The Kyrie Irving saga finally ended last week (well, almost), as the Cavs traded Irving to the Boston Celtics for a package involving Isaiah Thomas and Brooklyn’s 2018 unprotected first-round pick. That’s a pretty impressive haul for a player everyone knew wanted out.
Assuming the trade gets finalized, it helps Cleveland both in the short and long term. Thomas (though older and in a contract year) is an All-Star point guard who put up similar numbers to Kyrie Irving last year, while Jae Crowder, who also heads over to Cleveland, will help defensively on the wing. Since Brooklyn is one of the worst teams in the league, the Cavs will likely land a top-five pick in next year’s draft. Boston definitely paid a high price for it’s new, young star.
There were many rumors of the Suns looking to acquire Irving themselves. We now know, however, how much he would have cost. Any hope of using Kyrie’s demand or LeBron’s desire to play with Eric Bledsoe as leverage turned out false. In the end, since the Suns were never willing to offer up our biggest assets (Devin Booker or Josh Jackson), they were never close to making a deal with Cleveland.
Many fans felt that giving up Josh Jackson, the 4th pick in this year’s draft, was worth it for a 25-year-old All-Star. However, according to some reports, Cleveland really wanted Devin Booker. The fanbase was not cool with this idea, nor was the Suns organization, who consider Booker “as close to untouchable as anyone on the Suns roster.”
Refusing to entertain the idea of trading 20-year-old Booker for Kyrie Irving is very high praise for Booker. Remember, at only 25-years-old, Kyrie is a four-time All-Star, a Rookie of the Year, an NBA Champion, an All-NBA Third Team member, and an All-Star Game MVP. Complain all you want about his game (and I do), Kyrie Irving is a young star in this league.
All of this begs the question: who would Suns fans and the Suns organization trade Booker for? To answer this question, I naturally made a list. Since the Suns are going through a rebuild (#TheTimeline) and focusing on a young core, I capped the age for these players at Kyrie’s age of 25. That still leaves several talented players Suns fans might covet, many of which have been All-Stars.
I used a combination of factors to create this list, including talent, age, and potential. When it came really close between a player and Devin Booker, I sided with Booker. Given his local popularity, the Suns would need someone clearly better in order to give him up. You can still feel free to disagree in the comments, however.