Possible trade options for Marquese Chriss

Last week I wrote that the Phoenix Suns need to work on on putting Marquese Chriss in a trade as quickly as possible while he still retains as much value as possible.

Chriss has been an absolute no-show this season, and hasn’t shown a significant increase in maturity, nor has his game taken a step up on any other level. This has particularly an issue under interim Head Coach Jay Triano who seems to be getting more from every other player on the roster, including Dragan Bender who at this moment seems to be the player with the brighter future between the two former 2015 top-8 draft picks.

I have a legitimate fear that Chriss will never amount to the player that he was expected to be when Phoenix traded for the opportunity to draft him, most specifically that he will never reach the level of Amar’e Stoudemire, the player who Suns fans have most often compared Chriss too.

Not only did STAT, who never even played a single game of college basketball, have an obviously much brighter future even in his second season than Chriss has shown now – a year where he averaged 20.6 points and 9.0 rebounds per game (Chriss is averaging 6.2 and 4.7) – but the argument that Chriss doesn’t have a point guard never seemed to bother STAT as he averaged that statline with a score first point in Stephon Marbury for part of the season (Chriss had Bledsoe), but even in the second half after both Marbury and Penny Hardaway were traded to New York and Leandro Barbosa was the team’s starting point guard, STAT still averaged 23.3 points and 9.1 boards.

In my trade Marquese post I broke down statistical and skill-based comparisons to the player that Chriss more closely aligns with, Tyrus Thomas.

Thomas was a highly touted player of a similar skill-set to Chriss who was also drafted in the top-8 and who was compared early in his career to LaMarcus Aldridge. If you don’t believe me, read the report that I link to in my story and see for yourself.

I’m afraid that Marquese Chriss is going to be a bust and that if the Suns hang onto him for too long that he will garner Phoenix next to nothing in return.

Therefore, I have several trade proposals. Not all of them will actually reference a specific trade and instead will be more broad in scope. However, each of these are not only viable, but hopefully if offered to the Suns, entirely acceptable.