2023-24 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

You just wrote a 5 page essay of some opinionated BS. Stars win period, the game hasn't changed at all. Nobody wins without their best players.. ever. The Suns got exposed for lack of depth, but they won two games, against the same team that swept us right?.AD and Lebron had recent history, of not being healthy too didn't they? It wasn't the case this season in the playoffs. It's not written in stone that those guys won't be healthy in the playoffs this season.

Lol..I couldn't care less about your respect, you are just voicing your opinions, same as I am. I'm not sure what data points are out there, that disprove the fact that, you don’t win in the NBA without your best players being available to play.

Again that team has people that were hired to make their roster decisions. I assume that they actually have a plan, whether you can grasp what it is or not.

Sensitive?..nah man..that seems to be YOU. I bring up age, because my sons are in their mid 30's, and they have the exact same.." I got it all figured out" based on the data stuff..that floats around on here a lot. Basketball isn't that complicated, the "data" can tell you whatever you want it to IMO. EXCEPT..How can you win in the NBA without your stars being available. Will the Suns be healthy or not? I have no idea, we'll see.

 

Shrug..It's their money, but if they are willing to pay Paul 30 million, D'Angelo shouldn't budge an inch off of getting his 30.

 

Getting 12 shots a game & playing in Arizona. He'll regret this by January.

 

What if the Clippers trade Westbrook for Chris Paul!?

 

If the Wizards are going into a rebuilding mode, I imagine Paul is getting bought out. I wonder what happens with the Unicorn.

 

It's fine though. There's a plan. And annnnnything could happen.

 

That's why they have people that get paid to figure that out. Run back to this post after free agency. We'll find out exactly what their plan is won't we? Perhaps they aren't dreading the 2nd tax apron at all. We shall see soon.

 

Yeah, this move is really dumb and desperate. I guess you do it because it costs you so little, but the 3 don't fit together, no depth, injury issues on all of them and not exactly the best personality/leadership type of big 3.

I'm really loving this move and I bet high that they don't win jack, not even get to the Finals. Durant and Booker can be that good indeed and maybe they get 3/4 really nice pieces, but I don't see it.

For the guy who compared it with Denver. They were not playing Reggie Jackson, Ish Smith and T.Bryant. They would likely be rotation pieces in the Suns

 

On the flipside..Booker, Ayton and Payne, are rotation players that have been to the Finals recently. KD is a Finals MVP. They have more deep playoff run experience than we do. Now they add Beal for scraps. He might be overpaid, but he's definitely not some kind of scrub by any means.

Some folks are still hyping Frank as this great coach, he has a hell of lot to work with IMO. Depth..looking at Denver's roster, they didn't have all this depth either. They had a lot of guys on min contracts too.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/contracts/DEN.html

Injuries yep..that's the key more than anything. Folks like to point to the Nets, but they were kicking a** without Harden, Irving and Durant playing together much. KD was a half an inch from beating Milwaukee on his own in that playoff series.

We haven't even gotten to the draft yet, let alone free agency. It's a bit premature to determine what those guy's roster is going to look like. We won a chip with minimum salaries in our rotation. Rondo, Dwight, Kief, Kuz, Caruso. We aren't the only team capable of doing that.

I hope it doesn't work out, because if it did,that means we won't be going to the Finals. However, I'm not hating on them for going for it. It's highly unlikely that all 4 of that core, is going to be hurt at the same time. I know if Lebron and AD aren't available, we ain't winning jack either, depth or no depth. I guess the Suns are going for the more the merrier approach. Might work, might not.

 

You keep beating the drum on Denver which honestly shows your lack of understanding of basketball, to be honest. It's your opinion and it's fine, but it's wrong in so many levels.

Basketball is a role type of sport. There's only one ball and one basket. You need to score, but you also need to set up plays, rebound, box out, space the floor, etc etc. Denver works because they have one playmaker and one scorer as their stars. Then they have MPJ giving additional scoring and spacing, Gordon complementing Jokic to perfect, KCP as a 3&D role model, Brown as a swiss knife and Braun/Green as solid rotation in their scheme.
Each one has a role, there's no redundancy. And that works. Also helps each one of them are pretty good too. Gordon was a high pick and a star in Orlando. MPJ was highly rated when drafted. Both play a supporting role in the team.

The 5th best player of the Suns is not in the top 10 of the Nuggets, that's the biggest difference. All big 3 failed except LeBron/Wade/Bosh (Bosh accepted to play a role, like Love in the Cavs and they had a bunch of vets) and Warriors (because Durant fit Warriors' system to perfection).

It's even worse when Durant and Beal can't play 60 games in a season. Wait until Phoenix lineup is Payne-Booker-Okogie-Craig-Ayton lol

History and logic shows that this model doesn't work. And we're going to see it again. Hope you don't change your narrative when you get called out again for your bad takes

 

Aw come on dude..moving backwards here. How do you even know who is going to be on their team? You are already talking about 5th best player vs 10th, and you have absolutely no idea, who in the hell they are even going to have on their squad? That's some utter nonsense.
Lebron and AD can't seem to play 60 games either lately. Did you somehow forget that? That's just more hating man. We are the absolute last fanbase to be talking about another team's potential injury issues.
The only big 3 that didn't work was do to someone getting hurt period. What big 3 failed that wasn't due to someone being hurt? What were those teams? Golden State won Chips with that model didn't they? All you can point to is The Nets and US. Those two teams, had the exact same problem. The stars were injured, it wasn't due to lack of depth at all.
I don't require some lecture about how basketball works man. There is more than one way to win. There hasn't been a repeat NBA Champion since Golden State with KD. Hell..the Warriors were the only recent team to get to back to back Finals. They would have Molly whopped Toronto too, if they had KD.
You can push your narrative all you want, but miss me what that BS about understanding the game. I have a different opinion on the subject, so what? Obviously the Phoenix Suns feel like have a path to a chip. Miami was chasing Beal too, and they wanted to keep Hero, that guy will be making 30 million dollars next season. EVERYBODY doesn't see things the same way. It's a whole lot of high horsing going on around here, if someone disagrees with folks " expert opinions ". FOH with that crap man.

 

Man we literally had a 3-star model right here that was an embarrassing failure. We sucked for 1 year and a half and were out of the playoffs.
The minute we traded the 3rd star for 3 depth players (and even with only 2 having an established role) we go for the best record of the league in that period and end up in the WCF.

Again, it's your opinion and you're entitled to it. My opinion is that you're wrong and I'm telling why I think so, I'm also entitled to it.

Regarding their team, they have almost 170M committed to FOUR players. Any basic notion of cap space means they will fill their roster with vet mins. Know the last team who did that? Ourselves in Russ first year. Remember how that played out?

But sure, I'll give you that, let's see who goes there.
My prediction is that Phoenix won't be top 4 in the West next year

 

Booker is going to play SF or PG ?

Defense is going to be BAAAAD

 

KD has been the teflon don of the league for a while .

One key of b-ball is to put pressure on the rim and he doesn't do that at all.

Bron in his 20th season was still better than KD

 

Lebron and AD played in 21 games together after that Westbrook trade. You somehow think that's irrelevant? They played in 28 together in the previous season, with all that depth and balanced roster we had. We got bounced in the first round. Yet folks still go on and on, about how if only AD was healthy, we would have beaten Phoenix. Yeah no s***, injuries matter. If anything that proves my point.

Just because it didn't work for us, doesn't mean it won't work somewhere else. They might get more than 30 games from their core playing together too..huh? We got to the Western Conference Finals, because our two best players, played over 20 games straight together, that hadn't happened since the bubble period. For some reason this goes over a lot of folks head. Those guys are elite players, it's not the jerseys, it's those guys wearing them. If Lebron or AD weren't able to go, we wouldn't have made it out of the 1st rd. This applies to every team, in every season. Depth..meh..Bamba didn't play at all, Beasley avg 5 min a game. Vanderbilt played less the further we got. D'Angelo was a complete no show against Denver. At the end of the day..it was Lebron, AD, Austin and Rui on rookie contracts, and Dennis on a vet minimum, that stood tall.We had to turn to Tristan Thompson, for a spark, a guy who was in a TV studio before the end of the season..Harping on this vet min angle isn't this undisputed fact that some of you claim that it is. I already pointed out that WE..won a chip doing that very same thing. The Suns have options available, what they actually plan to do, we will know by the time the season starts. Give me your predictions then.

 

Absolutely agree with you. Injuries matter. That's why trading for a guy who haven't played 60 games the last 4 years is not a good move. Even less when you join him to Durant who also misses a ton of games. Even less when the best things Beal has in his game, Booker or Durant do it better.
There's a reason why pre-Durant Suns were better than post-Durant, because Mikal and Cam were heavily missed.

If it wasn't for Vando you don't reach the playoffs nor you go past Warriors, the very least!

I don't get that "At the end of the day..it was Lebron, AD, Austin and Rui on rookie contracts, and Dennis on a vet minimum". What does this mean? Of course any team will have a 5/6 group who plays the biggest part. There's limited minutes to be played, so you can't get much more than that. But if you replace Dlo, Vando and Lonnie for Ellington, Cook and Howard, you ain't making the playoffs nor you're winning any series.

 

It's just going to keep going around in circles man. Durant and Booker aren't really any more injury prone, than Lebron and AD based on what you just posted. The actual fact of the matter, is that Lebron and AD, have only played in 60 games or more, once in the last 5 seasons. That fact hits a bit differently doesn't it? Are we automatically doomed too, moving forward?

Once again you are trying to imply, that all vet minimums are equal, that's another false statement. Malik Monk brought more to our our team than Malik Beasley. Monk was a vet min, Beasley made 14 million dollars this season. Dennis brought more value to the team than Wenyen, yet they made the same amount of money. Narratives aren't always the facts, they are a percived view of things.

That team just traded for KD, that's not to assume, that they planned on keeping their roster the same, as it was this season next season. They acquired a piece they wanted, and now they are building around what they have. IDK..they can keep Ayton, are trade him for Turner and another player, plus one of those multiple picks that the Pacers have etc. They can buy a 2nd round pick, and pick up a couple of ring chasers. That is a totally different viewpoint on their roster situation isn't it?

This 179M tax apron, isn't some kind of hard cap, teams can spend over that amount if they chose to. Yeah..they can't spend 12M on the MLE, send out more salary than they bring in with a trade, or get players in the buyout market if they go over 179.5M. So what? Maybe they don't intend on doing any of those things in the first place.

I have no idea what the Suns plan on doing, yet I'm pretty sure they do, after making this trade. We can judge that idea after the draft and free agency. Right now it's all just idle speculation.

Our team doesn't have to be married to the roster we have right now either. The goal is to win a Championship, you have to win 4 series in order to do that. If you have guys in your rotation, taking up a chunk of your cap, that you can't depend on to play 4 series, if healthy. That's not conducive to winning a chip either. I'm glad we got as far as we did, but this is a new season coming, the other teams in the West aren't going to just sit still, and not look to improve, neither should we.

Every season is different, it's all good to have a difference of opinion on how to get there. I just find it offensive, when people feel like they have to " school " you on the game, just because you don't agree with their opinions. I personally don't care, how many folks agree with said opinion, my perspective is my own.

 

people talk about AD being glass, but beal hasn't played more than 60 games in 4 years. he played in 90 games the past two years. durant's played in 100.

the only thing that i think people are discounting is that some funny things are going to happen to get them some guys on vet mins. for example, i could totally see dlo getting schrodered--we make a move elsewhere, his money dries up, and he has to sign for the vet min...with phx. i feel like once a year, something like this happens (a good player who isn't old has to sign for nothing due to weird market forces). like monk with us. phx will be the place those guys go to play because they'll be highly visible and have a huge role. in fact, they'll probably steal that mantle from us (which we had in part due to our lack of depth).

that said, there's usually only one of those. and you figure they can get two bench players for ayton should they want to move him. but i'm still pretty concerned about their non-star players. cam payne has never played 61 games in an nba season and was at 48 each of the last two years on 20mpg(!).

when these guys go down later, there will be a lot of "injuries did this to us" when this is what happens when you build around heavily injured players. and yes, we live in a glass house there (see what i did) in that lebron and AD are both injury risks every year. but that's part of why we've shifted philosophy--so that we're not in 13th place in february because one star missed 20 games.