The Offer
McDonough’s heart begins to pound. Someone texts Arizona Sports 98.7’s John Gambadoro. Gambo immediately reports that the Suns are considering trading the pick for Porzingis in a blockbuster package – and Devin Booker is not involved (how he got that info before even McDonough, who knows. He’s just that good).
By the time he makes this call, Phil Jackson has moved past the Devin Booker demand. He knows the trade is dead if Booker is part of the asking price, but he still wants a lot.
Jackson asks for the fourth pick. McDonough responds, “Okay, what else?”
Next he wants the best Suns pick in the 2018 first round between Phoenix’s own pick and the Miami Heat’s. McDonough acknowledges in the affirmative. He knows that this is exactly why he acquired those Miami picks in the first place.
Then Jackson gets to the meat of the proposal.
“I don’t want Dragan Bender. I’m planning on drafting Lauri Markkanen at eight anyway. I want Marquese Chriss.” That would be a tough loss for the Suns as they would be losing a second year starter, one who could potentially become the franchise’s starting center for many years beginning this fall. Yet, the ability to replace him directly with the addition of Porzingis, one of the best spread four’s in the league – and probably the best young shooting big man as well – is a very enticing draw. McDonough takes a medium depth breath, and says “Alright. Done. Anything else?”
“Perfect. But if I’m going to give you Porzingis and his rookie contract, I need you to take something else. Derek Rose just activated his $24 million player option, you know.”
“Oh God, no,” McDonough interrupts exasperatedly. “You can’t expect me to add that beast of a contract to my payroll?! I wouldn’t even be able to afford to sign my second round picks!”
McDonough couldn’t see it, but Jackson let slip a sly smile. “No, son. I’m not going to make you take Derek Rose. His contract is up in a year. I only have to wait 11 months and he is thankfully gone.”
Suddenly McDonough understood what he was about to ask.
“I need you to take Joakim Noah. Three more years and $55.59M remaining on his deal (according to basketball-reference.com). If you don’t take him with Porzingis, the deal is off.”
McDonough took a much deeper breath this time. He scanned the other faces in the room to gauge their reactions. Suns owner Robert Sarver was furiously pounding numbers into his calculator. McDonough then received a text from Gambo demanding to know if he could report what the General Manager has decided to do.
McDonough quickly ran the numbers in his head: by adding Noah, combined with Tyson Chandler’s two-years and $26.585M remaining as well as Brandon Knight’s $43.893,750M, with Noah those three alone are a total of $82.175M.