San Antonio Spurs
There are very few teams in the NBA that need a point guard like the Phoenix Suns do, and the San Antonio Spurs might actually be one of those teams.
After a unique offseason, their only point guard left standing is Patty Mills, and like J.J. Barea, he might be a Spur for life.
And unlike Barea, he’s nothing special (outside of his excellent 3-point shooting).
Mills is a fantastic backup point guard, the very type of player that I hope that Elie Okobo or De’Anthony Melton could become. While he can dish, reserves in the NBA can focus more on scoring rather than flow of the offense the way the starters do and thus he can just shoot and shoot, which Mills (and Okobo) can both do.
Trading for Mills though just gives Phoenix another backup point guard for their starting lineup – his biggest plus being that he would be another veteran leader, although they are already chock full of those.
And consider this about Mills: last season he started a career-high 36 games and played a career-high 25.7 minutes per game: he averaged fewer assists per game at 2.8 than he had the season before when he averaged 3.5 in 72 appearances off the bench and only 8 starts, and an average of 21.9 minutes per game.
I’d like Mills, but only if Damian Lillard is Phoenix’s starting point guard.