Is it possible that PHX could land the Brooklyn pick?

It seems that with the trade of Kyrie Irving to the Boston Celtics the Cleveland Cavaliers have just set themselves up for their re-build following the departure of LeBron James next offseason.

Isaiah Thomas is a free agent at the end of this season and when LeBron jumps ship in 2018, they can allow Thomas to walk as well opening up a ton of cap space. Any subsequent move of Kevin Love presumably to a Championship contender could provide the Cavaliers with an additional young player or two and/or draft picks.

Throw in the fact that the Cavs acquired Jae Crowder in the Boston trade, a talented, 27-year-old two-way player who could be a part of Cleveland’s core moving forward, and Ante Zizic who may yet still become a decent center, and the trade already looks very good for the Cavs long-term.

And then you have Brooklyn’s unprotected pick.

Acquiring an unprotected first round pick in the NBA is like finding a Leprechaun’s pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Teams search for any means possible to trade for unprotected first’s because the potential of drafting a star player at a very cheap rate is tremendously valuable.

Should LeBron James leave next summer and they decide to let Isiah Thomas walk, the path to rebuild will not be nearly as long as franchise’s (like the Suns) might generally anticipate, especially if the Brooklyn pick ends up extremely high in the lottery.

But what if LeBron doesn’t leave? What if, for any number of reasons, he decides to re-sign in Cleveland and play out the rest of his career there (or at least a few more years)? The Cavaliers would be in a position then to need to re-load next offseason and continue to ride the LeBron wave.

Or what if the Cavaliers believe that LeBron is wavering on leaving and so management makes a desperate or dramatic move to try and sway him into staying?

(There is also the possibility that if LeBron moves West that the Cavs might still feel that their roster is potent enough with Thomas and Love to compete in the weak Eastern Conference and prefers to acquire a star to replace LeBron to continue to make runs at the Finals.)

If any of those scenarios occur, then that pick would be the perfect piece to help facilitate a trade for a star that could either replace Thomas, Love, or even LeBron, or add to any combination of that group potentially giving them a fourth star if James remains.

This is where the Suns could swoop in to pick up that pick. (It should be noted that there is some belief that the Brooklyn Nets won’t be that bad this coming season lessening the potential of it being top-five. It would still be a valuable commodity for the Suns regardless as the Lottery God’s could have it move up to the top-three. They could package it with their own first round pick and move up in the draft to select one player versus two.)

Obviously there isn’t a chance that the Suns would move Devin Booker (even for the first overall pick), or even Josh Jackson for that matter. But if another team had a star that the Cavs wanted, let’s say, Jimmy Butler who, for the sake of argument, just isn’t quite working out in Minnesota and the Timberwolves want to get what they can for him, they might be a team that this type of a scenario could work with. Cleveland was already rumored to be a possible trade destination for Butler this past season to help keep LeBron happy and would be the perfect star acquisition for that roster. His contract would potentially save the Cavs a little money over other stars as he has two years remaining after this season, with a player option that is under $20M.

To make that kind of a trade work while re-signing both LeBron and Thomas, the Cavaliers would need to drop some salary to pull it all together, and if they wanted to lose out on a player (or two) with big contracts, the Suns could be the perfect team tohelp make it happen, acquiring the pick in return.

Should this be a possibility at all, it could look like:

Phoenix Acquires: Brooklyn’s 2018 First Round Pick, JR Smith, Cedi Osman

Cleveland Acquires: Jimmy Butler

Minnesota Acquires: Marquese Chriss, Tyler Ulis, Miami 2018 First Round Pick

(I added the Miami first round pick as a sweetener and because the Suns would not need the pick if both of their own and Brooklyn’s are higher. Miami’s as well might not transfer this season anyway so it could end up being delayed until 2019.)

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This of course is one of any number of scenarios in which the Suns could find themselves involved in the acquisition of the 2018 Brooklyn first round pick. Sign and trades could even be an option with players such as Paul George if he decides to leave Oklahoma City and there is no pairing up with LeBron in L.A.

Of course, this is the kind of dream trade that the Suns have been looking to make for the past two years: acquire a young player or first round pick by taking on awful contracts. Most teams want to do this, although more often than not that pot of gold is just too precious to be traded away.

And yet, if Cleveland gets antsy or wants to acquire a star player that they otherwise could not without giving up the farm, this could be the opportunity that Ryan McDonough has been patiently looking for all along.

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