Phoenix Suns: 5 Midseason Takeaways For 2016-17
1. Time To Ship Out Some Assets
The natural tank will be underway once the youngsters are getting hearty minutes, but that goes hand-in-hand with the front office’s responsibility to ship away some of its older talent at the trade deadline.
From P.J. Tucker to Tyson Chandler to Brandon Knight to even Eric Bledsoe, the Suns have plenty of players who could help a playoff team. Tucker and Chandler are experienced vets who could lend defense, rebounding and all-around hustle. Knight deserves the chance for a fresh start. Bledsoe is a star who just deserves better in general.
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None of those players is on the Suns’ new timeline for contention. Bledsoe is 27, Chandler is 34 and Tucker is 31. The only one who’s still close is Knight at age 25, and by now we’ve fully established that he and Phoenix are a poorly made match.
Watson told 16 Wins A Ring that Chandler isn’t going anywhere, and he clearly loves Tucker based on his playing time, but it’s out of his hands. McDonough needs to be hunting for playoff teams in need of rim protection and defense, or any teams with assets that need a point guard.
Knight may not have many takers with the worst plus/minus in the entire NBA, but Bledsoe has a ton of trade value right now. He, Chandler and even Tucker could net the Suns either young talent to mold or future draft picks to stockpile during the ongoing rebuild.
As a rebuilding franchise, those kinds of assets are potentially precious commodities. The Suns need to figure out what they have in Len, making Chandler expendable. Dudley could basically fill Tucker’s role, Knight is already out of the rotation, and as much as losing Bledsoe would make Phoenix nearly unbearable to watch, he’d net the Suns a great return.
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These players no longer fit in the timeline of Phoenix’s rebuild, and they deserve the chance to actually compete elsewhere, which means the Suns should be active sellers at this year’s trade deadline.