Moderators: bwgood77, Qwigglez, lilfishi22
Ghost of Kleine wrote:
lilfishi22 wrote:More than ever....we are in the championship or bust endgame
JDJ26 wrote:Durant is here to stay. As others have said, trading KD would be to admit failure and I don't think Matt's ego will allow a trade to happen.
lilfishi22 wrote:More than ever....we are in the championship or bust endgame
sashaturiaf wrote:I have no words for this team. All season we suffering fans put up with the lackluster and uninspired play by excusing it as this team is coasting and saving their best for the playoffs. The warts were out there for all to see, yet we buried our heads in the sand.
I don't know where to go from here. Were capped out with zero roster flexibility and stuck with 3 max players that look like they don't like playing with each other. I can't see Ishbia running it back next season with the same core given this humiliation, and sad as it is I think we may have seen the last of Book in a Suns uniform. He's the only one that has enough value to restock this roster. Selling low on Beal (zero value right now) would be madness when we have **** all assets to play with in the first place.
BobbieL wrote:Ghost of Kleine wrote:The thing is though, That clearly you can't successfully "run it back" as is with this big three just to satiate ego and deflect from accountability by doubling down on your mistake!! Because if you do,
- You don't really get any better. And you're really only helping BOTH Brooklyn and Washington to a much higher lotto pick at our expense.
- You obviously maintain a slow decline into inevitable mediocrity anyways as a perennial "first round flame out" treadmill team.
- You're obviously not competing for a championship. At best your (at this point and going forward first round sacrifical lamb for the bigger, stronger, younger, more hungry and significantly more athletic and more physical next gen upstart teams already surpassing us!
- You widely become the consensus laughing stock of the entire league labeled as a futile playoff pretender that really has no future and no options to pivot because you waited too long out of sheer stubborn pride to accept reality and change course.
- Finally you go down in history as one of the very worst and most selfish, deluded ignorant owners along with "Saver" to take accountability and save the franchise's future by admitting your mistakes and salvaging what you can before you have no options left in any capacity.
- Finally after two or three more losing seasons falling short of expectations, Booker demands out, because he wants to legitimately compete in the final years of his prime rather than be ob a fake pretender playoff team with no way to get better because you chose to sit and watch everything fall apart instead of taking decisive action when you actually had an opportunity to change things!
And if you let foolish pride override sanity and accountability, The fanbase will loathe you to the point of running you out of town and you'll also wear the title of worst NBA owner in sports history wherever you go! Overall Ishbias' decisions to either run it back or to be smart and pivot before it's completely too late depends upon his level of testicular fortitude, willingness to put his big boy pants on and take accountability for making a mistake although genuinely trying! Bcause at least that way he can still endear himself to this fanbase and save face by saving our future! As long as he's willing to put his pride and ego aside and do what's best for the team and the city!
Suns organization need to be honest with themselves. Sure, they can run it back but if it doesn't work, might set your team back farther as you might have players teams want this year and trade for but not next year.
If the team needs to move on from Durant - so be it
lilfishi22 wrote:JDJ26 wrote:Durant is here to stay. As others have said, trading KD would be to admit failure and I don't think Matt's ego will allow a trade to happen.
Matt also didn't buy the team for one season of "championship contention" and trading KD would be closing that chapter
SunsRback4Good wrote:Ghost of Kleine wrote:The biggest question that we should really all be asking aside from how to fix things and maybe find a way to give us a future again is that ( as garrick mentioned previously) Kevin Durant has an extension that he is eligible for this July.
Now we have to decide if ( at 36 yrs old), do we really intend to offer Durant a big contract to resign through years 36, 37, 38 yrs old?? Knowing that if we do, we'll for sure be horribly handcuffed even longer financially with a severely restrictive future.
Now IF we at any moment pause hard and have doubts about doing this, then shouldn't it be obvious that we should be aggressively looking at trading Durant?? Because it either comes down to trading him before July or committing a huge chunk of our cap space to him as he nears age 38-40. And if we choose to do that, we can kiss any hope of future flexibility Goodbye!!!
And then we'll be looking at an even longer and more painful rebuild than we've gone through before.
Ghost we need playmakers desperately.
sunskerr wrote:
our goat. look how patient he is with the ball. never rushed trying to force anything, and has a really tight handle. the best creators always look like they are taking their time.
lilfishi22 wrote:JDJ26 wrote:Durant is here to stay. As others have said, trading KD would be to admit failure and I don't think Matt's ego will allow a trade to happen.
Matt also didn't buy the team for one season of "championship contention" and trading KD would be closing that chapter
sunskerr wrote:
our goat. look how patient he is with the ball. never rushed trying to force anything, and has a really tight handle. the best creators always look like they are taking their time.
lilfishi22 wrote:Revived wrote:Mulhollanddrive wrote:We have 2 years of winning playoffs after 10 years of rebuilding and we want to go back to 10 years of rebuilding?
I reckon Mike Dantoni would win us 60 games with this roster with the appropriate leadership.
You realize we have crappy rebuilding because we had terrible people making decisions right?
Look at OKC. They were contenders for years then they sucked and rebuild for 4-5 years and they’re good again and will be contenders for years to come. Because they actually have a good GM making decisions.
Look at Minnesota….they sucked forever, hired a smart assistant GM from Denver and they rebuild and are contenders now for years to come.
Rebuilding isn’t a bad or super slow strategy in general. It only becomes that if you have a shtty GM. If Ishbia can hire someone like Bob Myers then a rebuild would take about as long as OKC did.
Wouldn't put Minny on that same list, yet. They had a great regular season, Gobert is having a 2nd wind of sorts for his career and Ant is cementing himself as one of the best players in the league (as you would expect from a highly touted #1 pick). But let's see how far they go before we consider them perennial contender especially when this is the first season they are considered a contender.
Ghost of Kleine wrote:sunskerr wrote:
our goat. look how patient he is with the ball. never rushed trying to force anything, and has a really tight handle. the best creators always look like they are taking their time.
Kolek though really does share similar attributes and mentality with Nash in terms of basketball IQ, composure, "in game" processing, tenacity. And the passing vision too quite a bit.
Slim Charless wrote:sashaturiaf wrote:I have no words for this team. All season we suffering fans put up with the lackluster and uninspired play by excusing it as this team is coasting and saving their best for the playoffs. The warts were out there for all to see, yet we buried our heads in the sand.
I don't know where to go from here. Were capped out with zero roster flexibility and stuck with 3 max players that look like they don't like playing with each other. I can't see Ishbia running it back next season with the same core given this humiliation, and sad as it is I think we may have seen the last of Book in a Suns uniform. He's the only one that has enough value to restock this roster. Selling low on Beal (zero value right now) would be madness when we have **** all assets to play with in the first place.BobbieL wrote:Ghost of Kleine wrote:The thing is though, That clearly you can't successfully "run it back" as is with this big three just to satiate ego and deflect from accountability by doubling down on your mistake!! Because if you do,
- You don't really get any better. And you're really only helping BOTH Brooklyn and Washington to a much higher lotto pick at our expense.
- You obviously maintain a slow decline into inevitable mediocrity anyways as a perennial "first round flame out" treadmill team.
- You're obviously not competing for a championship. At best your (at this point and going forward first round sacrifical lamb for the bigger, stronger, younger, more hungry and significantly more athletic and more physical next gen upstart teams already surpassing us!
- You widely become the consensus laughing stock of the entire league labeled as a futile playoff pretender that really has no future and no options to pivot because you waited too long out of sheer stubborn pride to accept reality and change course.
- Finally you go down in history as one of the very worst and most selfish, deluded ignorant owners along with "Saver" to take accountability and save the franchise's future by admitting your mistakes and salvaging what you can before you have no options left in any capacity.
- Finally after two or three more losing seasons falling short of expectations, Booker demands out, because he wants to legitimately compete in the final years of his prime rather than be ob a fake pretender playoff team with no way to get better because you chose to sit and watch everything fall apart instead of taking decisive action when you actually had an opportunity to change things!
And if you let foolish pride override sanity and accountability, The fanbase will loathe you to the point of running you out of town and you'll also wear the title of worst NBA owner in sports history wherever you go! Overall Ishbias' decisions to either run it back or to be smart and pivot before it's completely too late depends upon his level of testicular fortitude, willingness to put his big boy pants on and take accountability for making a mistake although genuinely trying! Bcause at least that way he can still endear himself to this fanbase and save face by saving our future! As long as he's willing to put his pride and ego aside and do what's best for the team and the city!
Suns organization need to be honest with themselves. Sure, they can run it back but if it doesn't work, might set your team back farther as you might have players teams want this year and trade for but not next year.
If the team needs to move on from Durant - so be it
The only way out is to move KD or Booker. I've been saying Durant all season long, but the more I think about it the more Booker might make more sense.....
-We'll get WAY more for him as he's younger and locked up.
-There will be a wider net of teams that want him as KD is only feasible to small number of teams and those all need to be title contenders.
-KD+Beal should more or less be able to do what KD+Booker can while Beal+Booker CANNOT do the same. We would still have the weird pairing in our backcourt.
-KD is the best player out of the 3, age notwithstanding and as such it makes more sense to keep him and try for this with someone who is 1 of the 13 best players of all time.
-Beal and KD's deals both end before Booker's does, giving us a theoretical chance to get some cap room sooner.
Just my opinion. If 1 of the mods is feeling bored, I'd love to see a poll saying who everyone thinks we should move. Provided the return on Booker is better than the return on KD (it would be).
Ghost of Kleine wrote:Slim Charless wrote:Ghost of Kleine wrote:
All of these trades are from this link:
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10119058-offseason-trade-packages-for-phoenix-suns-after-round-1-sweep-vs-timberwolves
One of the dumbest trades on here by far is the KD to the heat article by Heavys' own Sean Deveny - KD to the Heat!
https://heavy.com/sports/nba/miami-heat/miami-heat-a-favorite-to-make-massive-trade-for-14-time-all-star-nba-execs/
Stating he believes that the heat themselves have the best odds of getting KD if he's traded with a package of Rozier/ Herro/Jovic and maybe 1-2 future firsts. First off Rozier is not even a positive asset currently, and Herro is good for sure, but even with Herro and Jovic and 1-2 future firsts the offer isn't really close in comparison to what other teams would offer for Durant!!!
Another was Devin Booker to the Jazz for John Collins/ Collin Sexton/ CLE 25' 1st (late 20s)/ 26' 1st via Minne or CLE (another late 1st)/ LA 27' 1st/ 28' UTA 1st (Late 20's w/ Book)/ Minne 29' 1st (mid to late 1st w/ Ant/ Kat/Gobert). So really maybe 2 good 1sts , and 3 lousy late 1sts.
KD to the Spurs
Durant to the Spurs for Keldon Johnson/ Zach Collins/ ATL 25' 1st/ a 2027 first-round pick (via Atlanta), a 2029 first-round pick (SAS) and a 2030 first-round pick (via Dallas). This one is not good but not as bad as some out there only because the picks are pretty solid! Still, this is Kevin freakin Durant! And Keldon Johnson and Zach Collins are not centerpiece players. Any KD trade would have to start with Devin Vassell as the centerpiece obviously. But I do like the picks at least.
Not too terrible trades
Beal to Orlando!
Beal for Cole Anthony and Joe Ingles.
And I gotta say, even though the value return kind of sucks, I'm taking this all day everyday just to get off Beals' salary and "NO trade clause. I'd much rather do a Beal for Isaac/Ingles, BUT again, it is what it is IF we can actually get off of Beals' contract, that's a win!! That being said, Cole Anthony is currently entering Shamet territory at 12 million for the next 3-4 seasons, and Joe Ingles is washed for a player making 11 million, but is a Team option next season. So I'm not sure how that'd even work. I really think it'd have to instead be Isaac and Anthony for it to work.
Lastly,
Nurkic to Memphis
Nurkic for Brandon Clarke, Derrick Rose, a 2026 second-round pick (via Los Angeles) and a 2027 first-round pick. Getting a 1st and a 2nd for Nurkic is good by itself, But also getting Clarke included is a bonus. Rose is meh. But the value is in getting off of Nurkics' 18 million while also getting Clarke and a 27' 1st that should be solid, and a LAL 26' 2nd that should be in the early 30s. We'd really just need to add a good athletic rim protecting 5 in the draft to replace Nurkic. Maybe you'd follow up this trade with a KD/Eubanks to Atlanta for Murray/ Capela/ J Johnson/ picks? Perhaps Atlantas' 10th pick for our 22nd (swap) this draft to take Clingan (If he falls to #10, otherwise take Missi?
I've been thinking about that Hornet fans offer for Booker. That has potential. Maybe we do:
Booker/Nurk
Melo/Grant Williams/Marc Williams/3FRPs(2025+2027)/
That gives us a team of Melo/Beal/KD/Grant/Mark while shaving some money off so we can sign some dudes on top of getting another 3 firsts in years that we don't have any. Melo is a massive injury risk, so I'd probably try and get another PG this summer that is a legit backup. I didn't want a pick this year as this draft is subpar and we already will get our own pick as we have the best record of our swaps.
But I think that team fits, we'll still have scoring and the Williams Bros will happily handle all of the dirty work that Melo/KD/Beal don't like doing......
I really like Booker, Although I can honestly admit that even though he is an offensive star. He IS JUST NOT a 1A top tier "lead your franchise" to a championship level star. He's more of a Robin to a real batman 1A tier level franchise star. And taking that into consideration, makes this type of trade significantly more palatable. Now I'm not really sure about Melos' overall injury history as I haven't really followed the hornets or many other teams extensively. But all things considered, I'd probably do this trade for more flexibility and a more renewed timeline for us.
garrick wrote:Ghost of Kleine wrote:Slim Charless wrote:
I've been thinking about that Hornet fans offer for Booker. That has potential. Maybe we do:
Booker/Nurk
Melo/Grant Williams/Marc Williams/3FRPs(2025+2027)/
That gives us a team of Melo/Beal/KD/Grant/Mark while shaving some money off so we can sign some dudes on top of getting another 3 firsts in years that we don't have any. Melo is a massive injury risk, so I'd probably try and get another PG this summer that is a legit backup. I didn't want a pick this year as this draft is subpar and we already will get our own pick as we have the best record of our swaps.
But I think that team fits, we'll still have scoring and the Williams Bros will happily handle all of the dirty work that Melo/KD/Beal don't like doing......
I really like Booker, Although I can honestly admit that even though he is an offensive star. He IS JUST NOT a 1A top tier "lead your franchise" to a championship level star. He's more of a Robin to a real batman 1A tier level franchise star. And taking that into consideration, makes this type of trade significantly more palatable. Now I'm not really sure about Melos' overall injury history as I haven't really followed the hornets or many other teams extensively. But all things considered, I'd probably do this trade for more flexibility and a more renewed timeline for us.
I have to say no to Melo both for his careless attitude and his piss poor defense. The dude just doesn't care about winning and he's always clowning around, not the right kind of attitude for a team that wants to win a championship.
sashaturiaf wrote:Slim Charless wrote:sashaturiaf wrote:I have no words for this team. All season we suffering fans put up with the lackluster and uninspired play by excusing it as this team is coasting and saving their best for the playoffs. The warts were out there for all to see, yet we buried our heads in the sand.
I don't know where to go from here. Were capped out with zero roster flexibility and stuck with 3 max players that look like they don't like playing with each other. I can't see Ishbia running it back next season with the same core given this humiliation, and sad as it is I think we may have seen the last of Book in a Suns uniform. He's the only one that has enough value to restock this roster. Selling low on Beal (zero value right now) would be madness when we have **** all assets to play with in the first place.BobbieL wrote:
Suns organization need to be honest with themselves. Sure, they can run it back but if it doesn't work, might set your team back farther as you might have players teams want this year and trade for but not next year.
If the team needs to move on from Durant - so be it
The only way out is to move KD or Booker. I've been saying Durant all season long, but the more I think about it the more Booker might make more sense.....
-We'll get WAY more for him as he's younger and locked up.
-There will be a wider net of teams that want him as KD is only feasible to small number of teams and those all need to be title contenders.
-KD+Beal should more or less be able to do what KD+Booker can while Beal+Booker CANNOT do the same. We would still have the weird pairing in our backcourt.
-KD is the best player out of the 3, age notwithstanding and as such it makes more sense to keep him and try for this with someone who is 1 of the 13 best players of all time.
-Beal and KD's deals both end before Booker's does, giving us a theoretical chance to get some cap room sooner.
Just my opinion. If 1 of the mods is feeling bored, I'd love to see a poll saying who everyone thinks we should move. Provided the return on Booker is better than the return on KD (it would be).
Emotional side of Suns fans says trade anyone but Book. However rational side says Book should be the one to go, he's simply got the most value and plays the same position as Beal.
There is also a doomsday scenario in 2 years time when KD is old and broken and Book is here in his absolute prime carrying a bunch of minimums to fight for the 10th seed every season. If you really like Book you would not want that for him. Sometimes its just easier to say goodbye when the time is right
Ghost of Kleine wrote:sashaturiaf wrote:Slim Charless wrote:
The only way out is to move KD or Booker. I've been saying Durant all season long, but the more I think about it the more Booker might make more sense.....
-We'll get WAY more for him as he's younger and locked up.
-There will be a wider net of teams that want him as KD is only feasible to small number of teams and those all need to be title contenders.
-KD+Beal should more or less be able to do what KD+Booker can while Beal+Booker CANNOT do the same. We would still have the weird pairing in our backcourt.
-KD is the best player out of the 3, age notwithstanding and as such it makes more sense to keep him and try for this with someone who is 1 of the 13 best players of all time.
-Beal and KD's deals both end before Booker's does, giving us a theoretical chance to get some cap room sooner.
Just my opinion. If 1 of the mods is feeling bored, I'd love to see a poll saying who everyone thinks we should move. Provided the return on Booker is better than the return on KD (it would be).
Emotional side of Suns fans says trade anyone but Book. However rational side says Book should be the one to go, he's simply got the most value and plays the same position as Beal.
There is also a doomsday scenario in 2 years time when KD is old and broken and Book is here in his absolute prime carrying a bunch of minimums to fight for the 10th seed every season. If you really like Book you would not want that for him. Sometimes its just easier to say goodbye when the time is right
So IF you choose to move Booker, Keeping in mind that he's been the face of this franchise forever, is still in his prime, and is under contract for multiple seasons still, what exactly does your plan become? building around a 36 yr old Durant and a 30 yr old Bradley Beal that easily has the very worst contract in the entire league, is a shadow of his former 30+ points per game, only plays around half the season if you're lucky, and honestly is just a slightly worse fascimile of Booker?? How do you suppose the fans will recieve/ react to this plan? How much longer do you honestly expect KD to be able to be dominant into his late 30s? How do you expect a 53 million player that struggles with injuries so much, and has never really led his previous team anywhere and only scored 9 points before fouling out will be recieved by the fanbase here promoted as the chosen leaders of this team? Nah! KD is easily and obviously the one that you trade in order to pull a maximum value return to build out depth and return assets around a backcourt of Booker and Beal! I get that KD is truly great! I really do, but father time is undefeated, and you just don't trade your younger franchise player whose still in his prime and under contract for around at least 3-4 more years? And try to sell your fanbase on instead building around a 36 yr old aging superstar player and an oft injured lower tier version of your franchise star that coincedentally is really underperforming while also making excess of 50 million. You'd likely lose a large majority of your fanbase or Ishbia would be run out of town by a mob with pitchforks!
If you're st on moving Booker fine! But then you honestly just need to bite the bullet and blow it up completely and move KD too, and try to convince Beal to approve trades rather than endure a perennial 1st round exit until he retires or gets frustrated and leaves for a better situation.
Revived wrote:lilfishi22 wrote:Revived wrote:You realize we have crappy rebuilding because we had terrible people making decisions right?
Look at OKC. They were contenders for years then they sucked and rebuild for 4-5 years and they’re good again and will be contenders for years to come. Because they actually have a good GM making decisions.
Look at Minnesota….they sucked forever, hired a smart assistant GM from Denver and they rebuild and are contenders now for years to come.
Rebuilding isn’t a bad or super slow strategy in general. It only becomes that if you have a shtty GM. If Ishbia can hire someone like Bob Myers then a rebuild would take about as long as OKC did.
Wouldn't put Minny on that same list, yet. They had a great regular season, Gobert is having a 2nd wind of sorts for his career and Ant is cementing himself as one of the best players in the league (as you would expect from a highly touted #1 pick). But let's see how far they go before we consider them perennial contender especially when this is the first season they are considered a contender.
I think they will be a contender for years to come barring something crazy happening. My point with them was more so about the person they hired, Tim Connelly.
He replaced Masai Ujiri and turned the Nuggets into a contender with the moves he made including smart decisions like trading for role guys like Aaron Gordon to put around Jokic. Then he came to Minnesota in 2022 and turned them into a contender already including pulling off the sweep over the “superteam” Suns.
Point being a rebuild doesn’t have to take 10+ years. It took us that long because we had the likes of Lon Babby/Lance Blanks/Ryan McDonough as GM making decisions. Sarver wasn’t willing to pay for a top GM candidate but Ishbia has $$ to afford someone like Bob Myers and make an offer that Myers can’t refuse.
lilfishi22 wrote:More than ever....we are in the championship or bust endgame
Ghost of Kleine wrote:lilfishi22 wrote:JDJ26 wrote:Durant is here to stay. As others have said, trading KD would be to admit failure and I don't think Matt's ego will allow a trade to happen.
Matt also didn't buy the team for one season of "championship contention" and trading KD would be closing that chapter
Not necessarily man! It really depends upon where you move him and what you're getting back too! Regardless, as is, running it back...........I hate to break the news to you man! But this roster isn't contending for sh**! As much as people want to delude themselves about this, Our ceiling with this big three and no legit depth is at best a "playin team- maybe a 2nd round exit IF everything goes right for them next season in catching a better matchup, staying healthy/ none of our big three or Nurkic miss significant time), finding a way to fill out our bench depth with better morelegitimately productive impact vet min options to fill out our bench. The decisions Ishbia made gutting this team in order to make a splashy entrance locked us into significantly lowered ceilings than our expectations! And all the kool aid or self delusion in the world unfortunately won't change that outcome!
lilfishi22 wrote:More than ever....we are in the championship or bust endgame
lilfishi22 wrote:Revived wrote:lilfishi22 wrote:Wouldn't put Minny on that same list, yet. They had a great regular season, Gobert is having a 2nd wind of sorts for his career and Ant is cementing himself as one of the best players in the league (as you would expect from a highly touted #1 pick). But let's see how far they go before we consider them perennial contender especially when this is the first season they are considered a contender.
I think they will be a contender for years to come barring something crazy happening. My point with them was more so about the person they hired, Tim Connelly.
He replaced Masai Ujiri and turned the Nuggets into a contender with the moves he made including smart decisions like trading for role guys like Aaron Gordon to put around Jokic. Then he came to Minnesota in 2022 and turned them into a contender already including pulling off the sweep over the “superteam” Suns.
Point being a rebuild doesn’t have to take 10+ years. It took us that long because we had the likes of Lon Babby/Lance Blanks/Ryan McDonough as GM making decisions. Sarver wasn’t willing to pay for a top GM candidate but Ishbia has $$ to afford someone like Bob Myers and make an offer that Myers can’t refuse.
Yeah maybe. A lot of people said the same of the Pelicans as well. Maybe it's true but they aren't a perennial contender when this is their first year being a contender.
Not every rebuild is the same and not every rebuild is going to be smooth either.
