Deandre Ayton's future with the Suns?

[JeremyG]

Blaming his lack of rim pressure on Chris Paul is crazy. His FG% went up 6% by playing with Paul. That is a HUGE improvement.

I just meant that his FGA went down with Paul here.

And nobody cares how often he dunks, really. It is about him avoiding contact and not using his skills to dominayt the other team.

Look at what that does to your FT rate (which not only gets you free points, but also lets your team regroup, discuss strategy, and even get a breather).

Amare's worst year while in Phoenix was a 50% FT rate (FTA/FGA). Ayton's best is only half of that and that came with Chris Paul.

The year before Paul got here, his FTr was <16%.

Good luck finding other starting centers in the league with a FTr that low, much less max players.

Except for those who keep bringing it up.

[Indy]

I never expected the Ayton thread to have more passion than the "should we gut our team and trade for $40M Chris Paul" discussions.

I wouldn't consider that gutting the team, especially considering the players we traded were not part of our young core.

People were definitely saying that. It was multiple starters, our most recent first round pick, a future first round pick, and another player as filler for an ancient, past his prime, over paid Chris Paul.

[JeremyG]

He didn't mean related by blood. He said by other circles like university or something similar. And I think you are missing that nobody here thinks Ayton is a bad player. We think he is very good! We are just disagreeing on how to move forward when all signs are pointing to a mutual interest in parting ways.

What signs? James Jones has only said that he wants to keep him. Has Ayton said he wants out?

[Indy]

Blaming his lack of rim pressure on Chris Paul is crazy. His FG% went up 6% by playing with Paul. That is a HUGE improvement.

I just meant that his FGA went down with Paul here.

And his efficiency went WAY up.

[Indy]

He didn't mean related by blood. He said by other circles like university or something similar. And I think you are missing that nobody here thinks Ayton is a bad player. We think he is very good! We are just disagreeing on how to move forward when all signs are pointing to a mutual interest in parting ways.

What signs? James Jones has only said that he wants to keep him. Has Ayton said he wants out?

He hasn't spoken to Monty since Game 7. Not even an exit interview. You can say that is on Monty or you can say that is on Ayton, and either way you say it, it is a clear sign things are really bad.

[JeremyG]

He didn't mean related by blood. He said by other circles like university or something similar. And I think you are missing that nobody here thinks Ayton is a bad player. We think he is very good! We are just disagreeing on how to move forward when all signs are pointing to a mutual interest in parting ways.

What signs? James Jones has only said that he wants to keep him. Has Ayton said he wants out?

He hasn't spoken to Monty since Game 7. Not even an exit interview. You can say that is on Monty or you can say that is on Ayton, and either way you say it, it is a clear sign things are really bad.

How do you know he hasn't spoken to him? Monty didn't have any individual exit interviews with players due to the Covid outbreak on the team; instead he just addressed the whole team by video conferencing.

The problem with this front office is that there are almost zero leaks, so we have to constantly be guessing/assuming/making things up.

[Indy]

I am assuming that the insiders I heard that from are getting accurate info, but yeah we don't know 100%.

[Mori Chu]

I don't think there's any need to get personal in here. You can completely disagree with JeremyG, but it's lame to say he's Ayton's childhood friend or his agent or related to him or whatever. You just disagree with him.

I think we've all made our arguments about Ayton and aren't going to convince each other at this point. It looks pretty likely that he'll be leaving, so maybe it is a moot point. I will be sad to see him go. I think I can see the argument that he is not worth the 5-year max. But I feel like the rhetoric here lately is acting like he is trash, a bum, not worth much at all. Maybe it's because we can see the writing on the wall that he is out of here soon, so we want to turn on him and focus on the negatives.

I think he's a 23-year-old kid who has some flaws and needs to grow up and mature and continue to work on his game and his work habits. I think keeping him is a good bet that he will naturally mature with age and years of experience in the league. I wish we had tried harder to engage him on coming back at a near-max salary with a player option after a few years if he proved to be worth the biggest bucks. But the Suns front office doesn't see it that way, so I guess that settles that.

I bet he's going to have a successful career in Indy or wherever he lands. I think they'll be very happy that we were willing to part with him. And I think if we don't end up with KD, losing Ayton will be a step back for our team. But I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[Split T]

Please don’t turn us into the Jazz with the screen assist stuff. Aron Baynes set better screens than Ayton, maybe we should have maxed him.

As for the KAT stuff…KAT has literally made as many 3s in one game as Ayton has in a whole season. Let’s not pretend like their shooting is even remotely close to comparable. It would be great for your argument if it was true, but it’s not. Hard to actually have a discussion if we’re just gonna make stuff up.

Do you have any comment on this video?

Ayton is a very good player and does a lot of good things. I’ve never said other wise. I just don’t think he’s a great player. I think the video oversells the value of his screening. Yes it’s important, but you can find someone for the minimum to set screens(Biyombo is a perfect example). I think it overplays his playmaking as well. Ya he does some nice things from time to time, but he’s not consistent.

Ayton was phenomenal against New Orleans and it looks like this video was made after that series. I think the Dallas series showed a lot. Why didn’t he keep playing the same way? Why couldn’t he punish the Mavs small ball lineups?

I’m not an expert, maybe someone has a better explanation, but I see teams like Dallas show more people at Ayton. It makes the pass more difficult to him so Booker and Paul make the easier pass. That’s what they’re taught to do. Could they force the issue more? Sure, but Ayton has also showed that he doesn’t do well with pressure. Crowd him and he doesn’t like to make a move, he’s gonna pass it out. NO mostly tried to defend him straight up with Valunciunas. He knows how to attack that. Throw 2 guys at him, no matter how big, and he doesn’t know how to attack.

Now if you could give him the ball in the high post or the DHO position and he could dribble and get to his spots from there, we’d be talking about a different player. Teams aren’t going to double him at the 3 point line, so if he could get to his spots, he’d open up a whole new world for us. Teams could double when he makes his move, but those are easier to see and react to than doubles on the catch.

[Split T]

Ya I don’t think any of us Ayton haters even care about his box score. Personally I just wanted to see consistency and some aggression. Just dribble a couple times, try and dunk on somebody’s head. Stop having those games where he’s completely invisible on the court. That trick he’d do where he’d find the slowest person on the other team and cover them in transition…that’s my least favorite move of his.

You mean like this and-1 over Luka where they also gave him a tech for it? (Video: https://www.nba.com/stats/events/?CFID= ... )&sct=plot)

Sure, that was still mostly a wide open dunk though and these are plays he often still just tries to lay it in. What I really want is for him to try and go through people. Remember how Josh Jackson used to try and dunk everything and almost always missed? Those guys needed to switch aggression levels. Ayton has the size and athleticism to finish all those dunks Jackson would try, Jackson didn’t. He needed Ayton’s finesse game.

[carey]

I think we've all made our arguments about Ayton and aren't going to convince each other at this point. It looks pretty likely that he'll be leaving, so maybe it is a moot point. I will be sad to see him go. I think I can see the argument that he is not worth the 5-year max. But I feel like the rhetoric here lately is acting like he is trash, a bum, not worth much at all. Maybe it's because we can see the writing on the wall that he is out of here soon, so we want to turn on him and focus on the negatives.

Can you find me even one post of anyone saying that?

[Split T]

lol you took Amare's worst year before getting his knee injuries (and one that was nearly half the rest of his healthy career) to compare to Ayton's best.

Amare had fewer dunks with Shaq there in 2008-09. Ayton had fewer dunks after Chris Paul got here.

And no, it wasn't half the rest of his healthy career. Here are Amare's last four years with Phoenix, compared to Ayton's last four years:

Amare's dunks per game:
06-07: 2.20
07-08: 2.67
08-09: 2.06
09-10: 2.28

Ayton's dunks per game:
18-19: 1.89
19-20: 2.18
20-21: 1.59
21-22: 1.64

Why is that such a big difference to everyone? It's ridiculous.

If you really can’t see the difference between what Amare was and what Ayton is, that explains a lot about why these discussions aren’t going anywhere. Indy mentioned it but look at the free throw rates. Amare tried to dunk everything and he often got fouled. I wish we could see how many times he got fouled attempting a dunk because those won’t show up in your numbers.

[Split T]

I think we've all made our arguments about Ayton and aren't going to convince each other at this point. It looks pretty likely that he'll be leaving, so maybe it is a moot point. I will be sad to see him go. I think I can see the argument that he is not worth the 5-year max. But I feel like the rhetoric here lately is acting like he is trash, a bum, not worth much at all. Maybe it's because we can see the writing on the wall that he is out of here soon, so we want to turn on him and focus on the negatives.

Can you find me even one post of anyone saying that?

Ya nobody says that…but I can understand it’s an easy mistake to make. When we are trying to say he’s not worth the max, we are going to focus on why not, so we mostly are talking bad about him. You see someone only bringing up the bad stuff and you think they must only think bad things and find nothing good about him.

[TOO]

I think we've all made our arguments about Ayton and aren't going to convince each other at this point. It looks pretty likely that he'll be leaving, so maybe it is a moot point. I will be sad to see him go. I think I can see the argument that he is not worth the 5-year max. But I feel like the rhetoric here lately is acting like he is trash, a bum, not worth much at all. Maybe it's because we can see the writing on the wall that he is out of here soon, so we want to turn on him and focus on the negatives.

Can you find me even one post of anyone saying that?

Ya nobody says that…but I can understand it’s an easy mistake to make. When we are trying to say he’s not worth the max, we are going to focus on why not, so we mostly are talking bad about him. You see someone only bringing up the bad stuff and you think they must only think bad things and find nothing good about him.

Pointing out obvious flaws while maintaining he's a good player doesnt really scream only think bad things about him imo. He's a good but flawed player, he also happens to play a fairly insignificant position in today's NBA.

[virtual9mm]

I'm with Mori here. Can we stop the uncivil war here? We're all Suns fans and this is just going to get worse.

[Mori Chu]

I think we've all made our arguments about Ayton and aren't going to convince each other at this point. It looks pretty likely that he'll be leaving, so maybe it is a moot point. I will be sad to see him go. I think I can see the argument that he is not worth the 5-year max. But I feel like the rhetoric here lately is acting like he is trash, a bum, not worth much at all. Maybe it's because we can see the writing on the wall that he is out of here soon, so we want to turn on him and focus on the negatives.

Can you find me even one post of anyone saying that?

Here are a few examples that IMO imply that Ayton is not a very valuable player, not worth much. All of these examples come from this same thread. Names stripped out because I want to focus on the words and not the messengers:

- Saying that Isaiah Thomas was better than Ayton:

IT was absolutely better than Ayton. He finished 5th in mvp, was All-NBA 2nd team and we dumped him for a late 1st. We’d have to trade Ayton for a 2nd for it to be comparable.

- Calling Ayton a "quarter" rather than a "dollar"

He’s a quarter that wants to be paid like he’s a dollar.

- Calling him "soft":

He can't hold his own...he's soft... [...]. Is our lineup sufficient without some changes or improvement to compete? I point to the Mavs round 2 series w/us...clearly...no.

- Saying that Ayton isn't the "kind of C" who wins chips or gets to the Finals (despite Ayton being the starting center on a 2021 NBA Finals team):

We also see what kind of Cs are winning chips and getting to the finals. He just isn’t valuable like that anymore.

- Saying that Ayton "doesn't take the real NBA seriously":

He can't even be bothered to get a good night's sleep at the expense of being a legend in NBA2K. He needs to learn to take the real NBA seriously before his salary demands are taken seriously.

- Saying he "doesn't have it upstairs":

He doesn't have it upstairs. Every deficit in his game can be traced back to his mental approach. That stuff doesn't change mid-career and surely not if he's on a max-contract because at that point, in his mind, he's already made it.

- Saying Ayton doesn't work on his game and hasn't gotten better:

We asked Ayton to focus on finishing and setting picks. So yeah, he had insane field goal percentages, which made it look like he was getting better, which he wasn't. And again, Ayton has blame in this too. He isn't exactly working on his game the way Book did in the awful Ryan years.

There are more such quotes, but I limited how far back I dug in the thread. I admit that I am grabbing some of the strongest anti-Ayton statements, but I do think the talk about him overall has skewed very negatively and doesn't seem to include much room for options where keeping him would be a good idea or helpful to the team.

[Aztec Sunsfan]

Jeremy, you are so entrenched on winning the argument, on twisting to your favor every chance others people gives on their redacting, that you lose sight of the big picture, the TEAM picture. If this was boxing, it would be entirely Ayton’s problem how he handles himself and his habits, but this is a team venture. You, me, everyone here knows that Barkley costs the Suns a championship because of his terrible habits, and then he started to suffer injuries because his lack of discipline. IT’S THE SAME THING HERE, only on a less grotesque way, but video games addiction is a real thing and to boot, Ayton lacks the drive players like Barkley had because stepping on a court IS A JOB for him, not a dream nor a privilege.

The front knows this all the better, the coaches and his teammates. They we’re trying to push him towards greatness and make him mature. Maybe he “gets it” later, but right now you are giving the max to a guy that thinks he already earned it so he can relax and enjoy his money for a couple years, he is not pushing it to the next level, just will continue to produce whatever he can without any risk of harm, injury or losing his Legend status.

But in order to achieve greatness, on anything, you have to act far beyond delivering a simple job. And today’s Ayton does not see his NBA career like that.

The joke around here is that you are his agent in disguise posting here, but most likely you are related to him from college or some other circle that really loves the guy and believes that him bust his ass on his “job” every day. Many people loves their slackers, because they’re not affecting your own job. But if you are so fathomed by the guy just by see him on TV, wow, I don’t know what to say, except stop trying to drag the rest of us to your level of insanity, it’s not going to happen. Stop pushing your narrative, it’s becoming tiresome that everything have to be turned into something Ayton related. You are really interesting to read when you pull off your Ayton glasses. Sorry for being so rude, I hope you can take it constructively.

Lol, this is an Ayton thread. If you don't want to hear about Ayton, why read this thread? In case you hadn't noticed, Ayton is the number one issue this offseason for the Suns, along with KD trade talks now.

The pushing of a "narrative" is from the Ayton haters. Once he's gone, you all will realize how important he was to the team. And you act like I'm the only one who realizes it now, when probably about 40% of the fandom outside this forum is on my side, thinking he deserves the max. In fact, 31% on Twitter said he deserved the full 5 year max:



I guess those thousand voters must all be related to him or his agent also.

Fine, then stop posting Ayton related spam on all the other threads, and flood it all over here.

And yeah let’s use Twitter as a sample of reasonable informed people, but still, where did you learn that 31% against 69% it’s a positive thing?

Is laughable the ways you find the edges to avoid the center of the argument, like Amare dunks per game, yeah that will show us all ignorants, that Ayton have Amare’s same level of aggression. Kept screaming about market salary before, but now avoiding it. The money is there, crazy extensions and lots of transactions went by without nobody stopping at his door.

It’s not black or white here, I’m sure he would be already signed at $20mill per year, good but not great player salary, but if this about maximum versus let him go, then you are on a small minority. And let him go, doesn’t mean for nothing, again, there is a lot of options in between.

Now, how the Front office is going to proceed, is a entirely different subject, but you are already ranting that Jones is going to let him walk away for nothing, with absolutely nothing to support your ASSUMPTION. Even if it comes to this, you won’t be right about it, you just were guessing in advance. For someone that claims to be over 20 years on his fandom you certainly act like a true born writer from the era of misinformation, half truths and alternate facts.

[Vladimir_Taltos]

Mori...he's 6:11" 250 lbs and he's 100th in FTA per game! 100th!
That's SOFT, that's someone that isn't establishing their presence in the paint! That's speaking facts! If you think that's being negative, I refer you to his stats again...go watch the Finals with Giannis, and watch. THAT is a max player, someone that imposed their will on the floor! He...can't...do... that! That isn't an a max player!

[iLLmatic]

Mori...he's 6:11" 250 lbs and he's 100th in FTA per game! 100th!
That's SOFT, that's someone that isn't establishing their presence in the paint! That's speaking facts! If you think that's being negative, I refer you to his stats again...go watch the Finals with Giannis, and watch. THAT is a max player, someone that imposed their will on the floor! He...can't...do... that! That isn't an a max player!

Vlad quit speaking so negatively about Ayton!! People's feelings are getting hurt.

[Split T]

I think we've all made our arguments about Ayton and aren't going to convince each other at this point. It looks pretty likely that he'll be leaving, so maybe it is a moot point. I will be sad to see him go. I think I can see the argument that he is not worth the 5-year max. But I feel like the rhetoric here lately is acting like he is trash, a bum, not worth much at all. Maybe it's because we can see the writing on the wall that he is out of here soon, so we want to turn on him and focus on the negatives.

Can you find me even one post of anyone saying that?

Here are a few examples that IMO imply that Ayton is not a very valuable player, not worth much. All of these examples come from this same thread. Names stripped out because I want to focus on the words and not the messengers:

- Saying that Isaiah Thomas was better than Ayton:

IT was absolutely better than Ayton. He finished 5th in mvp, was All-NBA 2nd team and we dumped him for a late 1st. We’d have to trade Ayton for a 2nd for it to be comparable.

- Calling Ayton a "quarter" rather than a "dollar"

He’s a quarter that wants to be paid like he’s a dollar.

Wait, you think me saying he isn’t as good as a guy who finished 5th in mvp voting means he’s trash and a bum?


And because I called him a quarter and not a dollar? I’m sorry I don’t think he’s a superstar(KD is a dollar) I wouldn’t even call Booker a dollar. That doesn’t mean I think he’s garbage.

This feels like you creating your own interpretation on what people are saying. I get it, we all do it, but I’m just letting you know your interpretation of my words is wrong.