warren hurt you.

Lol... .I'm fine man. I'm not the one getting so easily triggered as some on here by the very real possability that he could be traded. Also, try as I might, I just find myself unable to be able to overvalue a player that has been unable or unwilling to play defense, has issues with tunnel vision, is often injured and has very little value around the league. But whatever helps everyone deal honestly.


I honestly do understand. So many have latched on to players showing any semblance of production, and thusly labeled them untouchable. I guess we'll be lucky that when Booker leaves in another few years, at least we'll be lucky enough to have Warren carry the team for around 30-40 games. Fingers crossed....lol..

[Crives]

You can easily dump players once you have a player's commitment...and in FA you have like a week moratorium to figure it out if you haven't already...you don't just dump players to create cap space you're not sure you can use for an upgrade...well, smart teams don't unless they are at the beginning of the rebuild and want to create cap space to absorb people and add assets (something else McD pretty much failed to do...he just signed old washed up guys to big contracts for the hell of it instead of getting picks to take those types of guys on).

No, that team doesn't compete for a playoff spot...it likely finishes 13th-14th in the west. Though I have a hard time seeing many iterations of us climbing much higher given the toughness of the west.

I do like that team, but it would be at least a year away from knocking on the playoff door....in the west probably at least two.

Whatever we do.. we need to be careful if we move Warren before agreeing to a deal with Oubre. Would be disaster to lose both.

Might get flamed for this and I know he's beloved on this board but if we wanna save money and gear up to make a run at Dlo then there's a great way to start. With Warren, Bridges, and even Jackson we have enough guys who can play the 3 and swiss-army knife it to provide different things at different times. We don't necessarily need to hand over 15 mill/yr to KO (or whatever it's gonna cost). We find a way to get rid of Johnson, decline a KO deal and with our expirings we should have enough to offer up a deal to Dlo. Then we can draft Clarke to fill in the PF spot who's hopefully as good as a lot of people seem to think he is.

My heart says Oubre and Brain says use that cap elsewhere.

[Slim Charless]

Whatever we do.. we need to be careful if we move Warren before agreeing to a deal with Oubre. Would be disaster to lose both.

Might get flamed for this and I know he's beloved on this board but if we wanna save money and gear up to make a run at Dlo then there's a great way to start. With Warren, Bridges, and even Jackson we have enough guys who can play the 3 and swiss-army knife it to provide different things at different times. We don't necessarily need to hand over 15 mill/yr to KO (or whatever it's gonna cost). We find a way to get rid of Johnson, decline a KO deal and with our expirings we should have enough to offer up a deal to Dlo. Then we can draft Clarke to fill in the PF spot who's hopefully as good as a lot of people seem to think he is.

My heart says Oubre and Brain says use that cap elsewhere.

I get that he does alot of good things. I get that but I think people think we HAVE to resign him because our win streak happened after him and Johnson joined the team. There were many reasons we won those games. He was apart of it but not the most important part. We can play some of our wings at PF but, I mean him or Warren can play PF but really should they? We can actually get someone who's been playing in the paint his whole life. Meanwhile instead of giving away valuable picks to get someone to take 1 of our early 20's SFs to gain more money to resign our mid 20's SF we can just not resign the older dude and go after the positions we're actually thin at-PG or PF.

I mean if it came down to it who would you rather have Oubre (at the additional cost of giving up picks + Warren/Jackson) or just grab Dlo straight up?

[Qwigglez]

Then how do we improve our roster???



Or we can nut up as a franchise and aggressively pursue higher caliber options with cap space in hand to sign our target outright, instead of asking them to wait for us to catch up with everybody else in free agency.

I think you keep quoting people and not even really listening to their argument. You are missing the point completely. You keep asking how do we improve our roster, and I will repeat. myself. AGAIN. We can create enough cap space to sign D'Angelo Russell by trading Josh Jackson (probably with the Bucks pick) for pure cap space. Essentially dumping $7 million. We then, stretch Tyler Johnson's contract. We now have close to $30M in cap space. That is enough to sign D'Angelo Russell. That is how we improve our roster. We keep our pick. We keep TJ Warren. I don't know how to make myself any clearer.


Here is something else for ya... if we traded Warren for the 9th pick because the Wizards for some reason wanted to trade 25 year old Beal for the 4th pick, and then some strange reason also wanted to trade their 9th pick for 25 year old Warren who's consistently been injured for roughly 30% of his games, the 9th pick for the Suns would cost about $3.6M. So trading Warren for a rookie, essentially saves the Suns about $6M in extra cap space. What top tier free agent, or any free agent for that matter (after signing D'Lo) is going to give better production at $6M than TJ Warren will at $10M?


Also... I already posted this but I'll post it again.
The Free Agency Moratorium is a negotiation period from July 1-6 in which teams may not sign most free agents or make trades. Starting at 6:01 p.m. on June 30, teams may negotiate deals with free agents but cannot officially sign them until Noon on July 6.

Which means, free agents will have to wait regardless if we have "cap space in hand".