9. Summer Plans Hinge On Brandon Knight‘s Free Agency
The Suns have cap space heading into the offseason. They also have five free agents — Brandon Knight, Brandan Wright, Gerald Green, Marcus Thornton and Earl Barron — that theoretically could be re-signed. Barron will fill up the end of the rotation if the Suns need him to, but Thornton and possibly even Green will be moving on to new teams.
That leaves the Suns to decide what to do with Brandon and Brandan — a restricted free agent and an unrestricted free agent. Knight, 23, was the best player on the Milwaukee Bucks for the first half of the season, averaging an impressive 17.8 points, 5.4 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game while shooting nearly 41 percent from three-point range.
But after panic-trading Goran Dragic and Isaiah Thomas, the Suns were putting a lot of faith in Brandon Knight — guy the Suns gave up a very valuable pick for. Unfortunately, Knight’s time in Phoenix was a bit of a disappointment. He only played 11 games, suffered an ankle injury and his numbers dropped to 13.4 points, 4.5 assists and 2.1 rebounds per game on 35.7 percent shooting (31.3 percent from downtown).
So Brandon Knight is going to finish with 11 games, 16 games missed, and an eFG% of 43%. Not quite an inspiring start to his Suns tenure
— Scott Howard (@ScottHoward42) April 6, 2015
The question is, should the Suns re-sign him? The limited sample size we saw of Knight with Bledsoe wasn’t revelatory and it could cost anywhere from $10-14 million per year to keep Knight in Phoenix.
That’s not to say there weren’t signs of potential, however. Eleven games is an extremely small sample size and Knight is still very young. The Suns desperately need the perimeter shooting he could provide and in games like Phoenix’s road contest against the Orlando Magic, Knight got out in transition and ignited a few fast breaks:
Knight’s best game, ironically enough, was against the Golden State Warriors in a home contest where he looked as comfortable as he had during his entire tenure with the Suns before rolling that ankle in the second quarter.
Both parties have said all the right things about wanting to Knight to re-sign in Phoenix. Suns general manager Ryan McDonough said the team wants to keep both Knight and Wright this summer.
“I’ll be careful what I say or how I say it about Brandon Knight given how Eric Bledsoe’s contract situation went last year, but we like him as a player, we like him as a person, we do have an interest in bringing he and Brandan Wright — both of them — back here to Phoenix,” McDonough said. “We hope they feel the same way and we think they do.”
Knight spoke similarly, saying he needed to do what’s best for him and his family but that he believes he can fit in with this team moving forward.
“I’m optimistic about the situation,” he said. “I like it here and I like the way I’ve been treated so far, it’s a top-class organization and I’m looking forward to a future with the Suns.”
As we learned last year, restricted free agency can be a tricky proposition. But it feels like things will go much smoother this time around — mostly because, for better or worse, the Suns are prepared to pay up to keep Knight as a long-term piece of the core.
Next: No. 8