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.
2. Make the Pick
The Suns could stay at six and make a pick. This draft has two elite players and one really good player. After that, it’s all a crap shoot, which means there is a ton of risk involved in staying put and making a pick.
Add in the development curve and this is the most depressing path forward.
There’s a few options they can look at:
Cam Reddish
Assuming the Suns put Josh Jackson out on life raft and wish him the best of luck, they can just draft his clone in Cam Reddish – although that might be unfair to Cam who spent all of this year stuck as third fiddle on a really great Duke team.
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However, welcome to Phoenix where he’d be lucky to be the third fiddle. I don’t think it’s getting any better for Cam and if I were the Suns I wouldn’t make this pick. It might work out long-term, but I doubt it.
Darius Garland
Darius might be a lot of things. An elite scorer, a good athlete, a solid defender, etc. He may also be made out of glass and soon to be out of the league. The only thing known about him is that he’s a score first guard. Unless the Suns really loved how Eric Bledsoe and Booker fit together, they’d be wise to avoid picking Garland.
Brandon Clarke
I am a Gonzaga homer and I make no apologies about it. Best team in college basketball and I love me some Brandon Clarke. I think he could have shades of Taj Gibson where he plays elite defense, is a scrapper for lose balls, and just gets points where they’re given to him. That might fit really well next to Deandre Ayton.
The only challenge is Brandon made his living in college using his athleticism to feast on lesser athletes. Running up against LeBron is a different animal. By NBA standards, Clarke is small. At 6’8″ with a small wingspan he’s just got a high potential to be a bust.
Coby White
The only fit that makes sense to me in this pick is Coby White. White is a big time player that does a little bit of everything. He reminds me a lot of Elfrid Payton except with slightly less intrusive hair at this age and an actual jumper. He shoots the 3 at a clip that should translate well to the NBA. His ability to play elite defense, distribute the ball, and hit a jumper makes him a nice fit alongside Booker. If the Suns stay in at this spot, this is the best fit for the team.
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.