What a Tyson Chandler to Milwaukee trade might look like
By Adam Maynes
The Phoenix Suns might be willing to trade with the Milwaukee Bucks again, but after getting ripped off in the Eric Bledsoe trade, what might a trade for Tyson Chandler look like?
Tweeted out by several sources and discussed on Arizona Sports 98.7 on Wednesday January 10, by John Gambadoro, the Milwaukee Bucks are in need of a center as they make a run to the playoffs and Tyson Chandler is a name that they have interest in.
Chandler would be a good fit in Milwaukee. The Bucks don’t have a veteran center since they traded Greg Monroe to the Suns, and adding a veteran defensive center to help take on those bigs they might face in the playoffs (ie. Embiid, Drummond, Gortat, Whiteside) is a near necessity.
While Suns fans have been waiting for a salary dump of some kind for a couple of years now, the hope had been that General Manager Ryan McDonough might find a way to snag a young player or first round pick as part of a package with Chandler or Jared Dudley.
Phoenix Suns
Unfortunately, I don’t see either really happening (or even a pure salary dump) with the Bucks unless a third team became involved.
Without packaging up a star with Chandler, it is exceedingly unlikely that the Bucks would be willing to part with Jabari Parker, Thon Maker, or Malcolm Brogdon, not to mention, Phoenix would have to take on at least one larger contract as well to make the return salaries at least get near $10M since Chandler’s contract is so large.
The Bucks too already traded their 2018 first round pick to the Suns in the Bledsoe trade, albeit a highly protected one, which then also takes the 2019 pick off the table since a team cannot trade first round picks in back-to-back seasons. Sure, the 2020 pick might be okay, even if it’s protected, but if the currently traded pick is not passed to Phoenix this season and thus passed to next season, then the 2020 pick would have to be protected enough to push back to 2021, and so on. (The current pick can actually be passed over through the 2021 season when it is finally fully unprotected.)
While the Suns could hypothetically ask the Bucks to waive this season’s pick’s protections the latter end of them keep the pick Milwaukee’s if it falls between 17-30. That protection on this year’s pick is crucial to the Suns because they do not need a first rounder in the mid-20’s this season. Not only is the value fairly low in regards to additional trades, but for a team already the youngest in the league, with their own and Miami’s first round picks coming this summer (not to mention up to three second round picks), adding another low first round pick pick just does not make a lot of sense.
The Bucks also don’t have any other large contracts that are expiring in 2018 providing immediate cap space, and the only two-year deal the Bucks have that would expire after next season but still provide the Suns a little space this summer is Mirza Teletovic who is making $2.5M less than Tyson. (According to the ESPN Trade Machine, Mirza and Tyson can be swapped with no other players involved either way.) That additional cap space would be helpful to the Suns if Mirza finished out his contract as they would have a little extra room for flexibility in future trades.
Mirza’s value too as a singular tradable asset next year would be similar to Tyson’s, being a veteran expiring contract that could potentially provide a playoff team with shooting depth off the bench.
However, while financially it would make sense to pull off a trade centered around Mirza, he and Jared Dudley are essentially the same player right now and Dudley hardly gets off the bench in Phoenix as it is. Through next season that would be around $20M sitting on the back end of the depth chart providing very little in terms of on court help.
*It should also be noted that Mirza is currently out with pulmonary emboli in both lungs and as of late December was not expected to return until at least the end of march or early April, if at all.
It seems that if the Suns were willing to eat that contract and accept that they aren’t going to open up much cap space for next season without trading Dudley, they could potentially work out a buyout with Mirza, or waive him eating the salary, but allowing space on the roster for another young player.
If this were the case, the Suns would likely acquire a second round pick at minimum, although even that is a little tricky.
For the Bledsoe trade, the Suns will acquire the Bucks’ 2018 second round pick so long as it falls from 48-60 (which is most likely, especially after trading for Chandler), plus Milwaukee has already traded their 2019 pick which will either go to Philadelphia or Sacramento depending on a scenario of favorability.
Phoenix could hypothetically ask for Milwaukee’s 2020 second round pick (and if they are likely to have to wait that long for a return then maybe even ask for 2021 or ’22 as well), but is a $2.5M savings next season (plus whatever savings this season) and one or two second round picks way down the line really worth trading Chandler now with no significant or immediate return?
If so, and the trade is kept very simple, it could look a little something like this:
Not a sexy trade for Phoenix at all, but two future assets as well as a few million dollars in cap flexibility (plus a little bit more and an open spot on the roster should Mirza be bought out), might be enough to make such a trade happen at some point before the trade deadline.
Next: Can the Suns make the 2018 playoffs?
Being that at least one team is interested in Tyson Chandler though, there is always the possibility that more might already be kicking the tires, if not more sometime before the trade deadline. There may still be a team out there that has an expiring contract, a more timely second round pick, or even a late first round pick (that would almost assuredly be protected for this season so the Suns don’t run into the same situation that they already have with the Bucks’ pick this year), if McDonough waits the trade market out a bit.
I can’t imagine that anything is too imminent, but at the very least, the fact that there is a rumor already circulating about Tyson Chandler, we may be watching his final few games in a Phoenix Suns uniform regardless of his next destination.