Five Upcoming Free Agents For The Phoenix Suns To Target
Phoenix Suns General Manager James Jones recently went on Burns and Gambo and talked 2019 free agency. Here are five potential free agents he can target.
The Phoenix Suns need help in the worst way, and recently when GM James Jones said on Burns and Gambo on 98.7 Arizona Sports that he wanted to target five free agents between the ages of 25-30 to by far the youngest organization in the league with the hope of landing three of them.
This got me thinking: who might he target?
Fortunately on a team as bad as the Suns are right now, bringing in serviceable veterans to help with growth is not a bad idea, especially with a team that has stockpiled talent yet struggles to find the win column.
Because of NBA rules that most general managers follow (hi, Magic Johnson), Jones couldn’t mention specific players that he would target.
But that’s why I’m here. The following are five players that fit the description Jones provided that, with absolutely no information from sources, could be the Suns’ targets for free agency this summer.
Naturally, we’ll start with my favorite of the group, Nikola Mirotic.
Nikola Mirotic
The 28-year-old stretch four will be entering the 2019 free agency fresh off a two-year, $27 million deal from the Chicago Bulls. I don’t see much of an opportunity for Mirotic to re-sign with his current club, the Milwaukee Bucks, who needs for cap space elsewhere.
Thus, the sharpshooting big will presumably be looking for a new home next season.
Humor me for a second and momentarily forget that defense exists in the NBA. Seeing two 50 point first quarters this season makes that a bit easier. Therefore, a combination of Mirotic and Deandre Ayton at the four and five would be the opposite of intimidating.
Offensively, Mirotic is the perfect big to play with Ayton. He’s a threat from beyond the arc, launching over six 3’s per game each of the past four seasons, and is a career 36% 3-point shooter on a large volume of attempts.
This season he sits a little above that at 36.8% on just over 7 attempts per game. He’s right near the top five among bigs with at leastfive 3-point attempts per game in shooting percentage.
Unfortunately for him, he just joined the team with one of those big men, Brook Lopez, who is garnering a lot of attention with the kind of season he’s having.
Bring Mirotic to Phoenix and this lineup starts to make sense. Allow Ayton to go to work in the post with sharpshooters around him. Draft someone like Ja Morant at the guard position and Mirotic will be the perfect big to kick the ball out to. He’d run and gun in transition with athletic playmakers all around him.
Mirotic makes sense in what the Suns could potentially build around, even if sacrifices are made on the defensive end.
Next up is another shooter, but at a position that Phoenix is deep at.