When the Phoenix Suns signed Trevor Ariza, much of the Valley of the Suns responded… “What? Why?” There is a very simple explanation.
Trevor Ariza was a key piece of the Houston Rockets’ 2018 march to the Western Conference Finals, a series they should have won had it not been for the unfortunate hamstring injury of Chris Paul in game five.
Yet, mere weeks after the worst playoff shooting game seven in NBA history, Ariza has signed a one-year, $15 million contract with the Phoenix Suns, nearly doubling his previous highest single-season salary, set in 2014-15, his first with the Houston Rockets.
Ariza marks the…19th small forward on the roster?
Hyperbole of course, but the signing of Trevor Ariza to many fans made zero sense. The Suns already have Devin Booker and Troy Daniels at shooting guard with Josh Jackson, T.J. Warren, and Mikal Bridges at small forward and Dragan Bender and Marquese Chriss at power forward, all of which pretty much makes Ariza not only a redundant figure, but an extremely over-paid one.
That is, unless someone is getting traded.
Power forward is the team’s weakest position to date, a position that Ariza has not played all that much in his career, 12% of the time, in fact, according to basketball-reference.com. That said, with little yet shown by either Chriss or Bender, and Suns brass wanting to try and make good on Booker’s guarantee that he was never going to miss the playoffs again, Ariza could potentially be a starting power forward, not only adding depth, but also experience and leadership to the two players most in dire need of such a thing.
That said, he has only played power forward 12% of his career. So what gives?
Someone – or multiple players – will be traded.
While Ariza could play power forward, why would the Suns blow $15 million dollars (essentially their entire cap savings), on a veteran player with no future in the franchise and who outside of his shooting is statistically not that much better than Marquese Chriss?
Suns General Manager Ryan McDonough desperately overpaid him to guarantee he would sign here because he has every expectation of trading a small forward and he needed to guarantee depth in the rotation to remain competitive.
That someone?
T.J. Warren.
(Although the longer Mikal Bridges goes unsigned, the more of an opportunity that McDonough has to trade him. Until Bridges is signed, Phoenix can trade “the rights” to him, whereas once signed, he cannot be traded until December at the earliest.)
The current seemingly untradable core consists of Devin Booker, Deandre Ayton, and Josh Jackson. Along with the selection of Ayton first overall, McDonough traded a highly coveted unprotected first round pick for Mikal Bridges in last month’s draft. However, the starting small forward over the past few seasons has been T.J. Warren. Yet with Josh Jackson expected to usurp Warren and take over that spot this season and Bridges expected to either play alongside or back Jackson up, T.J. Warren has become expendable.
A good player, a solid scorer, on a reasonable contract – a very tradable asset.
And the Phoenix Suns need both a point guard and a true power forward.
While Such a trade might not happen immediately, and others, such as Chriss, might too be a part of the package to acquire the incoming talent, Ariza’s signing was that of both depth and insurance for the planned move ahead.
McDonough might already have the trade in the works but needs restricted free agency to commence. He might need the team with whom he shall be trading with to sign their draft picks to cover any cap issues. He might also not have a team in mind, but has sighted certain targets who he will hone in on and make his offer when the appropriate time comes.
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In the mean time, the remaining roster continues to grow and mature, seeking to make a run at the playoffs, and when the time comes and suddenly a player or two currently in the rotation goes missing, they can turn to the veteran Ariza to fill in the hole, hopefully preventing any skip of the beat.
Unfortunately for T.J. Warren, the signing of Trevor Ariza likely wrote his name in an e-mail to league officials informing them that he would be a part of a trade off of the growing Phoenix Suns team.
So while the signing at it’s announcement seemed entirely dumbfounding, the logic behind the acquisition is sound, and the future of the 2018-19 Phoenix Suns is slowly being revealed.