The 2021 Suns Offseason

Discussion of the league and of our favorite team.
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Nodack
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

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Superbone
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

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I’d prefer if the Suns could do it without giving up the 1st rounder of course.
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ShelC
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

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Hopefully something gets done without the 1st. Also hoping another team doesn't jump in with a 1st and get him.

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Vladimir_Taltos
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

Post by Vladimir_Taltos »

Too much...I'd do that for Jermai Grant, but not for Thad...

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Split T
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

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A 1st does seem like a lot for Thad on an expiring contract. Especially giving up Jalen too. Smith/Saric/future 2nd should be enough.

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Mori Chu
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

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Thad Young shot 26.7% from 3 last year, hmm. Most of his other numbers are pretty solid, though.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/pl ... gth01.html

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In2ition
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

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In his defense, he did shoot 35.6% on 5x the number of attempts per game the yr before.
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Split T
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

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Ya he basically removed the 3 pt shot from his game, so I’m not concerned with that number.

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pickle
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

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Am I the only one that wants to see Smith play some real minutes for this team before putting him in a package for an expiring veteran?

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Superbone
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

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pickle wrote:
Wed Sep 15, 2021 5:45 pm
Am I the only one that wants to see Smith play some real minutes for this team before putting him in a package for an expiring veteran?
Yes? ;)

I saw enough in summer league.
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Nodack
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

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Yeah, I kind of felt like we never really gave him a chance. Then again the Suns coaches saw him every day and probably have a better handle on his capabilities than I do and would have played him more if they thought he was ready. I think the lottery is called the lottery for two reasons. There is a lottery to see who picks where and every pick is like playing the lottery. You never really know what you have on pick night. Sometimes you have to wait years for a pick to pan out or burn out.

With Jalen I just don’t know. He has shown a nice shooting stroke, rebounds and likes to dunk instead of finesse. I would like to see him in the lineup this year but, if we can get a solid PF in his place it might be just enough to push us over the top. Then again throwing in an injured backup and a maybe future starter in Jalen and another possible first round pick just for an ok BU PF seems kind of steep and sacrifices our future.
Last edited by Nodack on Wed Sep 15, 2021 6:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Superbone
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

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We don't have the time to wait around for him. Our time is now.
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Split T
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

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pickle wrote:
Wed Sep 15, 2021 5:45 pm
Am I the only one that wants to see Smith play some real minutes for this team before putting him in a package for an expiring veteran?
I think we have a 1-2 year championship window. Thad obviously doesn’t open the window for a longer period of time, but he opens it wider right now. Would there be a better bench than Payne/Shamet/Johnson/Young/McGee? I don’t think so.

I’m all in on these next two years and I just don’t see Jalen being able to contribute much in those 2 years. I’m not out on him as a player, there’s a scenario(pretty likely tbh) where we don’t win this year and look back next season and Jalen is playing well for another team while Thad left in FA. That would kinda suck, but we have to go for it.

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ShelC
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

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I get the fear in moving Stix for a rental, especially when we mortgaged the future for vets during the Nash era. But we know this is different because we have a young core that can hopefully sustain when the "window" has closed and that core should allow us to reload with some draft picks while remaining competitive.

My biggest issue with Stix is that he's a big who plays like a big and we're asking him to play on the perimeter. We need a perimeter player who can play big instead. There's no sense keeping him just to keep him because we drafted him. If he doesn't fit a role on the roster, get value for him. We're basically asking our 4s to run to a corner and wait to shoot. Maybe that's due to personnel, but Stix isn't a triple threat on the wing and didn't look especially comfortable in that role during SL.

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Mori Chu
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

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I don't know what to make of Stix. My sense is he's probably a bust. If he were going to make it, he would have shown us more by now. So maybe the right thing to do is cut ties and include him in a trade to get a better piece like Thad Young. But I'm not hugely enamored by Young, so I'm not sure we're getting great value there. And I feel guilty trading Saric right after he suffered a big injury playing for us and played so well. It's probably the right thing to do to give us the best chance to win a title, but, it doesn't totally sit right with me.

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Indy
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

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ShelC wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 4:28 am
I get the fear in moving Stix for a rental, especially when we mortgaged the future for vets during the Nash era. But we know this is different because we have a young core that can hopefully sustain when the "window" has closed and that core should allow us to reload with some draft picks while remaining competitive.

My biggest issue with Stix is that he's a big who plays like a big and we're asking him to play on the perimeter. We need a perimeter player who can play big instead. There's no sense keeping him just to keep him because we drafted him. If he doesn't fit a role on the roster, get value for him. We're basically asking our 4s to run to a corner and wait to shoot. Maybe that's due to personnel, but Stix isn't a triple threat on the wing and didn't look especially comfortable in that role during SL.
Current Suns Team (top 7 in minutes played)
Bridges--24 season age
Booker--24
Paul--35
Ayton--22
Crowder--30
Johnson--24
Payne--26
Average age: 26.4


Start of the 7SOL team after year 1
Joe--23
Shawn--26
Amare--22
Q--24
Nash--30
Barbosa--22
Hunter--23
Average age: 24.3

This team is older than the 7SOL team, and look at how many people were still on the team 4 years later... I don't think we can assume that the young guys we do have will still be here in 2 years.

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ShelC
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

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Kind of apples and oranges. Paul skews the ages and isn't really part of the "young core" I was talking about. And you're including Steven Hunter in the 2nd group who was never a "core" guy. We can probably assume DA and Mikal are getting extensions and won't be traded for 30+ yr old vets.

After 2004-05 we lost JJ and replaced him with a 29-30 yr old Raja and then traded Q for a 33-34 yr old KT. That aged us up very quickly. I don't see trading Stix as that drastic of a move in terms of mortgaging the future.

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Indy
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

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ShelC wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:43 am
Kind of apples and oranges. Paul skews the ages and isn't really part of the "young core" I was talking about. And you're including Steven Hunter in the 2nd group who was never a "core" guy. We can probably assume DA and Mikal are getting extensions and won't be traded for 30+ yr old vets.

After 2004-05 we lost JJ and replaced him with a 29-30 yr old Raja and then traded Q for a 33-34 yr old KT. That aged us up very quickly. I don't see trading Stix as that drastic of a move in terms of mortgaging the future.
I agree that trading stix for a 1-year rental isn't really mortgaging the future. I am just saying that things change really, really fast. At the end of 2004-05, nobody was expecting 3 of our starters to be gone the next season, but they were (Amare due to injury). We have been REALLY lucky with injuries, playoffs not withstanding. That worries me.

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In2ition
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

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Although Stix has some flaws and things that he clearly needs to improve, I'm a little worried about loosing him in the long term. He did show some intriguing skills that I would think would mesh nicely with Ayton & McGee from the PF position. Giving him up prior to the season, and there is a chance that he could be very valuable further into this season and beyond, just makes me nervous.
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pickle
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Re: The 2021 Suns Offseason

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I am not sure we have a ton of minutes at the 4 for anybody that comes in anyway, given that we are still committed to Crowder and Cam Johnson needs minutes. So I would hope for our incoming help to be someone a little bigger than both of those guys, someone who can fit into our offensive system while being fairly credible on the boards on the defensive end. I’ve always loved Thad but he’s 6’8 230 and probably not going to stop Giannis or AD. I kind of want to see Stix in that role, he showed a knack for the ball off the backboard and showed some moderate success shooting the 3. I’d like to see him get 15-18 mpg when we hopefully blow out teams early in the game early in the season.

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