Suns News: Offseason

[Ring_Wanted]

I'd also say 0, with a slight chance of Paul being top3 in assists.

[Split T]

I think it’s pretty likely 0 happen.

The west is very deep, I don’t see Ayton getting an all star spot.

CP3 will probably get more assists than last year, but I doubt he’s top 3.

Top 5 in mvp voting seems a bit high for Book.

Crowder is a career 34% 3pt shooter.

Mikal making an all defense team seems the most likely to me. He’s really good and national people have started noticing.

Cam probably comes off the bench. 15/game when we can run 9-10 man rotation seems unlikely.

Dario also isn’t getting 28 minutes unless we have major injuries in the frontcourt.

I mostly agree with you. I was thinking that the only one that seemed likely was CP3 ending up top-3 in assists.

Ya, he’ll probably see a bump in assists playing in Monty’s offense. That one is possible. Will depend on minutes a bit. Gonna be hard to be ahead of Lebron and Trae.

[JeremyG]

I would say Cam is most likely, DA second.

[JeremyG]

Preseason schedule has been released: https://www.nba.com/suns/schedule

Sat. Dec. 12: @ Jazz
Mon. Dec. 14: @ Jazz again
Wed. Dec. 16: at home vs. Lakers
Fri. Dec. 18: at home vs. Lakers again

All four games start at 7 pm MST.

[Superbone]

Nice! We’ll be watching Suns basketball in a couple weeks!

[Flagrant Fowl]

Fri. Dec. 18: at home vs. Lakers again

Same as Lakers before?

[ShelC]

First Oubre said he found out he was traded from Diallo via Twitter, now this from Rubio. Not a good look if the Suns' FO was flat out misleading guys.

[Mori Chu]

It's a business, and anybody can be traded at any time, blah blah blah. But we always seem to mess up the little things. If you're trading a guy, you call him. If you're shopping a guy, don't tell him he's "off limits" in trade talks. Just treat people well; how hard is this? We always seem to build a contingent of players around the league who feel slighted and screwed by our team and have bad things to say about us. It's not smart to build a bad reputation like that around the league.

[Shabazz]

This is the downside to Jones’ “no leak” front office. Agents are usually the ones that leak things to the press and in order to maintain secrecy you either need to lie to them or keep them in the dark. That leads to some hurt feelings.

[Flagrant Fowl]

Why don't we ever hear about the front office who immediately calls the player they just traded to apologize to them?

[Wally_West]

Did somebody say hurt feelings??

[O_Gardino]

Did somebody say hurt feelings??

[Indy]

I am not sure there is a better season of comedy than season 1 of FOTC.

[carey]

The Athletic has a black friday sale for $1 a month right now. I snapped it up.

[Superbone]

The Athletic has a black friday sale for $1 a month right now. I snapped it up.

But they don’t have a Suns beat writer, right?

[Drewsprocket]

This is the downside to Jones’ “no leak” front office. Agents are usually the ones that leak things to the press and in order to maintain secrecy you either need to lie to them or keep them in the dark. That leads to some hurt feelings.

It’s true. But JJ has been through it all in this league. I trust his insight in walking that line between being a Business manager dealing with other GMs and agents and while being empathetic/personable to players. You can’t let agents manipulate and ruin deals ahead of trades being made. And in the back of their minds, players get it. In some ways, Rubio has to recognize that his limits as a scorer reduces his talents as a playmaker. Rubio has played well last season with his shooting percentages but defenses still left his ass open.

[Mori Chu]

I am not sure there is a better season of comedy than season 1 of FOTC.

FotC season 1 is indeed a masterpiece. I would have to think about the best ever, though.

Simpsons Season 3 or 4 gives it a run.
Seinfeld Season 4.
Futurama Seasons 2-4 are all divine.
Chappelle's Show, pick a season.
The Ali G Show, Season 1.
Whichever is the best season of Louie.
Dunno which season of Always Sunny would be the best.

I'm leaving out some greats I didn't really watch, like Parks and Rec, The Office, 30 Rock, Brooklyn 99.

FotC gets some points for being very dense with comedy. Not many episodes, so each one is memorable and hilarious, without much filler or wasted material.

[rhylek]

Do other FO act really different?
I'm sure other teams hurt player feelings too, it's always been tricky to tell them the truth, what if the trade aborts? How will the player react?
That's just part of the business, we're just more aware of our ex-players comments (this and the "a priori" following McD years where he acted like a heartless robot).

And fact that players are pissed is kind of telling how happy they were here.

[ShelC]

This is the downside to Jones’ “no leak” front office. Agents are usually the ones that leak things to the press and in order to maintain secrecy you either need to lie to them or keep them in the dark. That leads to some hurt feelings.

It’s true. But JJ has been through it all in this league. I trust his insight in walking that line between being a Business manager dealing with other GMs and agents and while being empathetic/personable to players. You can’t let agents manipulate and ruin deals ahead of trades being made. And in the back of their minds, players get it. In some ways, Rubio has to recognize that his limits as a scorer reduces his talents as a playmaker. Rubio has played well last season with his shooting percentages but defenses still left his ass open.

This is a good point about the agents leaking stuff and maybe messing up a deal. I don't believe Rubio and Kelly didn't know their names were in rumors and I can't believe they'd think the Suns would pass on a deal for Paul to keep either guy. Maybe their agents approached JJ about the status of talks as things came out and JJ denied everything to keep it from getting out. Maybe Presti told him if word gets out then the deal is off. If JJ flatly said, "the deal is dead, there's no deal, your guys aren't going anywhere" and then made the trade, then yea that's probably not the way to handle things.

But there were a ton of rumors flying for a few days about different players and teams involved, then radio silence for a day and then the deal was basically confirmed. Maybe the deal was initially made in principal and then Presti needed a day or two to hit up other teams about moving Kelly and Rubio afterwards. Maybe those were the moving parts JJ didn't/couldn't let the players know about? If you're JJ can you really say, "we're trading you so long as Presti can move you to another team afterwards"? If he tells Rubio and Kelly that and the trade falls thru, it can create new issues.

Really, it doesn't seem like Rubio was mad about the trade, just mad he was told certain things at a certain time. Maybe it was his agent BSing him and blaming the Suns? Kelly seemed to take it to heart tho. Who knows. If/when we're in the playoffs and things are working out, none of this will matter. No one will really care a year from now. It'll be how things end with Paul that could have larger ramifications.

[Split T]

I don’t really have a problem with Jones denying trade talks when nothing is official/certain. But he needs to make a call as soon as things look certain. I’d like the players to find out from him or their agents, not Twitter. I understand it’s a tough situation though as info leaks out so easily and quickly nowadays.