2026 Offseason

[Split T]

He did this year

[Mori Chu]

Zion this year played in 62 games and put up 21 ppg on .600/.250/.716 splits, 5.7 reb, and 3.2 ast in 29.7 minutes per game. Good scoring numbers, but he is not much of a rebounder or defender, and he can't really hit 3s. If he didn't have the huge health issues he'd be potentially interesting, but I think at this point his body has betrayed him way too many times to give up real assets for him. I bet he will have a resurgence at some point where he contributes impressively for a contender after signing for a low-cost contract. But I wouldn't want to have him on big money.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/pl ... izi01.html

[O_Gardino]

Not superstar stats.

[Split T]

But much better than Jalen green stats

[O_Gardino]

A little better than Jalen Green.

It's all academic. NO doesn't want to trade Zion, and we don't want Zion.

[Ring_Wanted]

But much better than Jalen green stats

And at a position of need for us, while also removing a big redundancy.

[Split T]

.644 TS% for Zion
.521 TS% for Jalen

That’s the huge issue. Zion is a hyper efficient scorer who also doesn’t do much else(though he’s a better passer than Jalen). Jalen is a wildly inefficient scorer.

Imagine the good version of Jalen Green was the normal…that’s Zion levels of efficiency.

[Mori Chu]

Right on cue (do they skim this site? Hi, Kellan! Like your stuff!):

[Kryptonic]

Right on cue (do they skim this site? Hi, Kellan! Like your stuff!):

KTAR has been talking about it for a while TBH.

[Flagrant Fowl]

Zion is a much better player and fit for the Suns compared to Green. It's really not even close.

Pure speculation, but I think being in New Orleans has significantly stunted his development. Some due to his own lack of self-discipline, but also just the general apathy in which the ownership leads the organization. There's potential for a tremendous buy low opportunity.

[Kryptonic]

Zion is a much better player and fit for the Suns compared to Green. It's really not even close.

Pure speculation, but I think being in New Orleans has significantly stunted his development. Some due to his own lack of self-discipline, but also just the general apathy in which the ownership leads the organization. There's potential for a tremendous buy low opportunity.

A lot of people like to compare him to Chuck and think he could be our next Round Mound of Rebound. I'd take that trade in a heartbeat just for fit alone.

[Furlanfufi]

He would fit the bench a lot with our injured players.

[Mori Chu]

If we still had a first rate training and medical staff instead of WebMD and ChatGPT, I would have more faith that we could rehabilitate Zion.

[JJ Slim]

If we still had a first rate training and medical staff instead of WebMD and ChatGPT, I would have more faith that we could rehabilitate Zion.

Yeah, it seemed like Proski and company could take any old player and revive him from the grave to be a new player.

[ShelC]

Nice recap on Oso. I love his game and what he brings to the team. Hope he's here for a long time but we also shouldn't overestimate him or rely on him as a starter because that's putting him at a disadvantage. He could be the perfect backup C with some spot starts here and there. I still don't think he'll ever develop a reliable jumper but I would like to see him maintain an aggressive mindset driving the ball. He had a nice stretch where he was doing that and then stopped looking at the basket later in the year.

[O_Gardino]

Zion is a much better player and fit for the Suns compared to Green. It's really not even close.

Pure speculation, but I think being in New Orleans has significantly stunted his development. Some due to his own lack of self-discipline, but also just the general apathy in which the ownership leads the organization. There's potential for a tremendous buy low opportunity.

A lot of people like to compare him to Chuck and think he could be our next Round Mound of Rebound. I'd take that trade in a heartbeat just for fit alone.

You guys are crazy. Zion is fat like Charles, but he doesn't rebound - he averages 6 per game. He also doesn't defend. On offence, he needs the ball in his hands to be effective, but he can't shoot past 10 feet. He's just a dunker. He doesn't fit our identity of gritty defense or smart offence.

Plus, Zion rarely plays. He averages 39 games per season. He has more seasons with 30 or fewer games played than seasons with more the 30 games played.

[virtual9mm]

Nice recap on Oso. I love his game and what he brings to the team. Hope he's here for a long time but we also shouldn't overestimate him or rely on him as a starter because that's putting him at a disadvantage. He could be the perfect backup C with some spot starts here and there. I still don't think he'll ever develop a reliable jumper but I would like to see him maintain an aggressive mindset driving the ball. He had a nice stretch where he was doing that and then stopped looking at the basket later in the year.

Maybe I am in the minority but I have to think a kid that smart and motivated will fix his jumper to some extent. If he ever shoots 35% from the 3, he is an all-star PF.

[Mori Chu]

As Kevin Garnett once shouted, anything is possible. But I really doubt we will ever see Oso learn to fluidly shoot jump shots at a high percentage. He would have to totally reconstruct his shooting form from the ground up. Such a thing has happened before, but it would take months, years of concentrated work. Very few players can and do undergo such a monumental effort to change a part of their game. If Oso wants to do that, he should have been in the gym starting yesterday.

I do think that even without becoming a jump-shooter, Oso is still a very talented and useful player, as Shel describes. He's a great passer, good screener, decent rebounder, and pretty efficient with layups, put-backs, and his ugly little one-hand leaning floater shot. The scoring versatility isn't there, and he can't really shoot at all outside of that floater. But he does so much else well that he's worth having around. I think the key to Oso is that he's a situational asset, he gets you a much better result if you play him the right amount of time with the right teammates against the right opponents. I agree with Shel that he's best as a super sub bench C most of the time. He has great chemistry with Gillespie, so bring those two in together off the bench and let them run their two-man game. Don't start Oso against Wemby or Jokic or the other titans of the league. Don't play him 36 minutes and expect the same per-minute result as playing him 15-20 minutes off the bench.

[specialsauce]

Oso is a third center until he figures out his J.

You just simply can't have a center out there that doesn't rebound , bruise OR shoot. It absolutely kills us defensively and on the boards without giving us an advantage on the perimeter.

[O_Gardino]

I don't expect Oso to ever be a good jumpshooter. But I do think he could work on his free throw shooting and try to improve there. If he could get his ft% up to 65%, that would be a huge improvement.