Post-Mortem: 2020-21 Phoenix Suns

[BigO]

I'd let Paul go and go after Lowry.

[skones]

I'd let Paul go and go after Lowry.

Absolute insanity.

[DroseReturnChi]

Time to blow it up

idk why this is green font. bucks and literally every team has to do to improve.
paul, bridges you need to move these guys for an upgrade bc they are getting costly.

Same with Bucks. they look vulnerable could get swept by nets if they dont get rid of middleton, holiday.
Theres no such thing as a guaranteed dynasty unless your warriors, bulls level superteam. A GM that gets complacent after one finals/rings is a big no no which happened with Heat.

[kuclas]

The Suns are good. CP3 is really the real reason. Plus Suns were healthy for the most part of the season.. I think all the starters played in 90% plus of their regular season games and playoff. Which is incredible. But the reality is the Suns are close to the 4th-5th best team in the West. Lakers, Nuggets, clippers I think are better. Jazz are neck and neck. Depends how much they want to commit to CP3. He's got 1 maybe 2 years left. It's near suicide to try to sign him to a 4 year contract. But CP3 isnt' leaving any money on the table to resign. You got to draw the line somewhere.

[WRau1]

Time to blow it up

idk why this is green font. bucks and literally every team has to do to improve.
paul, bridges you need to move these guys for an upgrade bc they are getting costly.

Same with Bucks. they look vulnerable could get swept by nets if they dont get rid of middleton, holiday.
Theres no such thing as a guaranteed dynasty unless your warriors, bulls level superteam. A GM that gets complacent after one finals/rings is a big no no which happened with Heat.

There is absolutely no reason to get rid of Middleton.

[louisorr]

maybe move on from James Jones?
Jalen Smith over Tyrese Haliburton or even Saddiq Bey ...and it's not even like I'm second guessing after the fact , it was a reach at the time and it cost them a trophy. I understand drafting is hard but everyone was scratching their head on that one at the time especially since they were a contending team.

[LikeABosh]

Time to blow it up

idk why this is green font. bucks and literally every team has to do to improve.
paul, bridges you need to move these guys for an upgrade bc they are getting costly.

Same with Bucks. they look vulnerable could get swept by nets if they dont get rid of middleton, holiday.
Theres no such thing as a guaranteed dynasty unless your warriors, bulls level superteam. A GM that gets complacent after one finals/rings is a big no no which happened with Heat.

You're confusing blowing it up with retooling. Blowing it up is about trading your best players and tanking

But you're right, there's no reason to be complacent. I would look at trading for Dame if I were the Suns (don't know how doable that is)

[Richard4444]

It'd be more insane to not pay him and take a mammoth step back next season.

They have to pay him so he can stay. Without CP3, they're a first round team at best. Maybe not even make it through the play in tournament.

I don't believe that. Besides, with him they're not a championship team, as was proven. You really want to hamstring yourself for the next 3 years, overpaying a 36-39 year old? Foolish.

That is a hot take. You can not discard The Suns as a championship contender. They had one of the best campaigns with a really young roster. Besides:

1) The finals were pretty even. 3 defeats were by 7 points or less.

2) The Suns could have beaten The Bucks if they had more bigs/big wings to defend the paint. Maybe cheap vets could have done the job.

3) Booker was not himself in a couple of the games. The Big 3 of The Bucks was more inspired in the last games of the series. If both teams have a new series in a couple of months, the result could be different. The gap between the 2 teams was very little. Small things can influence the results.

4) If a different team was the opponent, the Suns could have won. The Bucks are not a good match to The Sun's small ball.

[tamaraw08]

Time to blow it up

idk why this is green font. bucks and literally every team has to do to improve.
paul, bridges you need to move these guys for an upgrade bc they are getting costly.

Same with Bucks. they look vulnerable could get swept by nets if they dont get rid of middleton, holiday.
Theres no such thing as a guaranteed dynasty unless your warriors, bulls level superteam. A GM that gets complacent after one finals/rings is a big no no which happened with Heat.

There is absolutely no reason to get rid of Middleton.

Replace Middleton with who exactly? Durant? Who is better than Khris at his position?

[tamaraw08]

They have to pay him so he can stay. Without CP3, they're a first round team at best. Maybe not even make it through the play in tournament.

I don't believe that. Besides, with him they're not a championship team, as was proven. You really want to hamstring yourself for the next 3 years, overpaying a 36-39 year old? Foolish.

That is a hot take. You can not discard The Suns as a championship contender. They had one of the best campaigns with a really young roster. Besides:

1) The finals were pretty even. 3 defeats were by 7 points or less.

2) The Suns could have beaten The Bucks if they had more bigs/big wings to defend the paint. Maybe cheap vets could have done the job.

3) Booker was not himself in a couple of the games. The Big 3 of The Bucks was more inspired in the last games of the series. If both teams have a new series in a couple of months, the result could be different. The gap between the 2 teams was very little. Small things can influence the results.

4) If a different team was the opponent, the Suns could have won. The Bucks are not a good match to The Sun's small ball.

At the end of the day, We have to realize that the Bucks just really hot in pivotal games. The previous series, they only shot 30% from 3, very important game 5, Bucks shot 50%, game 4, shot 35% all throughout the series.
Booker had an uncharacteristic 26.8% from 3 for 6 games.

[Pointgod]

I don’t think the Suns are that far away. The biggest thing that hurt them was their lack of size with Saric out. They had a rookie that didn’t even play. Imagine if they had some size like Dwight Howard or Javale McGee. Other than that I don’t see many moves they can make considering their biggest contract is Paul.

[bwgood77]

Do you give CP3 100M?! That’s the real question.

Other than that, everyone comes back. Get a good backup big (maybe Jalen Smith becomes playable).

They have a good young group and the core of Booker/Bridges/Crowder/Anton/Payne/Johnson will be back next year.

Monty is a great coach. They’ll be back

Preferably 2/$65 or $70.....

But if he was to leave to the Knicks if Suns didn't give him 3 I would give it to him...better to try for a little less.

Best case either way is to try and have him opt in so the $44 million hits while Ayton and Bridges are still on rookie deals, and then give him a 1 or 2 year extension and structure the other year(s) to be declining like $29/27. Team option on a 3rd year might be a nice compromise, or only like a portion guaranteed.

[bwgood77]

Hoping the Paul opts in and the Suns can retain their main free agents.

Suns desperately need another big. They struggled against bigger lineups all season, and rebounding really killed them. Jalen Smith was likely drafted for that reason by at this point we don't even know if he's an NBA player yet.

Only major trade I could see the suns making this offseason would potentially sign and trading bridges in an attempt to get bigger. With Cam Johnson emerging the Suns may feel comfortable enough giving him the starting small forward.

What do you mean by signing and trading Bridges? Just extending him and then trading him? I can't remember the rules on if that's allowed, though of course if you didn't tell him you were trading him and extended him on a long deal and then traded him that would be a dick move.

I think the salary for trade purposes on an extended guy is total extension plus last year of rookie deal amounts divided by total # of years...but not sure. There might be a certain time period you have to wait after extending him though before you can trade him.

[bwgood77]

Signing Chris Paul to a big 2 year deal would put a ceiling on this team.

Is the ceiling higher the next two years if they let him walk? I am not so sure they are a playoff team without him next year (probably fringe with Payne starting..7 or 8 seed play in..maybe 6 but there are 6 other good teams at least and maybe 7 depending on Portland/Lillard). They could sign Lowry to a 2 year deal but he is only 10 months younger. He would get them into playoffs. Anyone else on the market is a big downgrade for now except maybe Conley who probably re-signs in Utah.

Long term they obviously need a new PG. Hopefully they find a gem in the draft at 29 and Payne continues to improve.

[bwgood77]

The Suns will one way or another become worse with or without CP3. Theyre not beating a couple of healthy West coast teams, never mind East coast teams.

It's entirely possible they are a better team next year yet have a worse record and don't do as well in the playoffs. Those two things happening wouldn't mean they are worse but could simply mean with fewer injuries across the NBA and fewer or no players out in COVID protocols which really hurt a lot of teams, it will just simply be tougher to win in both the regular season and playoffs for any team that was relatively healthy.

And a team like the Warriors should be a lot better.

[bwgood77]

They have to pay him so he can stay. Without CP3, they're a first round team at best. Maybe not even make it through the play in tournament.

I don't believe that. Besides, with him they're not a championship team, as was proven. You really want to hamstring yourself for the next 3 years, overpaying a 36-39 year old? Foolish.

That is a hot take. You can not discard The Suns as a championship contender. They had one of the best campaigns with a really young roster. Besides:

1) The finals were pretty even. 3 defeats were by 7 points or less.

2) The Suns could have beaten The Bucks if they had more bigs/big wings to defend the paint. Maybe cheap vets could have done the job.

3) Booker was not himself in a couple of the games. The Big 3 of The Bucks was more inspired in the last games of the series. If both teams have a new series in a couple of months, the result could be different. The gap between the 2 teams was very little. Small things can influence the results.

4) If a different team was the opponent, the Suns could have won. The Bucks are not a good match to The Sun's small ball.

There were a number of things just in game 6 that could have tilted the game in the Suns favor despite Giannis' incredible game. The only guy that played well on offense who had more than 10 minutes was Paul. If Book makes 1 or 2 of his 7 3 pt tries or doesn't turn it over 6 times, Ayton doesn't miss so many easy looks inside, they don't botch 3 fast breaks (a Bridges missed dunk...he is one of the better finishers in the league...esp as a wing....Book missed an alley oop and overthrew Cam Johnson on another one)....of course you can say "if, if, if" in any of these games but it was uncanny that all the first year playoff guys and Crowder played so awful with such weird mistakes in that game..you are talking about a large accumulation of crazy botches by Suns young guys and it still was fairly close with a couple minutes left.

And of course Jrue strips Book down by 1 in the previous game..that was basically a 1 possession game at the end and Paul turns it over in game 4 down by 2 with a minute left....3 games that literally could have gone either way.

So you are right...3 defeats that were close..2 with major turnovers in the final minute and the final game with every starter except Paul playing like absolute crap...yet still a close game.

Don't know they need to change much except figure out what to do post Paul...with they took Haliburton.

[garrick]

Monty Williams was terrible in the finals. They need to get him a defensive coordinator

What were his options? The roster didn't really have options for him to drastically adjust how he was able to defend.

The Nets had no defenders and they shut down MIL offense easily. Build the wall and let the erratic Holiday and Middleton chuck the ball at a 30% clip.

Big difference is Pat Connaughton showed up in the finals but he was playing pretty badly vs the Nets, Middleton came up bit and Holiday as well but they seemed to struggle more vs the Nets and have worse scoring nights.

Maybe the longer rest between games helped but the guards for Milwaukee showed up in the finals and credit to them.

[WRau1]

What were his options? The roster didn't really have options for him to drastically adjust how he was able to defend.

The Nets had no defenders and they shut down MIL offense easily. Build the wall and let the erratic Holiday and Middleton chuck the ball at a 30% clip.

Big difference is Pat Connaughton showed up in the finals but he was playing pretty badly vs the Nets, Middleton came up bit and Holiday as well but they seemed to struggle more vs the Nets and have worse scoring nights.

Maybe the longer rest between games helped but the guards for Milwaukee showed up in the finals and credit to them.

And by shutdown he means MIL missed more uncontested shots vs BKN than they did in any other series. Must've been the staunch Nets defense, though.

[DelAbbot]

Signing Chris Paul to a big 2 year deal would put a ceiling on this team.

Is the ceiling higher the next two years if they let him walk? I am not so sure they are a playoff team without him next year (probably fringe with Payne starting..7 or 8 seed play in..maybe 6 but there are 6 other good teams at least and maybe 7 depending on Portland/Lillard). They could sign Lowry to a 2 year deal but he is only 10 months younger. He would get them into playoffs. Anyone else on the market is a big downgrade for now except maybe Conley who probably re-signs in Utah.

Long term they obviously need a new PG. Hopefully they find a gem in the draft at 29 and Payne continues to improve.

My point is that signing a 36 year old PG to a 30M+ contract for min 2 years is not good if you want to improve the ceiling of the team. Chris Paul will be declining over that timespan and wasting lots of cap space. It's the same logic I would not want to re-sign Lowry to more than 1 year (which he won't agree to).

[bwgood77]

Signing Chris Paul to a big 2 year deal would put a ceiling on this team.

Is the ceiling higher the next two years if they let him walk? I am not so sure they are a playoff team without him next year (probably fringe with Payne starting..7 or 8 seed play in..maybe 6 but there are 6 other good teams at least and maybe 7 depending on Portland/Lillard). They could sign Lowry to a 2 year deal but he is only 10 months younger. He would get them into playoffs. Anyone else on the market is a big downgrade for now except maybe Conley who probably re-signs in Utah.

Long term they obviously need a new PG. Hopefully they find a gem in the draft at 29 and Payne continues to improve.

My point is that signing a 36 year old PG to a 30M+ contract for min 2 years is not good if you want to improve the ceiling of the team. Chris Paul will be declining over that timespan and wasting lots of cap space. It's the same logic I would not want to re-sign Lowry to more than 1 year (which he won't agree to).

I don't know that they have a lot of avenues to improve though. They certainly shouldn't let him walk. What I learned this year following the team was he has a big contribution to the team and player development off the court, which improves the development of the younger players, particularly Ayton and Payne, which does improve the ceiling...and getting them more involved in games is good too. The playoff experience helps the team learn what it takes.

I think he helps each player reach their ceiling more than if he wasn't there, any year he is there. But eventually as he declines, the on court product will go down, though the core should get better so the team decline wouldn't be as much as his individual decline.