TRADE: Ayton/Camara for Nurkic/Allen/Little/Johnson

[ShelC]

For one, I wonder why Bartelstein was the go-to guy in the front office and not Jones or a BOps guy. I know Bartelstein is connected to Mark Bartelstein and has a strong basketball background, maybe he's taken on additional basketball responsibilities? Might be something to keep an eye on?

A few other questions:

Who knows what Vogel knew or was told at the time or whether he was consulted about it; but we now know the Suns and Blazers were talking trade prior to the Dame's request which happened in early July. Was Vogel just going along with things?

It wasn't just the Suns taking a call on DA and declining. But it doesn't look like the Blazers had the salaries to send back for DA and needed a 3rd team with a mid-tier contract to make things work. Had there not been the Dame situation, would we have pursued the trade regardless and worked a 3rd team in just to get it done or let it go and gone into the season with DA? Were we confident in a deal with the Blazers and held off on other trade talks or did we have fall back plans?

[carey]

Interesting that Allen put this over the top for the team. We've definitely seen a concerted effort to address our lack of 3-point shooting this Summer. Adding Allen is kind of big. We're not sure Yuta's numbers in the corner are legit since it was only one year. But EG can fill it up. KBD can hit at a near 40% clip. ANd Damion Lee is back. So that's 5 legit threats from the perimeter outside of the big 3. I quite like it & if it translates how I think it will you're going to see a lot of Ws this year. My only concern and it's one shared by many of you is the ball handling. Will Beal be enough of a relief valve for when Booker is trapped? I also think we need to be more inventive than we were last year with KD. I don't want to see KD standing in the corner every possession like it felt last year under Monty. He's too skilled and has too much gravity.

I saw a stat somewhere that showed we almost ran zero KD/Book pick and rolls last year. We need more of our 2 best players involved in the action.

Definitely. They're both above average ball handlers. Why not make defenders pick their poison there.

[TOO]

I think it’s clear we had discussions about Nurkic for Ayton….nothing happened and it appeared nothing would happen, so we pivoted to trying to rescue the Ayton relationship(Vogel stuff) and then revisited the trade when the Lillard stuff got real.

It reads to me like they never wanted to lose Ayton for nothing, matched a deal they didn't want to pay and then unloaded him for a starter and depth.

[Kryptonic]

I think it’s clear we had discussions about Nurkic for Ayton….nothing happened and it appeared nothing would happen, so we pivoted to trying to rescue the Ayton relationship(Vogel stuff) and then revisited the trade when the Lillard stuff got real.

It reads to me like they never wanted to lose Ayton for nothing, matched a deal they didn't want to pay and then unloaded him for a starter and depth.

So ayton played like he did more than likely knowing he was being shopped… this makes sitting out game 6 even more a dick move by him. That was more than likely the nail in the coffin I’m betting.

[Superbone]

I bet Ayton will have a good year in Portland. He'll be motivated to prove himself, and he'll be on a worse team that can and should feature him more. That's okay. I don't want to panic if he has a good season for the Blazers.

I don't love Nurkic but I've accepted the fact that this trade was about moving a max-contract mediocre (for us) center for a half-as-expensive mediocre center and a few other pieces. Maybe that's a good asset swap in the long run.

I totally expect Ayton to be motivated to have a better season than the last two and that's a huge reason he was a problem while here. Lack of self-motivation. He might even up his aggression. For a bit.

[Superbone]

Interesting that Allen put this over the top for the team. We've definitely seen a concerted effort to address our lack of 3-point shooting this Summer. Adding Allen is kind of big. We're not sure Yuta's numbers in the corner are legit since it was only one year. But EG can fill it up. KBD can hit at a near 40% clip. ANd Damion Lee is back. So that's 5 legit threats from the perimeter outside of the big 3. I quite like it & if it translates how I think it will you're going to see a lot of Ws this year. My only concern and it's one shared by many of you is the ball handling. Will Beal be enough of a relief valve for when Booker is trapped? I also think we need to be more inventive than we were last year with KD. I don't want to see KD standing in the corner every possession like it felt last year under Monty. He's too skilled and has too much gravity.

We can't have one-on-one play. The ball needs to move. If it does, watch out! There's no way the opponents can plug all the holes in the dam that's ready to burst on them.

[ShelC]

I just think he is what he is. I don't think a change of scenery or coaching will improve his focus, his motor, his feel for the game, or his maturity/approach to the game. He's just going to be happier, have less pressure and get more touches. He had everything going for him under Monty, being in a gym with CP and Book on a Finals run. That lasted about a season before he tuned them out and reverted back to his ways. I don't think the Suns giving into his contract demands and giving him $185mil would've changed anything. Unless Billups turns out to be a really great coach who somehow connects with DA and brings out the beast in him, you'll just see a jump in ppg and people will use it as ammo that he was being wasted in Phoenix.

[Split T]

I think year 2 Ayton(with some improvements) is what we’ll see in Portland…probably 19/11/2…shooting % will drop from the last few years.

[Mori Chu]

Reading that Woj article, two things jump out at me. One, they always mention Ishbia and now Bartelstein in these trade articles, not much about Jones. Seems like Ishbia has himself and his guys involved pretty heavily in personnel decisions; I wonder if Jones is being marginalized or will be on the way out soon. Two, the article makes us sound like such chumps. We have to just sit around for months while Portland works on trades, and then they won't even tell us the last player we're getting in the deal, assuring us it's somebody we'll like? And then, at the last moment, we get a peek-a-boo surprise player added to the deal, and we immediately accept? It just sounds like we are getting played by other teams in these negotiations.

[ShelC]

I didn't get that sense about us being chumps. I think news travels around the NBA circles so Portland probably knew we liked Allen and he'd be the connection piece to the deal. It's also touchy dealing with trades, especially with a star, and not having things get leaked so Portland was rightfully being careful. We just as easily could've backed out of the deal if they tried screwing us. Or they would've made the deal separately without us.

[JeremyG]

I think it’s clear we had discussions about Nurkic for Ayton….nothing happened and it appeared nothing would happen, so we pivoted to trying to rescue the Ayton relationship(Vogel stuff) and then revisited the trade when the Lillard stuff got real.

It reads to me like they never wanted to lose Ayton for nothing, matched a deal they didn't want to pay and then unloaded him for a starter and depth.

So ayton played like he did more than likely knowing he was being shopped… this makes sitting out game 6 even more a dick move by him. That was more than likely the nail in the coffin I’m betting.

What happened to addition by subtraction? We should have stomped the Nuggets in Game 6 instead of getting blown out by 30! A lot of Suns fans were happy Ayton wasn't going to play! Lol. Y'all can't have it both ways.

[Split T]

I think it was spin…there’s no way we didn’t know what we were getting.

[Superbone]

I think it’s clear we had discussions about Nurkic for Ayton….nothing happened and it appeared nothing would happen, so we pivoted to trying to rescue the Ayton relationship(Vogel stuff) and then revisited the trade when the Lillard stuff got real.

It reads to me like they never wanted to lose Ayton for nothing, matched a deal they didn't want to pay and then unloaded him for a starter and depth.

So ayton played like he did more than likely knowing he was being shopped… this makes sitting out game 6 even more a dick move by him. That was more than likely the nail in the coffin I’m betting.

What happened to addition by subtraction? We should have stomped the Nuggets in Game 6 instead of getting blown out by 30! A lot of Suns fans were happy Ayton was going to play! Lol. Y'all can't have it both ways.

Dude. 99% of Suns fans wanted him to play. He didn't. Just another reason to be down on him.

[Superbone]

Nurk looking svelte:

[JeremyG]

From the Woj article on what went down:

Big trades are like puzzles -- a jumbled slab of salary matches, collective bargaining rules, positions and ages and gamesmanship. What Cronin had going for him had been the outline of a secondary deal with the Suns for center Deandre Ayton; a side negotiation that Cronin kept connecting to his larger talks on Lillard. Before Lillard ever asked out, Portland had discussed ways to acquire Ayton, and so, the Suns made a natural trade partner as a third team.

Ayton for Jusuf Nurkic -- it was a way for the Blazers to get a 25 year-old starting center, and the Suns a starter at half the salary who'd bring with him some role players.

To this end, the Suns could never know the third team in the trade. Cronin kept Suns CEO Josh Bartelstein on the line for months and weeks and days, and finally, hours on Tuesday and Wednesday. Bartelstein, general manager James Jones and owner Mat Ishbia could go days without hearing from Portland, but Cronin would always circle back and keep them abreast.

When Cronin and Horst went to sleep on Tuesday night, they were confident that they had a trade to complete on Wednesday. The Blazers and Bucks just needed to close out terms with the Suns, and they had a deal.

Here's what made that delicate, though: If the deal fell apart, Horst didn't want another team to know how far along these Blazers-Bucks talks had gotten. The Suns knew they were getting Portland's Nurkic, Nassir Little and Keon Johnson in a three-team trade, but the Suns had to get one more asset to make this deal workable. In almost all cases, Cronin would've told Bartelstein that he was getting Milwaukee guard Grayson Allen, but Horst's insistences on secrecy made this different.

Cronin did tell Bartelstein the general salary and position of the mystery player, so the Suns were able to deduce down to two players who that might be -- Allen and Oklahoma City's Victor Oladipo, who is recovering from a serious leg injury. The Thunder are sometimes on the periphery of these big deals, so the Suns thought that was a possibility. Of course, the Thunder were nowhere near this trade.

Cronin kept telling Bartelstein: Just trust me. You're going to like the mystery player. Trust me.

Around 2:15 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Cronin confirmed Bartelstein's suspicions and told him that, yes, they were getting Allen in the trade. After the Suns confirmed it was Allen, Bartelstein, Jones and Ishbia briefly huddled and returned a resounding yes to Cronin. Done, Bartelstein told him. And that was that. The three teams agreed on the trade, and immediately started calling the players and agents involved to inform them of the blockbuster

Sounds like Ayton for Nurkic has been in play for awhile

Ewww. Gross. This makes it sound like the Suns just turned themselves into submissive litte hostages.

But what's really disgusting is that Josh Bartelstein was supposedly brought in by Ishbia to be in charge of business operations, not basketball. Why keep James Jones as the President of Basketball Operations, if you're just going to take away all of his authority and hand things over to Josh? That is completely disrespectful to James and sure explains a whole lot of what's been going on.

[Kryptonic]

Nurk looking svelte:

Looks like he’s ready to dominayt

[JeremyG]

Reading that Woj article, two things jump out at me. One, they always mention Ishbia and now Bartelstein in these trade articles, not much about Jones. Seems like Ishbia has himself and his guys involved pretty heavily in personnel decisions; I wonder if Jones is being marginalized or will be on the way out soon. Two, the article makes us sound like such chumps. We have to just sit around for months while Portland works on trades, and then they won't even tell us the last player we're getting in the deal, assuring us it's somebody we'll like? And then, at the last moment, we get a peek-a-boo surprise player added to the deal, and we immediately accept? It just sounds like we are getting played by other teams in these negotiations.

This. It's utterly gross. And it's like we didn't even have the option of negotiating with Milwaukee directly on our own, Portland had to do it on our behalf? Where is the barf emoji?

[TOO]

From the Woj article on what went down:

Big trades are like puzzles -- a jumbled slab of salary matches, collective bargaining rules, positions and ages and gamesmanship. What Cronin had going for him had been the outline of a secondary deal with the Suns for center Deandre Ayton; a side negotiation that Cronin kept connecting to his larger talks on Lillard. Before Lillard ever asked out, Portland had discussed ways to acquire Ayton, and so, the Suns made a natural trade partner as a third team.

Ayton for Jusuf Nurkic -- it was a way for the Blazers to get a 25 year-old starting center, and the Suns a starter at half the salary who'd bring with him some role players.

To this end, the Suns could never know the third team in the trade. Cronin kept Suns CEO Josh Bartelstein on the line for months and weeks and days, and finally, hours on Tuesday and Wednesday. Bartelstein, general manager James Jones and owner Mat Ishbia could go days without hearing from Portland, but Cronin would always circle back and keep them abreast.

When Cronin and Horst went to sleep on Tuesday night, they were confident that they had a trade to complete on Wednesday. The Blazers and Bucks just needed to close out terms with the Suns, and they had a deal.

Here's what made that delicate, though: If the deal fell apart, Horst didn't want another team to know how far along these Blazers-Bucks talks had gotten. The Suns knew they were getting Portland's Nurkic, Nassir Little and Keon Johnson in a three-team trade, but the Suns had to get one more asset to make this deal workable. In almost all cases, Cronin would've told Bartelstein that he was getting Milwaukee guard Grayson Allen, but Horst's insistences on secrecy made this different.

Cronin did tell Bartelstein the general salary and position of the mystery player, so the Suns were able to deduce down to two players who that might be -- Allen and Oklahoma City's Victor Oladipo, who is recovering from a serious leg injury. The Thunder are sometimes on the periphery of these big deals, so the Suns thought that was a possibility. Of course, the Thunder were nowhere near this trade.

Cronin kept telling Bartelstein: Just trust me. You're going to like the mystery player. Trust me.

Around 2:15 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Cronin confirmed Bartelstein's suspicions and told him that, yes, they were getting Allen in the trade. After the Suns confirmed it was Allen, Bartelstein, Jones and Ishbia briefly huddled and returned a resounding yes to Cronin. Done, Bartelstein told him. And that was that. The three teams agreed on the trade, and immediately started calling the players and agents involved to inform them of the blockbuster

Sounds like Ayton for Nurkic has been in play for awhile

Ewww. Gross. This makes it sound like the Suns just turned themselves into submissive litte hostages.

But what's really disgusting is that Josh Bartelstein was supposedly brought in by Ishbia to be in charge of business operations, not basketball. Why keep James Jones as the President of Basketball Operations, if you're just going to take away all of his authority and hand things over to Josh? That is completely disrespectful to James and sure explains a whole lot of what's been going on.

I love how there is no possibility in your world that the Suns would just want to get off a huge contract given to a plateaued player.

[JeremyG]

From the Woj article on what went down:

Big trades are like puzzles -- a jumbled slab of salary matches, collective bargaining rules, positions and ages and gamesmanship. What Cronin had going for him had been the outline of a secondary deal with the Suns for center Deandre Ayton; a side negotiation that Cronin kept connecting to his larger talks on Lillard. Before Lillard ever asked out, Portland had discussed ways to acquire Ayton, and so, the Suns made a natural trade partner as a third team.

Ayton for Jusuf Nurkic -- it was a way for the Blazers to get a 25 year-old starting center, and the Suns a starter at half the salary who'd bring with him some role players.

To this end, the Suns could never know the third team in the trade. Cronin kept Suns CEO Josh Bartelstein on the line for months and weeks and days, and finally, hours on Tuesday and Wednesday. Bartelstein, general manager James Jones and owner Mat Ishbia could go days without hearing from Portland, but Cronin would always circle back and keep them abreast.

When Cronin and Horst went to sleep on Tuesday night, they were confident that they had a trade to complete on Wednesday. The Blazers and Bucks just needed to close out terms with the Suns, and they had a deal.

Here's what made that delicate, though: If the deal fell apart, Horst didn't want another team to know how far along these Blazers-Bucks talks had gotten. The Suns knew they were getting Portland's Nurkic, Nassir Little and Keon Johnson in a three-team trade, but the Suns had to get one more asset to make this deal workable. In almost all cases, Cronin would've told Bartelstein that he was getting Milwaukee guard Grayson Allen, but Horst's insistences on secrecy made this different.

Cronin did tell Bartelstein the general salary and position of the mystery player, so the Suns were able to deduce down to two players who that might be -- Allen and Oklahoma City's Victor Oladipo, who is recovering from a serious leg injury. The Thunder are sometimes on the periphery of these big deals, so the Suns thought that was a possibility. Of course, the Thunder were nowhere near this trade.

Cronin kept telling Bartelstein: Just trust me. You're going to like the mystery player. Trust me.

Around 2:15 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Cronin confirmed Bartelstein's suspicions and told him that, yes, they were getting Allen in the trade. After the Suns confirmed it was Allen, Bartelstein, Jones and Ishbia briefly huddled and returned a resounding yes to Cronin. Done, Bartelstein told him. And that was that. The three teams agreed on the trade, and immediately started calling the players and agents involved to inform them of the blockbuster

Sounds like Ayton for Nurkic has been in play for awhile

Ewww. Gross. This makes it sound like the Suns just turned themselves into submissive litte hostages.

But what's really disgusting is that Josh Bartelstein was supposedly brought in by Ishbia to be in charge of business operations, not basketball. Why keep James Jones as the President of Basketball Operations, if you're just going to take away all of his authority and hand things over to Josh? That is completely disrespectful to James and sure explains a whole lot of what's been going on.

I love how there is no possibility in your world that the Suns would just want to get off a huge contract given to a plateaued player.

It has absolutely zero relevance if they did. Even if they did, Mori is right. You don't hand over all negotiating to a third party--literally!

[JeremyG]

One of my first comments after the trade was about how it'll be nice to watch a Center with a basketball brain and that clip is an example of what I was talking about. I also recall you posting a clip a few weeks ago of Porzingis dishing out some great passes to Beal on cuts to the rim and speculated how Ayton might look in that role. I pushed back because I don't think Ayton can make those plays, but I know Nurkic absolutely can. The guy just needs to stay healthy.

Yeah, there's no way Ayton could. Completely incapable!



(All plays are from last season.)

Ayton has had more turnovers than assists every season of his career. As with many things in his game, he shows occasional flashes but passing and playmaking is not something that he is consistently good at.

It wasn't his role. He wasn't asked to do it.

And we're talking about a specific role of passing to a cutter.

Here’s the problem Jeremy. There wasn’t a question of whether or not Ayton could do the things his highlights show him doing, it was that he could never be COUNTED ON to do any of it. When you would expect a big game out of him he would put up a stinker, blow a layup that should have been a dunk or stand there and just watch.

In other words, everything Trail Blazers fans are trying to warn us about Nurkic.