Markieff Morris an intriguing contract extension candidate
The Morris twins will forever be linked, no matter whether they are on the same team or not. But because the Phoenix Suns made a deal for Marcus Morris to pair the twins together two seasons ago, the situation got more complicated for Markieff Morris. The Suns will likely extend qualifying offers to the twins to lock them in for a final year on their rookies deals after they took to Jeff Hornacek‘s coaching last year, but there’s an opportunity for the franchise to lock up the twins past the fourth and final year of their contracts.
Grantland’s Zach Lowe attacked Markieff’s role specifically, and while he somehow compared the bigger of the twins to Boris Diaw (I can see it in a few ways, looking past Diaw’s best attribute being the ability to speed up the momentum of the ball while Morris’ worst attribute being his ability to kill it), he does bring up an important point.
The twins’ futures are still tied with one another, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing if the Suns like them enough.
"The brothers told teams before the 2011 draft that they would take less money to stay together, sources say, and if that’s still true, the Suns should apply some pressure.…"
"Phoenix could find a happy medium by lavishing (Markieff) Morris with an offer that looks crazy now but could end up a bargain if he builds upon his breakout third season. Something like a four-year, $32 million deal that stays flat or declines year-over-year as the cap rises might work for both sides."
Phoenix has until Oct. 31 to either extend the qualifying offer to lock in the twins for their fourth year or to extend them for the longterm. Mind the pun, but there is a twin set of complexities to the Suns extending Markieff.
Why the Suns would do an extension
One season of success was good enough for me to swing from being completely against an extension for the twins to consider it, with apprehension less about their ability and more about the promising free agency crop ahead (more on that in a bit).
Markieff’s passing ability is certainly bottled up; it’s somewhere in there, and it’s being tapped every day by Hornacek’s pleas for his players to make the simple play. What Lowe saw to draw the Diaw comparison isn’t completely unfounded. Hornacek openly expressed how much Phoenix pushed the twins to pass to anyone other than one another. They’re capable. It just doesn’t happen to the extend Lowe insinuates.
Markieff is the team’s lone low-post threat unless Miles Plumlee can take another step in shaking his mechanical play on offense, and Keef certainly isn’t a bad option to start at power forward this season. Phoenix went to him in the post late in games to find much success last year, though it’s hard to see how he’ll grow with a starting lineup that gravitated around a pick-and-pop game of Channing Frye.
So there’s enough evidence to believe perhaps Markieff could turn into a bargain of a power forward and one who has just begun to develop under this more steady regime.
Why the Suns wouldn’t do it
The easy answer here is that Phoenix will keep its options open. The Suns could swing now and hit a home run value contract before Markieff potentially blossoms more as a starter, along the way earning himself a big payday as a restricted free agent in the summer of 2015. But championship aspirations the front office has talked about would make it likely the Suns hold out until next summer to make power moves on a deep crop of free agent big men. With Eric Bledsoe‘s relationship reportedly soured and him potentially gone, there’s a shot Phoenix could make a splash with a big name free agent and re-sign Goran Dragic without making any other moves. It’s a longshot, but if Ryan McDonough and Lon Babby are serious about pursuing titles, signing the Morris twins now holds them back on the free agent market to a great degree. Keeping flexibility is one issue.
Tied to that is the twins’ wishes to play with one another. A lot of this depends on what discount, if any, they would take to stay together. Pay them $8 million and $6 million with descending contracts, and maybe a combined $14 million for two double-digit scorers and fine rotation players is worth it.
The issue is that Phoenix has so much greater of a need for Markieff than Marcus, and offering one an extension and not the other probably isn’t going to happen. Marcus showed that he could be a bail-out type of forward with enough shake to score off the bounce and consistency to spot up.
Yet, P.J. Tucker remains in the rotation in any future situation one can see, and the Suns have T.J. Warren on a rookie deal for the next four years.
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It’s hard to compare this situation to any other, so we don’t know what will come of it. Probability says the Suns will pass on working out an extension, but the option to make it happen is more appealing than ever.