Kristaps Porzingis trade further proof of Phoenix Suns management ineptitude

The Phoenix Suns need a star. They would prefer a young one. Fans have wanted Phoenix to trade for Kristaps Porzingis for the last two years. The opportunity finally came, and they were entirely unprepared.

On the morning of Thursday January 31, Kristaps Porzingis demanded a trade from the New York Knicks. While it had been originally reported at the end of last season that he was unhappy with the direction of the franchise, the public proclamation of his desire made Phoenix Suns fan’s mouths water.

Fans have long desired seeing Porzingis play next to Devin Booker and the kind of two-man game the two could have together seemed like a match made in NBA heaven.

Porzingis is young, currently still on his rookie contract, and a stretch-four that would make the Suns’ offense a great joy to watch, and potentially enjoyable for many years to come.

Additionally, with Porzingis still recovering from his ACL injury and no specific return date in sight, Phoenix would still have been in line to receive one of the top picks in the draft, with great odds to land the first overall selection. Even if Porzingis had come back to have played at all, it would have been too little too late, and the Suns weren’t winning many games the remainder of the year.

They too could have just sat him to guarantee he was “fully recovered,” continuing the intentional tank besting their odds of landing in the top-three and the 14.0% odds of taking the first overall pick.

Phoenix Suns

There was a time in history when the Suns made that  trade. When a big name star became available and Phoenix snuck in and snagged him – even totally unexpectedly. This was the Suns’ way and it helped to keep them competitive for decades because it meant a continued influx of talent, often star talent, that consistently made them relevant.

Then, seemingly just as quickly as one may have read the tweet that Porzingis was available, he was just as quickly off the market, traded to the Dallas Mavericks, and before those daydreams of Booker, Ayton, and Porzingis playing together had even materialized in fans minds, they were as irrelevant as sweeping one’s driveway in a blizzard.

And why weren’t the Phoenix Suns the team acquiring Porzingis, or even involved in trade discussions long enough to at least let the Unicorn stay on the market longer than just a few minutes?

Because they didn’t have what the Knicks wanted in return.

New York, it turns out, wanted cap space this summer, so they needed to swap out a couple of their big contracts along with Porzingis in exchange for expiring deals and whatever expendable talent a team might have.

This is precisely how it went down, and precisely why the Suns couldn’t be involved. While the Suns have plenty of young talent, and the cap space to acquire a couple of bigger deals, they didn’t have any expiring contracts on the books to send back – anymore.

Yet on two occasions this season the Suns have had players on expiring deals just walk, refusing to let their contracts work to the franchise’s benefit in anyway, the best benefit, of course, neing able to offer a team cap space this summer after the acquisition of a star – ironically the very plan that Ryan McDonough had attempted to enact each of the least two seasons.

But with McDonough gone, Robert Sarver and James Jones allowed an unhappy Tyson Chandler (boo hoo, he was set to make $13.5M this season on super declined talent), to walk to the Lakers, and Austin Rivers, who never even suited up for Phoenix, make his way to the Houston Rockets, along with his own $12.5M expiring deal.

The combined $26M in contracts set to expire after this season would, in most circumstances, be a huge benefit to a rebuilding team like the Suns looking for a star, who could do exactly what the Mavericks did on Thursday and basically swap cap space for a star.

Somewhere McDonough is shaking his head in “I told you so” disappointment.

Therefore, when Phoenix Suns fans shouted in vein at Sarver wondering why Chandler was let go for nothing, wasting his contract as an asset, and wondered why Phoenix wouldn’t at least give Rivers a shot a point guard let alone too save him for a potential deal, they saw that there could be a possibility on the horizon for those contracts to be used to their advantage.

Unbeknownst to anyone, Kristaps Porzingis was that trade option, and Sarver and Jones’ failure to see into the possibilities of a couple of months into the future, blocked them from ever having a chance at getting involved in such a deal.

For all of the times that Phoenix Suns management has been called incompetent in recent history, there is no better example than this one to prove that statement’s truth.

Suns fans are desperate for a deal, but they tend to agree with James Jones in saying they don’t want a deal just for the sake of making a deal, instead wanting the right  deal.

And yet, because Sarver and Jones decided to “do a solid” and let Chandler and Rivers walk without receiving anything in return, the Phoenix Suns have once again seen the chance of acquiring a star through trade slip right by them without Phoenix ever really be in any consideration.

Phoenix Suns management is basketball-wise, entirely inept.