Suns 5-On-5: The Markieff Morris Roundtable
4) Should the Suns have given Markieff Morris a courtesy call about the Marcus Morris trade?
Bourguet: If they wanted to keep Markieff Morris as their starting power forward, yes. I don’t know how much good it would’ve done, since the Morrii aren’t exactly the most level-headed people. I guess we’ll never know! To be clear, the Morris twins didn’t deserve a call after the year of off-court issues they had. But knowing how close those brothers are, if the Suns wanted to keep Keef happy, they should’ve factored that in and at least given him a call.
Chasen: I’m not really sure on this one. Because Markieff took such a pay cut to stay with his brother, a call probably would have been the right thing to do, but I also get why they didn’t want to do that. However, I will say, given the recent track record of the FO (with how they handled Dragic and Thomas), it probably wouldn’t have been a bad idea to make sure to keep everyone as happy as possible. Perhaps some form of a call was warranted in that regard, but that’d be more of a PR move than anything else.
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Harris: Of course they should have given Markieff a notice about trading his twin brother off to Detroit. We all know how close those two are and Markieff deserved to know. However, Markieff has been in the NBA long enough to know that it is a business and trades such as these happen all the time. He should not throw a fit because his brother got traded away, that’s just the way it works.
Hann: If their plan all along was to keep him? Absolutely. Through several seasons with Markieff, you would think Phoenix had a good grasp of his immaturity and potential reaction to the trading of his brother. However, the Suns heavily underestimated “FOE” and Markieff’s knowledge of the NBA being a business in breaking up the twins, putting at least some of the blame for this situation on Phoenix.
Schall: Yes, Markieff for better or (right now) worse, is one of the faces of the franchise, and he took a discount to play with his brother. It would be ridiculous to use that as a justification for not trading Marcus, but at the very least you should have told Markieff yourself.
Not even taking common courtesy into account, it’s always a good idea to maintain your player’s trust, particularly when all it takes is picking up a phone and having a two-minute conversation with a guy you’re investing millions of dollars in. The Suns have taken a ton of criticism (most notably from Goran Dragic) for having communication issues with players, and this easily preventable slip-up is just the latest example in what’s starting to look like a trend.
Next: No. 5