NBA Draft: The aftermath of the Phoenix Suns’ drop

3. Trade Down

There will be a lot of fans who want the Suns to try and package TJ, Josh Jackson, the Bucks pick, and the #6 to move up in the draft. The only way that makes sense for the Suns is if they get a top-two pick.

Unfortunately for Phoenix, that’s not a very appealing offer for Memphis or New Orleans.

What the Suns should probably do instead is give up on the idea of finding a star in this draft and pivot to finding key role players. More Mikal Bridges’, less Dragan Bender‘s.

There are two potential trades that might make a lot more sense:

These trades not only gets the Suns more talent in defined roles, but it also gives them a little more salary flexibility now and over the next few years.

We’ll call this the Bill Belichick strategy, which always makes fans stark raving mad, but also often leads to a winning team.

By  moving down to acquire more mid-level picks, the Suns should be able to fill in the glaring gap at power forward and they can take a swing at a combo guard with the potential to be an upgrade over or a complement to De’Anthony Melton.

At the power forward spot, it’s totally possible that Brandon Clarke will slide down this far. If not, fellow Zag Rui Hachimura should be. Rui gives you a lot higher upside than Clarke.

PJ Washington and Grant Williams will also be available and ready to fill in the PJ Tucker Role for the team. While these guys aren’t going to change the direction of the team, they’ll all a big upgrade over starting Warren at PF today.

Phoenix Suns

There are also a ton of great combo guards with a puncher’s chance to become serious contributors. At least several of them should be available in the 20’s. Tyler Herro, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Kevin Porter Jr., Romeo Langford, and Ty Jerome all provide good size and all-around skill.

Let’s say Clarke slips to 14 and the Suns are able to pick up someone like Tyler Herro at 20, Phoenix’s lineup gets a lot better than it probably would be with Coby White or anyone else they would pick up at 6, looking something like:

PG: Tyler Johnson, De’Anthony Melton

SG: Devil Booker, Tyler Herro

SF: Kelly Oubre, TJ Warren/Josh Jackson

PF: Brandon Clarke

C: DeAndre Ayton/Richaun Holmes

If the Suns lose Holmes they could also use the extra pick to snag a beast like Bruno Fernando who would allow them to just run out a ton of size against teams all game long.

Conclusion

The Suns’ draft position is less than ideal. In some situations the league may have given Suns fans a huge gift by showing Sarver that tanking is no longer a viable strategy. Whatever the long-term benefits may be, the short-term situation sucks.

The Suns can salvage this, but to do so they’ll almost certainly have to make a move that most of us won’t like.