While they have been regularly discussed as possible options for trade to acquire a big contract, the Phoenix Suns should avoid trading Tyson Chandler and Jared Dudley.
Combined they will earn $23,115,000 this season. They have played a total of 28 years in the NBA, including nine-and-a-half years with the Phoenix Suns. Although Tyson Chandler has been a regular starter throughout his career, his team has found his replacement in Deandre Ayton and thus Chandler will be pushed to the bench for the first time since the first term of the George W. Bush Administration. Jared Dudley didn’t start a single game last season for the first time in his career and with the depth built ahead of him will most certainly not see a start this coming season either.
Both players are on the decline and may each decide upon retirement after this season.
And yet, they both need to stay around.
I saw a tweet recently that fascinated me. Granted it was nothing surprising and I suppose I had seen the numbers many times already, but to see the names and ages of the franchise’s under-24-year-old’s is a fascinating illustration of just how young the Suns really are.
Check out the ages of the players on the roster as it stands right now with their years of experience in parenthesis:
Deandre Ayton – 19 (0)
Dragan Bender – 20 (2)
Marquese Chriss – 20 (2)
Josh Jackson – 20 (1)
Elie Okobo – 20 (0)
Mikal Bridges – 21 (0)
Devin Booker – 21 (3)
Davon Reed – 22 (1)
Tyler Ulis – 22 (2)
Shaquille Harrison – 24 (1)
George King – 24 (0)
T.J. Warren – 24 (4)
Alan Williams – 25 (2)
Troy Daniels – 26 (5)
Brandon Knight – 26 (6+1 injured season)
Jared Dudley – 32 (11)
Tyson Chandler – 35 (17)
Think about this: Every projected starter, and all but one projected first reserve player, are 26-years-old or younger. Only Tyson Chandler himself at 35 projects to be Deandre Ayton’s primary backup, the only one older than 26.
In fact, if you added up the years of NBA experience of Ayton, Chriss, Bender, Jackson, Okobo, Booker, Bridges, Reed, Ulis, Harrison, King, and Warren, they equal 16 seasons, one total behind Tyson Chandler’s 17.
Brandon Knight is the one outlier in the starting lineup in this sense as he himself is 26. Although he does not currently have a reserve at this time that is older than 22.
Moreover, Knight is not projected to be the team’s long term answer at point, and may even be traded at some point this season (although unlikely, and depending on who as, and when the Suns acquire, a long term solution).
We all know that this was a young team, and we saw the stats regularly last season when Phoenix was running out the youngest starting lineups in the history of the NBA. But when you think about how at this moment the tank is all but finished and the rebuild is about to begin in earnest with a valiant and honest attempt to win, this young team has never actually won before.
They can all talk a good game about working hard and being prepared, staying mentally focused and not letting the game get ahead of themselves, but without grizzled veterans on the team to lead by example, players who have the experience and professional gravitas necessary to call out a younger player when his work ethic slips or his concentration lapses, or when in game things start to get out of control and the team needs to stay calm and act rationally staying within the gameplan, the young players need to have true leadership to guide them.
Granted free agency and trade might bring in a player or two with significant experience and professionalism who will also act as a guide as the young Suns walk down this path. And, since both Tyson and Jared are on the final years of their contracts with little expectation of re-signing, those newer veterans will too have the ability to cultivate lasting relationships with the young players that will stretch beyond this season as the growing players push toward the team’s ultimate playoff and championship aspirations.
However, since we do not know who those potential additions will be (and I use plural with an expectation that several players will be acquired, although for all we know General Manager Ryan McDonough might add only one more player to the roster), at the moment all the young Suns have to lean on this summer are Tyson and Jared, both who have been the only consistent veterans that Booker, Chriss, Bender, Jackson, and Warren, have ever worked with and leaned on.
It should also be recalled that McDonough stated early in the offseason that he was looking to add “veterans” around the age of 24, wanting them to be within the same age group as the current core. If this proves true, then they too will share the same affliction of a lack of savoir-faire and likely little to no playoff experience as the current core.
They too will be in need of guidance as much as anyone on the roster is now.
Granted, if McDonough has the opportunity to swing a trade for a true star without breaking up the core and in the process needs to part with either Tyson Chandler or Jared Dudley to make the contracts match, then you will not find an argument from me or nearly anybody else, for that matter.
Talent will win out to some degree and the coaching staff too is there to help facilitate a professional organization and guide players on their quest through their own experiences.
Next: What's Next Part 2: Who the Phoenix Suns should trade for
Yet nothing in the locker room beats a friend, especially a friend with playoff experience who has the ear of the younger players.
Tyson Chandler and Jared Dudley are the two most experienced players on the roster, they are both fan favorites, and they represent the only long-term NBA tenures this roster has. Unless they must be traded, they should not be traded, and for at least one more season, both should remain on the roster as the team’s best examples of veteran professionalism.
Guides for the young Suns.
Masters of maturity.
The professional bridge between the franchise’s will to lose, and their necessity now to win.