Phoenix Suns: 5 Midseason Takeaways
2. This Team Could Look Very Different Next Year
On a related note, with the Suns’ season being lost, general manager Ryan McDonough has to be tempted by the prospect of blowing this roster up and starting from scratch — you know, like he tried to do in 2013-14 before the team surprisingly won 48 games.
McDonough has gone for the home run in the trade market, making some risky moves that wound up backfiring on his personnel. The Isaiah Thomas deal upset the Dragic-Bledsoe balance and wound up running Phoenix’s franchise player out of town, while the Marcus Morris trade in pursuit of LaMarcus Aldridge created the current unhappy relationship between Markieff Morris and the Suns organization.
But give credit where it’s due: In the last three NBA Drafts, McDonough has done an excellent job with his selections.
In 2013, he got Alex Len (No. 5) and Archie Goodwin (No. 29). In 2014, he nabbed T.J. Warren (No. 14) and Bogdan Bogdanovic (No. 27). In 2015, he scored big with Devin Booker (No. 13) and Jon Leuer (via a trade for the No. 44 pick).
At this point, the players McDonough has selected in the last three drafts are arguably their most important building blocks moving forward. If McDonough chooses to invest fully in youth, enjoying a top-five pick this season and completely restructuring the team to build from the ground up, it’d be hard to blame him for doing so.
After all, the Suns already have three extra first round draft picks in the coming years: Cleveland’s 2016 first rounder, Miami’s 2018 first rounder (top-seven protected) and Miami’s 2021 first rounder. They also have quite a few movable assets that could nab them even more.
Bledsoe is immensely talented, but he’s coming off a knee injury. With the way he and Knight have struggled to build chemistry in the backcourt, he or Knight might become expendable, especially since Knight’s five-year, $70 million extension is looking like an overpay at the moment. Knight could be attractive to a team in desperate need of a point guard, after all.
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Tyson Chandler’s four-year, $52 million contract is definitely an overpay, but he could be movable as the NBA’s salary cap skyrockets and contenders get desperate for extra help around the basket. Markieff Morris is unlikely to be in Phoenix at this time next year and even with his trade value so low, his bargain four-year, $32 million contract makes him an asset.
Mirza Teletovic, Jon Leuer and Ronnie Price are free agents this summer, so the Suns would have to move them before the Feb. 18 deadline to get any sort of decent return without committing long-term cap space to re-sign them.
With the way Teletovic has played this season (42.5 three-point percentage, 91 made threes to lead all bench players), the Suns could just re-sign Leuer this summer at a moderate price and move Teletovic for a nice return to a contender desperate for three-point shooting.
If the Suns blow it up, their most untouchable players would be Booker, Warren, Len, Bledsoe and maybe Brandon Knight and Archie Goodwin. Even if they don’t completely commit to the tank, this roster stands to look very different next year since Keef has been an uncomfortable fit and so many players become free agents soon.
Next: No. 1