Phx-Suns.Net

I’ll say this…the nurk trade wasn’t enough to get me to care about this team. I think I’m out for the rest of the season. I’ll check box scores and post on here, but I’m rooting for my fantasy team that actually has a shot haha.

Kyrie/Ant/Franz/JJJ/Turner with
Giddey/Daniels/Murphy/Kawhi/Gobert off the bench.

That’s the team I’m cheering for the rest of the season.

like Split T, i'm going to have to decide whether i'm going to watch any more games this season

despite the villianizing of Nurkic, he averaged 9 and 9, we won more games this year with him, than without him. And we're now at 500 after not playing him for over a month. What does that tell you?

what makes this one of the worst deals in Suns history, is it didn't have to go this way

Nurk was easily our best center last season, and, had some good games this year. But instead of following the common sense protocol of giving him some time to rebound (literally & figuratively) we let him fall into a funk of criticism and frustration that resulting in him taking a swing at someone he imagined to be Draymond Green.

we waited till he hit rock bottom, made him look like a cancer, and had to sacrifice a first round pick to get out of the mess most coach's, GM's, and/or superstar leaders could have smoothed over. Nurkic never seemed like a problem child to me. Butler is a problem child. But we tried like hell to add him and his salary to our dysfunctional family

Same for me and my fantasy team even though we are reeling a bit from losing Jalen Johnson for the season.

1tinsoldier wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 06, 2025 3:43 pm

like Split T, i'm going to have to decide whether i'm going to watch any more games this season

despite the villianizing of Nurkic, he averaged 9 and 9, we won more games this year with him, than without him. And we're now at 500 after not playing him for over a month. What does that tell you?

what makes this one of the worst deals in Suns history, is it didn't have to go this way

Nurk was easily our best center last season, and, had some good games this year. But instead of following the common sense protocol of giving him some time to rebound (literally & figuratively) we let him fall into a funk of criticism and frustration that resulting in him taking a swing at someone he imagined to be Draymond Green.

we waited till he hit rock bottom, made him look like a cancer, and had to sacrifice a first round pick to get out of the mess most coach's, GM's, and/or superstar leaders could have smoothed over. Nurkic never seemed like a problem child to me. Butler is a problem child. But we tried like hell to add him and his salary to our dysfunctional family

I certainly think Nurk was made the scapegoat for this season. He had the best rebounding percentage in the league last year and did some things well, I think their demands for him this year took him a little out of his comfort zone and his offensive game went to shit. Then his attitude did, and it was all over after that. But there have been plenty of players who under-performed this year - Jones, Allen, Booker, Beal, Durant, they're all capable of playing better than they have this year. And despite signing two point guards to address the problem they persist on going with the non-point guards handling the ball the majority of the time. If they had an established starter who demanded respect at the position, things might be different. But they haven't made that a priority. And they probably won't this offseason either. And this trading deadline just seems like another lost opportunity to address their need for size and athleticism at forward.

We’re down bad when we are clamoring for Nurk to play…he sucked and while I don’t like the trade, I’m not the least bit upset he’s gone.

Nurkic is a flawed and mediocre player, but he does have some strengths. Last year started out with Vogel misusing Nurk a bit, asking him to pop out and shoot 3s. Nurk tried this and it went badly. Then we changed how we used him to focus on his strengths more; he cut out the 3s and did more facilitating and screening and passing, setting up the offense, helping cover for our lack of a PG. That plus rebounding, and he was actually pretty useful for us last year; he wasn't great but I was satisfied with his play.

This year with the coaching change, it seems like all the Nurkic lessons were unlearned. We now had a real PG, Tyus, so we didn't need Nurk to help run plays. And there was all the talk about Nurk adding a 3-point weapon this year. We took him out of the role he'd gotten comfortable in the previous year and tried to turn him into ... I don't know what. A pick-and-pop 3-point shooting center? He isn't very good at that. And sure enough, he sucked and had a bad +/- rating and failed the eye test and became surly.

I'm not trying to say that Nurk was awesome nor that we should have used him just like last year. But I just don't see why anyone involved thought that this was going to work using Nurkic this way. He was flawed but he did have value, and we basically squandered it and now had to give away a pick to be rid of him. Bad player and asset management.

JeremyG wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 06, 2025 11:47 am

So we gave up our 2031 first round pick unprotected, just to be able to dump salary (Nurkic).

This is a bad take. The Suns got 3 1st rounders from that deal and only used one to move Nurkic.

Split T wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 06, 2025 11:58 am

Agree it’s underwhelming…Does Martin do anything for us that Royce doesn’t? Pretty similar sized.

Royce is significantly stronger, but Martin is a better ball-handler and passer, ran some point in college.

INFORMER wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 06, 2025 10:18 pm

Split T wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 06, 2025 11:58 am

Agree it’s underwhelming…Does Martin do anything for us that Royce doesn’t? Pretty similar sized.

Royce is significantly stronger, but Martin is a better ball-handler and passer, ran some point in college.

Not saying Martin won't play, but his contributions on the floor are not why we traded a pick for him and Micic. It's not supposed to whelm.

No argument here. I'm not saying the Suns made this trade because Martin or Micic has value. Their value is in their contracts.

INFORMER wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 06, 2025 10:15 pm

JeremyG wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 06, 2025 11:47 am

So we gave up our 2031 first round pick unprotected, just to be able to dump salary (Nurkic).

This is a bad take. The Suns got 3 1st rounders from that deal and only used one to move Nurkic.

Right. But we had to give up our valuable unprotected 2031 in order to do it. And all we have now is two junk firsts.

JeremyG wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 06, 2025 10:43 pm

INFORMER wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 06, 2025 10:15 pm

JeremyG wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 06, 2025 11:47 am

So we gave up our 2031 first round pick unprotected, just to be able to dump salary (Nurkic).

This is a bad take. The Suns got 3 1st rounders from that deal and only used one to move Nurkic.

Right. But we had to give up our valuable unprotected 2031 in order to do it. And all we have now is two junk firsts.

As INF will tell you, there is no such thing.

Nurkic was simply unplayable. He had to go. Now, if it was up to me, he'd be just put on the bench if he behaves, or away from the team if he does not; in no case I am giving up a 1stR to remove him. But I guess that's not how things work in the NBA sometimes.

ShelC wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 07, 2025 7:00 am

Curious how he’s going to find playing time behind the plethora of guards we already have.

He might be the best passer on the team and despite the lack of athleticism knows how to get into the lane. Real good off the PnR. Not getting too excited tho.

Besides, we promised a starting spot to Tyus Jones.... *groan*

This tweet made me think of JeremyG. Pretty sad that the Suns had their first ever #1 overall pick, and all we have to show for it is, ... Grayson Allen. Ooooooooooof.

Micic will not be in the rotation unless two guards ahead of him are injured. He's a cone who can't shoot, drive or do much of anything else. Objectively an interesting player because he'd probably be a significant contributor in Euroleague right now, but he's a nobody cashing checks for exercising in the USA.

PSA -- Never take someone seriously if they use "demon" in their social media post. In my experience, those are the most brain dead takes I've seen. For context, 2025 "demon" is 2022 "is a problem". It's all clickbait bullshit. Even that Micic post, the first play is him barely getting off the ground for a lucky layup conversion and that was two seasons ago as a "rookie".

I saw a few posts that he's in talks to go back to Europe but it wasn't clear if that was if he's waived/bought out or as a FA this summer. Sidery said he wanted to go to Denver to play with Jokic.