The Phoenix Suns entered the NBA Draft Lottery with the best odds at winning it all. They left after dropping three spots to a no man’s land that nobody wishes to populate.
I am still depressed.
Lottery night 2019 was the worst evening for the Suns since Danny Ainge failed to close out on a John Paxson 3.
In the aftermath I’ve been wondering what the Suns can do to clean this mess up.
There seems to be a few logical options:
1. Trade for a Difference Maker
The most intuitive thing to do is trade the #6 overall pick for a player who can contribute right away. Unfortunately, I doubt the Suns will be able to do this. There aren’t that many players in this draft who make people excited.
However, things can change. If the Lakers draft Darius Garland, maybe they’re less wedded to Lonzo Ball. If the Nets can get Kyrie Irving, maybe they’re ok doing a sign and trade. If Anthony Davis holds tough to his trade demands, the Suns can get in on a three-team deal where they send out the pick and get back something worthwhile.
I doubt it, but here are some potential options:
Lonzo Ball has been a target of the Suns’ since he announced he would leave UCLA after his freshman season, and last year when things went south in LaLa Land, his father announced that he was going to will a trade to Phoenix.
That hasn’t happened – yet. However, there is an expectation that the Lakers are going to do anything and everything in their power to up the talent level on their roster, and that may very much mean at point guard as well. Sun an upgrade could be in the form of Kyrie Irving, Kemba Walker, or even a sign-and-trade for D’Angelo Russell.
Either way, Phoenix can get involved by offering their number 6 overall pick for a point guard with NBA experience, and now because of his father a loose connection to the franchise, potentially filling a glaring need while also not giving up any pieces on the roster that can be used to make additional moves.
D’Angelo Russell is another point guard that the Phoenix Suns have had their eye on for some time, but what makes him so particularly interesting is his personal friendship with Devin Booker.
Russell is in his first RFA offseason and can demand the max – which he very well might get.
For Phoenix, the hope is that either the Nets do not want to pay him that much money out of stubbornness, or they do not want to extend him and instead renounce his rights making him unrestricted so that they can clear up the necessary cap space to potentially sign two other max contracts (the prevailing theory is that they will seek out Kyrie and Kevin Durant).
Either way, the Suns could offer a sign-and-trade (although they probably wouldn’t if Russell is renounced), which would give Russell more money, the Suns an additional year of control, and the Nets at least something in return rather than losing him outright through a traditional free agency transaction.
Since the New Orleans Pelicans won the lottery, rumors have contradicted themselves in that the future addition of Zion Williamson is both not enough for Anthony Davis to break his original trade demand, and that the Pelicans are going to do everything and anything they can to keep him around.
If Davis continues to demand a trade, the Lakers continue to be the presumptive destination to pair up with LeBron James and Co.
To make this happen, the Pelicans are going to want to get as much as possible for Davis and obviously the Lakers’ trade offer from last year just wasn’t enough.
If the Pels prefer the veteran Jrue Holiday to help guide Zion over the still young and relatively inexperienced Lonzo Ball, then Phoenix can once again attempt to insert themselves into the mix and peel Ball off with their six overall pick.
This would be nuts, but the Pelicans would then own the 1st, 3rd, and 6th overall picks in the draft, along with Ingram and Kuzma, and the ability to re-build their team with the combination of one trade, and one individual draft.
And then there is one more crazy trade for you:
Philadelphia fans are going to scream at me for this, but for the rest of you, just hear me out:
It is possible that the 76ers have gone as far as they can with the pairing of Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid. Collin Cowhard has discussed it a number of times that he believes the 76ers should right now choose between the two non-shooters and use the rewards of the resulting trade to guarantee that there are always four shooters on the court at all times around the remaining player from this dynamic duo.
The 6th overall pick can not only provide the replacement point guard (who is a shooter) in Coby White (he shot 35.3% from beyond the arc last season), plus T.J. Warren upped his outside game tremendously last season finishing at 42.8%, while Mikal Bridges projects to be a much better 3-point shooter than his 33.5% percentage last season after firing 42.2% over his final two seasons at Villinova.
Such a trade keeps Philly young overall while upping the veteran presence in the locker room with the addition of Warren.
For Phoenix, they get their star point guard, who obviously cannot shoot, but can too be surrounded with four shooters in Phoenix, especially if new head coach (and former 76ers assistant) Monty Williams has Deandre Ayton shooting more.
One has to imagine too that Simmons can learn to shoot and shoot with confidence, T.J. Warren is living proof of that. In the end might make Philly choose to keep Simmons for the next decade, but if the Suns can steal him away they will do so with the hope that he can learn to shoot for them.
But even if he doesn’t, he can still be a much taller and more well-rounded player than Ricky Rubio, who for the longest time relied entirely on his distribution skills, a lack of which is something that has plagued the Phoenix Suns since the trade demand of Goran Dragic.