Suns 2022 Off-Season Thread

[Furlanfufi]

I'm still waiting for something like "Marion told the team in the locker room he was doing everything with no help" 2007 to explain it all.

Wait...what did I miss 15 years ago???

After Amare and Diaw suspensions we were winning the next game before halftime with a superb game from Marion.
It was reported he came into the locker room saying he was carrying the load of the team. We obviously ended losing that game and series (and for me the best chance to win it all).

[Vladimir_Taltos]

You go to Ayton and say look, no one wants you for the max. You try and talk him into returning and giving it another go at like 4/120. If he’s adamant at not being here, you say, well behave for 2 months and play like you have the last two years and we’ll find a deal once you’re eligible to be traded. Promise him that if he cooperates we will find a place for him that he wants and is happy with.

I doubt that happens though as I’m sure someone will be willing to max him or at least sign and trade for him, especially at like a 4/120 deal.

If he's dead man walking, wtf would we not make a move now...including getting into the draft? Get a variety of talent and have the summer to retool...vs having time vs having do it on the fly?

[Indy]

I guess it depends on your team building philosophy. What gets you further in the playoffs? A top 5 center at 30-35M and a below average backup initiator (10-15M), or an average center (~15-20M) and an above average backup initiator (~25-30M)? They cost about the same.

You would rather have a backup guard (playing 20 mpg) for $25-30M than a top 5 center for $30-35M???

A top 5 center that isn't a top 45 player. For this team, yes. We need people that can dribble the ball and create shots for themselves and others. I would LOVE that to be Ayton. But alas.

[virtual9mm]

Such a strange world that we are living in. What a difference that Game 7 made. Sigh...

[The Bobster]

I am just curious as to why Ayton is being scapegoated for their playoff failure when all the starters went in the tank the end of the playoff series. We haven't gotten any real answers from the team as to what happened in that series.

But I don't see making a major trade as a step in the right direction, especially if they don't get equal value in return.

They are 119-39 the last two regular seasons (including the best record in franchise history) and 21-16 in the playoffs, and came within two wins of a championship. That's not the kind of team you make wholesale changes on.

[LazarusLong]

Thoroughly agree.
Paul was totally disengaged, whether hurt or not.
Booker was frustrated by double teams and looked like early Leandro Barbosa handling the ball.
Bridges was MIA offensively.
Cam Johnson's 38-point game seemed like decades ago.
And Monty, who has done great things for the Suns, looked totally clueless--like Terry Porter in his worst moments as a Suns' coach.

[Split T]

You go to Ayton and say look, no one wants you for the max. You try and talk him into returning and giving it another go at like 4/120. If he’s adamant at not being here, you say, well behave for 2 months and play like you have the last two years and we’ll find a deal once you’re eligible to be traded. Promise him that if he cooperates we will find a place for him that he wants and is happy with.

I doubt that happens though as I’m sure someone will be willing to max him or at least sign and trade for him, especially at like a 4/120 deal.

If he's dead man walking, wtf would we not make a move now...including getting into the draft? Get a variety of talent and have the summer to retool...vs having time vs having do it on the fly?

It was in a scenario where no team was willing to sign him to a max offer sheet. Can’t trade him if nobody wants him.

[Split T]

I am just curious as to why Ayton is being scapegoated for their playoff failure when all the starters went in the tank the end of the playoff series. We haven't gotten any real answers from the team as to what happened in that series.

But I don't see making a major trade as a step in the right direction, especially if they don't get equal value in return.

They are 119-39 the last two regular seasons (including the best record in franchise history) and 21-16 in the playoffs, and came within two wins of a championship. That's not the kind of team you make wholesale changes on.

My take:

CP3 was either hurt or completely burnt out. I don’t know what happened to him, but he was not himself. He deserves blame for it, but going forward I don’t expect that to happen again.

Because CP3 was unable to carry much offensive load, it all fell on Booker and Dallas knew it. They trapped and doubled him and made life hard on him. Booker is great, but he’s not LeBron or Luka where he can be the only creator.

That left us desperately needing someone else to step up and create something on offense. No one else could. Ayton didn’t, Mikal didn’t, crowder, cam, cam, Shamet, etc. It showed us just how dependent we are on CP3 and Book and that we absolutely need someone else. If Ayton wants the max, he absolutely needs to be that guy, but he’s not. So the most logical thing to do is trade him for that guy. At least it’s the most logical thing in my head.

[Superbone]

I am just curious as to why Ayton is being scapegoated for their playoff failure when all the starters went in the tank the end of the playoff series. We haven't gotten any real answers from the team as to what happened in that series.

But I don't see making a major trade as a step in the right direction, especially if they don't get equal value in return.

They are 119-39 the last two regular seasons (including the best record in franchise history) and 21-16 in the playoffs, and came within two wins of a championship. That's not the kind of team you make wholesale changes on.

My take:

CP3 was either hurt or completely burnt out. I don’t know what happened to him, but he was not himself. He deserves blame for it, but going forward I don’t expect that to happen again.

Because CP3 was unable to carry much offensive load, it all fell on Booker and Dallas knew it. They trapped and doubled him and made life hard on him. Booker is great, but he’s not LeBron or Luka where he can be the only creator.

That left us desperately needing someone else to step up and create something on offense. No one else could. Ayton didn’t, Mikal didn’t, crowder, cam, cam, Shamet, etc. It showed us just how dependent we are on CP3 and Book and that we absolutely need someone else. If Ayton wants the max, he absolutely needs to be that guy, but he’s not. So the most logical thing to do is trade him for that guy. At least it’s the most logical thing in my head.

Yeah, I don't see anybody scapegoating Ayton alone. The whole team shut down from top to bottom including coaching as has been said. Nobody is denying that. Ayton was just particularly frustrating as a guy who's demanding a max salary when he was totally ineffective against the smallish Mavs.

[Indy]

I am just curious as to why Ayton is being scapegoated for their playoff failure when all the starters went in the tank the end of the playoff series. We haven't gotten any real answers from the team as to what happened in that series.

But I don't see making a major trade as a step in the right direction, especially if they don't get equal value in return.

They are 119-39 the last two regular seasons (including the best record in franchise history) and 21-16 in the playoffs, and came within two wins of a championship. That's not the kind of team you make wholesale changes on.

My take:

CP3 was either hurt or completely burnt out. I don’t know what happened to him, but he was not himself. He deserves blame for it, but going forward I don’t expect that to happen again.

Because CP3 was unable to carry much offensive load, it all fell on Booker and Dallas knew it. They trapped and doubled him and made life hard on him. Booker is great, but he’s not LeBron or Luka where he can be the only creator.

That left us desperately needing someone else to step up and create something on offense. No one else could. Ayton didn’t, Mikal didn’t, crowder, cam, cam, Shamet, etc. It showed us just how dependent we are on CP3 and Book and that we absolutely need someone else. If Ayton wants the max, he absolutely needs to be that guy, but he’s not. So the most logical thing to do is trade him for that guy. At least it’s the most logical thing in my head.

This. I am not blaming Ayton for our loss in the 2nd round. It was a full team failure.

I don't even want to trade him if he wants to be here. I would even give him that 120M/4 year or even 150/5 if we have a team option on year 5.

I just think there are only 2 centers playing that are worth 30% of your cap and Ayton is not one of them. To do that you have to be extremely efficient in your scoring (he does that) and create offense for yourself (nope) AND others (nope) and be a net neutral on defense (he is better than this).

And if he is adamant that he won't want to be anywhere if he isn't the primary shot taker (he hasn't said this tbf), him being here will only hurt us.

[AmareIsGod]

I am just curious as to why Ayton is being scapegoated for their playoff failure when all the starters went in the tank the end of the playoff series. We haven't gotten any real answers from the team as to what happened in that series.

But I don't see making a major trade as a step in the right direction, especially if they don't get equal value in return.

They are 119-39 the last two regular seasons (including the best record in franchise history) and 21-16 in the playoffs, and came within two wins of a championship. That's not the kind of team you make wholesale changes on.

My take:

CP3 was either hurt or completely burnt out. I don’t know what happened to him, but he was not himself. He deserves blame for it, but going forward I don’t expect that to happen again.

Because CP3 was unable to carry much offensive load, it all fell on Booker and Dallas knew it. They trapped and doubled him and made life hard on him. Booker is great, but he’s not LeBron or Luka where he can be the only creator.

That left us desperately needing someone else to step up and create something on offense. No one else could. Ayton didn’t, Mikal didn’t, crowder, cam, cam, Shamet, etc. It showed us just how dependent we are on CP3 and Book and that we absolutely need someone else. If Ayton wants the max, he absolutely needs to be that guy, but he’s not. So the most logical thing to do is trade him for that guy. At least it’s the most logical thing in my head.

And if he is adamant that he won't want to be anywhere if he isn't the primary shot taker (he hasn't said this tbf), him being her will only hurt us.

If that's truly the case, I hear the Mercury really need a center. People hardly ever dunk in the WNBA so Deandra would fit right in. Might even be an all-star.

[Indy]

fixed

[AmareIsGod]

fixed

You're no fun!

[Mori Chu]

The thing I have been worrying about lately is, if you just let Ayton go shopping for contracts from other teams with the intent to match, you are playing with fire. For one thing, you force Ayton to go and sign with another team, which causes him to presumably commit to playing there and want to be there. Now if he stays in Phoenix, he's had that look at another team and doesn't want to be forced to stay here against his will. Secondly, the other team can put all sorts of awful poison pills into the deal that make it unpalatable for us. They can make the first year's salary higher to hurt our cap. They can add trade kickers so that we will get penalized for trying to sign him and deal him later. And so on. Basically Ayton and that other team can stick enough bad juju into that deal situation that we will be disincentivized from matching it, especially with cheapass trash Sarver running the team. It really isn't as simple as "just match whatever deal he signs."

I would much rather see us talk to him and negotiate a deal with him, say a 4-year max or whatever, if it's at all possible to do so. That's still better than he can get from other teams, and we can tell him if it doesn't work out for whatever reason, we'll help him find a better situation that we can trade him to. Everybody wins.

[Indy]

The thing I have been worrying about lately is, if you just let Ayton go shopping for contracts from other teams with the intent to match, you are playing with fire. For one thing, you force Ayton to go and sign with another team, which causes him to presumably commit to playing there and want to be there. Now if he stays in Phoenix, he's had that look at another team and doesn't want to be forced to stay here against his will. Secondly, the other team can put all sorts of awful poison pills into the deal that make it unpalatable for us. They can make the first year's salary higher to hurt our cap. They can add trade kickers so that we will get penalized for trying to sign him and deal him later. And so on. Basically Ayton and that other team can stick enough bad juju into that deal situation that we will be disincentivized from matching it, especially with cheapass trash Sarver running the team. It really isn't as simple as "just match whatever deal he signs."

I would much rather see us talk to him and negotiate a deal with him, say a 4-year max or whatever, if it's at all possible to do so. That's still better than he can get from other teams, and we can tell him if it doesn't work out for whatever reason, we'll help him find a better situation that we can trade him to. Everybody wins.

David Nash/IVPointPlay has said on twitter that you can't really do that in this situation. If it wasn't a max contract there are ways to do that, but by definition a max contract has a set number that it can be the first year based on the cap, and other teams can only offer a set % raise each year (lower than the 8% the Suns can offer). I didn't look into enough to verify, but he is one the leading people out there on the Suns and their contracts/cap.

[Split T]

Ya hard to poison pill a max deal. Max deal is based on the max first year salary. Ayton can’t make more than 30.5 million in the first year. They could front load the deal, but all that does is make the later years cheaper and his overall money below the max.

They could put a trade kicker in, but if he’s already making the max, the trade kicker can’t push him above the max. Of course that could come into play if the cap jumps a bunch like is rumored with the new tv deal.

I really don’t think Ayton signing an offer sheet is a realistic possibility. No one will do that unless it’s late in free agency and they are the only team left with cap space. The risk of tying up your cap space for a week is too much. Especially since there’s very little chance the suns wouldn’t match.

[Superbone]

fixed

You're no fun!

What did he fix? Why not just delete it?

[Indy]

Ya hard to poison pill a max deal. Max deal is based on the max first year salary. Ayton can’t make more than 30.5 million in the first year. They could front load the deal, but all that does is make the later years cheaper and his overall money below the max.

They could put a trade kicker in, but if he’s already making the max, the trade kicker can’t push him above the max. Of course that could come into play if the cap jumps a bunch like is rumored with the new tv deal.

I really don’t think Ayton signing an offer sheet is a realistic possibility. No one will do that unless it’s late in free agency and they are the only team left with cap space. The risk of tying up your cap space for a week is too much. Especially since there’s very little chance the suns wouldn’t match.

Exactly. No matter what contract he gets, the Suns matching it will be a LOT less than the Suns could offer him. They not only don't have to give him the 5th year, they can avoid that 8% increase every year and only give 6% (?). I thought it comes out to about +50M different over the course of the contract. Something like 180M vs 133M (albeit 1 less year).

[Indy]

fixed

You're no fun!

What did he fix? Why not just delete it?

I typed "her" instead of "here" in the post quoted above.

[Superbone]

fixed

You're no fun!

What did he fix? Why not just delete it?

I typed "her" instead of "here" in the post quoted above.

There is no "her" or "here" in "fixed".