Phoenix Suns: Pros and cons of trading for Mike Conley
Con: His contract would eat up major cap space for the next two years
The biggest problem with the Ariza and Anderson additions, aside from how bad they were in Phoenix, is their poor play was exacerbated by a lack of surrounding NBA talent. The Suns had no starting-caliber point guard, no vets outside those two and Jamal Crawford, and a locker room full of youngsters learning from a first-year head coach.
Time and time again we’ve seen veterans quickly become disillusioned with this franchise because of how much teaching, patience and losing is required. It’s not hard to understand how they lose interest and motivation in that kind of self-perpetuating environment.
That could become an issue with Conley, not only because the Suns will still have a young core in place next season, but also because adding his contract to the books severely hogties Phoenix’s ability to go out and find more established talent in free agency.
Assuming the Suns ship out Anderson, Okobo, Warren/Jackson and draft picks for Conley, they’ll be sending out $33.4 million/$27.7 million in salary (depending on which wing is used) to take on Conley’s $30.5 million deal. Next year he’ll be paid $32.5 million, with a $34.5 million early termination option for 2020-21 that he’d only opt out of if he put together a career year and were absolutely miserable in Phoenix at the same time.
According to @cleantheglass’ salaries sheet, the Suns would still have between $8-11.7 million in cap space for this offseason if they moved Ryan Anderson plus one of Warren or Jackson for Conley. That number factors in cap holds for Oubre Jr. and Holmes with no draft pick.
— Evan Sidery (@esidery) January 23, 2019
That’s a considerable load on the Suns’ cap space for the next two years, since stretching Ryan Anderson, plus Warren’s backloaded deal and Jackson’s rookie contract, would be considerably cheaper than what Conley will be making.
Between his salary and the cap holds/new deals for Kelly Oubre Jr. and Richaun Holmes (two in-house free agents the Suns should be interested in re-signing), Phoenix would have very limited space to improve the rest of the roster.
That alone isn’t enough of a reason to avoid pulling the trigger on a player who will make Phoenix better, but if the goal is to add Conley and retool the rest of the roster as needed, their means of doing so in 2019 free agency will be limited — and possibly even more so in the future, depending on what happens with Oubre and Holmes’ new contracts.