Goran Dragic Trade Watch

[Mori Chu]

and is pj tucker really better than tj warren?

Right now, yes, by a wide margin. Eventually, maybe not.

[INFORMER]

Hopefully, the Front office learns about the risk of bring on board teams within the Team. This FOE thing is clearly a risk to produce this same scenario any given day.

I think people need to keep this in mind when they suggest trading Marcus and keeping Markieff. If anyone thinks that Kieff is just going to be a pro about it, then that person hasn't been paying attention.

[Superbone]

BOOM! Yep, the Zoran signing backfired.

[SDC]

and is pj tucker really better than tj warren?

Right now, yes, by a wide margin. Eventually, maybe not.

how sure are you?

[Mori Chu]

I'm pretty sure that Marcus Morris is better than the guy with, what, 5 career NBA points.

[Ring_Wanted]

Marcus Morris is textbook definition of average. Average position, average size, average game, average contract.

[Cap]

I'm pretty sure that Marcus Morris is better than the guy with, what, 5 career NBA points.

Yeah, but per 48 minutes it's...

[JCSunsfan]

and is pj tucker really better than tj warren?

Right now, yes, by a wide margin. Eventually, maybe not.

I am still really high on Warren, but in the opportunities he has had playing with the Suns, he hasn't looked good.

[LazarusLong]

Tucker and Warren are different players.
Tucker is a very short 4 masquerading as a 3. He hustles and gets his share of rebounds, and can hit the trey if given room. This year, at least, he's been getting burned by most of the better perimeter forwards in the league. Case in point, against Portland, Batum looked like Scottie Pippen against the Suns. And Batum had been in a slump. Tucker is a couple of steps slower this year.
My guess is that Warren will evolve into a taller version of Ced Ceballos, a quick, opportunistic scorer and rebounder. How he does defensively remains to be seen. His ceiling right now is very high, while Tucker is what he is.

[Indy]

Right. I only see PJ getting worse in his career, and I think he is already on the downward slide (which is way more steep than the upward climb TJ is on).

With Marcus, I see him as pretty much already maxed out on his abilities. He might get a little smarter on the court, but I doubt it. Other than that, he is what he is, and what he will ever be.

[cbesch5]

I think we will learn a bit more about Zoran as to whether or not he gets playing time in Miami. I can't seem to think of many other guards on their roster who I would consider to be much better than him potentially. Maybe he just flat out isn't NBA Ready and the Suns made a mistake signing him at all? Time will tell. If I remember correctly, I think he got a DNP in his first Miami game.

[SDC]

I think we will learn a bit more about Zoran as to whether or not he gets playing time in Miami. I can't seem to think of many other guards on their roster who I would consider to be much better than him potentially. Maybe he just flat out isn't NBA Ready and the Suns made a mistake signing him at all? Time will tell. If I remember correctly, I think he got a DNP in his first Miami game.

he should have gone to a team that wants him like indiana.

[ShelC]

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/ ... um=twitter

Thomas speaking out a bit. I still like him as a player and he was put in a tough position. His name kept coming up as one of the reasons Goran was unhappy and the Suns basically threw him under the bus by telling Goran they'd trade IT to appease him.

[The Bobster]

I don't really have a problem with Thomas. He basically came here and played the same way that he did in Sacramento. Anybody who expected something different is fooling themselves.

There weren't any public complaints or trade demands like there were with Plumlee and Dragic, and Thomas played hard.

Good luck in Boston Isaiah!

[SDC]

suns should have kept IT and fired mcdo. now they have to overpay for knight too.

[Indy]

I don't really have a problem with Thomas. He basically came here and played the same way that he did in Sacramento. Anybody who expected something different is fooling themselves.

There weren't any public complaints or trade demands like there were with Plumlee and Dragic, and Thomas played hard.

Good luck in Boston Isaiah!

Word.

[Mori Chu]

Yup. Not Isaiah's fault. Didn't like him as a Sun, but that's just who he is, and if we didn't want that, we should not have signed him. Hope he does well on the Celtics or wherever he ends up.

[pickle]

i'm a little late to the game here but want to comment still... i realize this trade and the thread are both cold. i guess during the season my suns homerism grows overboard and i tend to get a little depressed after every loss during a promising season, so throughout the year i've avoided the games or this board to keep my mental sanity. now that my fantasy team is more or less dead, i needed some extra dosage of basketball so i'm back.

on the trade, i'm disappointed too that we had to give up the laker pick, but i'm with the camp that isn't quite as upset. maybe it's because i've always had the "it's the suns we'll screw something up and until then i won't feel comfortable" syndrome but now that we did screw up and it wasn't royally, i feel rather good about the whole thing. here's my overall take...

• with IT, once we promised to move him to appease goran, there was no going back. we had to trade him no matter what, and getting a first rounder back isn't a bad haul for a free agent. essentially we bought a first rounder for whatever portion of his salary we paid out this year. it may be a late first rounder, but good talents have been taken with late first rounders... finley, parker, gobert...
• with the goran/zoran situation, i'm very disappointed in the way things blew up. for reasons described above, i didn't follow the suns the last two months or so, so i have no idea what was promised or what had developed over the last few weeks leading up to the deadline, but reading the board it seems nothing came out into the public and the trade demand was quite sudden. goran has been the face of the franchise and the reason for hope for 2 years running, and i wish him well wherever he goes. but like someone else said, glad we don't have to worry about paying him 20 mil.
• between brandon knight and MCW, i prefer brandon knight by far... i have mcw on a couple of fantasy teams, and while his turnover problems may have to do with being on a poor philly team that doesn't hold him accountable (if you thought bledsoe had turnover problems, my oh my), and that his shooting woes are due to a poor form which he's tweaking (25% from outside 5 feet or something ridiculous like that), why is his ft% in the mid 60s range?
• why didn't we get rid of goran, IT, and leave it at that, why did we swap the laker pick for brandon knight... first off, i'm a little disappointed in losing ennis in that trade *and* the high laker pick. i'm not sure it's fair to add plumlee to the evaluation tho. as i recall everyone on this board was extremely frustrated with plumlee's play, and let's face it, he wasn't fetching a first rounder in return in this league, maybe not even a second rounder. just because he was a first round pick two years ago doesn't mean he's worth as much as a future one. having said that, laker pick and ennis for brandon knight is still a bit much. but there are two things that may have contributed to this decision. first is the team's apparent push to still make the playoffs, for which our best chance is in this two-pg system. the other is the fact that we have way too many youngsters, and unless we are the sixers or celtics (i.e. full blown rebuild mode), it's not always useful to keep piling up draft picks over the next couple of years, as none of them will get enough burn for us to truly evaluate the talent.

all in all, we managed the following (not in that specific order):
1. turn IT into a late first rounder
2. turn goran into knight
3. turn the high laker pick and ennis into 2 picks, one of which unconditional, coming in 2017 and 2021.

again, i'm not thrilled with the results, but then i was expecting way worse, with the dire situation that goran had put us in by making demands 2 days ahead of the deadline.

given that we still have archie, TJ, and bogdanovic at the 2/3 positions that we need to develop, i am not averse to moving picks that are coming up in the next year or two for future ones. i'm quite happy that the 2021 pick is unconditional.

[pickle]

being in china, i'm in the minority as a suns fan, most people here are bandwagon fans of the lakers/bulls/heat or follow the rockets coz of yao ming (there's an almost sickening love for the beard here that i won't get into right now). since the start of the season, i've had to justify on more than one occasion why the suns felt compelled to sign IT, with bledsoe and goran both on the roster. i had my doubts too (i'm convinced IT was bledsoe insurance), but eventually i rationalized it as this: if all three players are professional about it and understood the rotations, this was actually a very smart move, as it constantly keeps two great ball handlers who could attack the basket on the court; gave the team insurance when any one of the three might go down due to injuries; and reduced overall wear and tear and extends each player's career by asking less of them. i would've thought that goran benefited most from this system in the grand scheme of things, as he alone has a daredevil attitude to basketball, constantly attacking the rim and getting put on his back by bigger players... that and playing for slovenia every 2 years in the summer. the three point guard system would've kept him playing well into his mid 30s. but the key is "if all three players are professionals about it." i guess goran didn't see it this way, he might (pure speculation here) have felt the lower production would've hurt his ability to earn max money on the open market, he might have felt that this was a lousy thanks for giving it his all last year, he might have felt that the suns spurned both him and his little brother... whatever it may be, i wish the team could've fostered a spurs/mavs type atmosphere where players sacrificed their individual stats for the team's success, rather than this.

oh well. the life of a suns fan... where my knick fanboy friends are constantly telling me how good goran would look in their blue and orange uniform and i can no longer laugh at them for jackson/fisher/the triangle...

[INFORMER]

if you thought bledsoe had turnover problems, my oh my

MCW isn't in his 5th season, and he isn't making $14 million a year.