The Phoenix Suns have traded away Marquese Chriss. This means that Dragan Bender has one. More. Chance.
Phoenix Suns General Manager Ryan McDonough selected power forward Dragan Bender with the fourth overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft.
Minutes later he surprised the NBA world by making a trade for another power forward, Marquese Chriss.
From the moment Chriss was acquired, the clock was ticking on at least one of them: there was no way that McDonough was drafting both players with the intention that they would remain on the roster in perpetuity. One was to be the future power forward, and the other was to be used as trade bait.
The questions then were who – and when?
On Thursday night, those questions have been answered, sooner than most Suns fans thought, and not necessarily the player that many believed would be the one to be traded.
Marquese Chriss is a more athletic and explosive scorer than Dragan Bender. To that, there is no debate.
However, Dragan Bender is a better defender, a better passer, a much better 3-point shooter, and unarguably has a better attitude than Chriss, a player who seemed to be fighting an unaggressive world every play up and down the court.
That said, either one of these two players could have been traded, meaning that either one was to be the odd man out – and they both knew it.
Finally, with Chriss off the roster and the only forward acquired in the deal is one who is never to be a piece of the future, (Ryan Anderson), Dragan Bender has one more opportunity to prove that he deserved to stay in Phoenix, and one more chance to prove that McDonough made the right decisions in drafting him first, and keeping him on the roster now.
It has been well chronicled that Dragan Bender is a good 3-point shooter, potentially the one aspect of his game that serves as his best asset in having a long career in the NBA.
It has too be well chronicled that his shot is frustratingly inconsistent, regularly flat, and irritatingly short.
When drafted, he was expected to grow to become a player of a Draymond Green ilk, a power forward who can handle the ball and facilitate like a point guard, while remaining around the arc and not looking for shots for himself instead waiting for the wrap-around passes to return to him where he can drain wide-open looks.
Bender does wait for those open shots alright, although often doing absolutely nothing else to make his presence felt, and his role on the roster less and less important.
Whether Bender was just not ready for the NBA game when McDonough selected him or he just needs more time to develop, so far in his career his has looked lost far more often than he has looked like a player who belongs among the world’s best athletes.
The difference between Bender’s first two NBA seasons and now is that for the time being he no longer has to worry about Chriss potentially becoming the long-term answer for the Phoenix Suns.
As of now, Bender needs simply to take his third season in the pros as an opportunity to put the finishing touches on the skills that he most excels at (3-point shooting, perimeter passing and defense), learn as much as possible from veteran Trevor Ariza – who is only under contract for one year – and become the player we all hoped he was when taken as high as he was.
With the unexpected trade of Marquese Chriss, Dragan Bender has been given a second chance at life on the Phoenix Suns.
This is his time to accept it; embrace it; and become the best two-way stretch-four player he can possibly be.
Did anybody say Kristaps Porzingis?
Actually, yeah. A lot of fans have. Now Bender has no reason to not finally become the next great unicorn.