Phoenix Suns: What if Jayson Tatum dropped into their reach?

With recent reports saying that Jayson Tatum wanted to get drafted by the Phoenix Suns, how big of an impact would it have been if he slipped just one spot?

NBA fans have been in love with the phrase ‘What If?” since the dawn of our era, in fact every sports fan loves to think ‘What If?’ about their favorite moments. Some popular examples include, ‘What if Carmelo Anthony was drafted to the Detroit Pistons?’ or ‘What if the Seattle Seahawks ran the ball?’. They’re made to get your mind running in circles, giving light to great scenarios. For Phoenix Suns‘ fans, a ‘What If’ has been making its way onto our Twitter Timelines.

One ‘What If?’ that has gained a lot of traction is something that happened back in 2017,

‘What if Jayson Tatum slipped one more spot to the Phoenix Suns?’

Now this question has been ridiculously popular recently after Tatum stated that he wanted to get drafted to the Suns on the recent episode of All The Smoke, hosted by Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson.

Now back to the question, how much of the NBA would’ve changed if Jayson Tatum slipped out of the Boston Celtics‘ reach? Would the Suns’ chances at a future dynasty sky-rocket?

Before we start speculating, this isn’t a piece about Tatum leaving the Celtics, we don’t know anything so there’s no need to jump to any conclusions, grow up.

Initially, the Phoenix Suns selected Josh Jackson, which evidently didn’t work out for them, but we should never shut him down considering his spot in the Memphis Grizzlies squad right now. On the other hand, Tatum has worked out for the Celtics and is developing into a future superstar, as shown by his recent performance in the 2019-20 NBA season.

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Straight out of the gate, the Suns would’ve had a perfect pairing with both Devin Booker and Jayson Tatum. Both players can easily give you 25-plus a night and would have made those early Suns games watchable. A young team with two franchise pieces, this would easily equal success for the team. Now let’s talk a little about realism.

T.J. Warren would’ve still been traded, hopefully for something that isn’t just cash considerations, and Eric Bledsoe would’ve wanted to be there, remember that? Now that sets our scene for the 2017-18 season. It’s hard to predict and rewrite history, but with such a young squad, the Suns wouldn’t make a dramatic improvement straight off the bat. Tatum would have still averaged 14 points per game, with the same minutes.

Let’s speed forward a little bit, to the 2019-20 NBA season. Let’s say Tatum officially makes his move to the PF position, allowing Kelly Oubre Jr. to slot perfectly in the three-spot. Giving us a starting lineup of:

PG: Ricky Rubio

SG: Devin Booker

SF: Kelly Oubre Jr.

PF: Jayson Tatum

C: Deandre Ayton

Sheesh, talk about a young core. Tatum would’ve immediately made a massive improvement at the four-spot, replacing Dario Saric. This means the Suns likely would’ve quickly become a playoff threat, arguably the seventh seed at best. These aren’t concrete predictions, we all know that we can’t predict the future that easily. This is the best-case scenario.

Now there are a lot of questions that spark from the rewriting of history. Tatum probably wouldn’t be a dominant scoring threat that he currently is in Boston, but he’d still average around 19 or 20 points per game. Booker would’ve also made a bit of dip in his scoring stats, but it’s due to the lack of lone superstar ability that he has. Rubio would’ve made a massive impact though, pairing a great playmaker with two scoring threats and a back-to-basket threat would’ve been dangerous to oppose.

As cliche as it may sound, this team would be a dynasty contender, the possibilities are more than obvious with Tatum in the picture. While success wouldn’t be immediate, the development process would assure this team for glory. Remember, this is only in the best-case scenario, and there are some major flaws if this was to occur in real life.

Remember this isn’t one of those pieces begging for Tatum to come to Phoenix, he’s doing just perfectly in Boston, and the Suns already have their pieces for the future. Plus, it’d be a waste to forget Mikal Bridges, he’s got the makings of a high-end role-player piece.

While it would’ve been awesome to see, we need to get back down to earth sooner or later. Thankfully, NBA2k20 exists for us to play out these scenarios.

Next. Suns: Draft prospects for the team to consider. dark

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