Spencer Dinwiddie might be a legitimate target for the Phoenix Suns

With the 6th overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, the Phoenix Suns select: not a ready-made-star point guard. But they might get a good project, and Spencer Dinwiddie could be the perfect placeholder for the time being.

We here at Valley of the Suns are focusing heavily on point guards the Phoenix Suns could potentially acquire this offseason, and discussing all the many ways that obtaining such guards might be possible as rumors and scenarios percolate in the Twitter-verse.

One option that might not excite too many people now but at least makes a whole lot of sense, is the drafting of a project at point guard sixth overall while concurrently trading for a starting placeholder at a reasonable price.

This idea all begins with one tweet, although a situation that has nothing directly to do with the two players I am about to mention:

Although I have discussed that the idea of pairing Kyrie Irving and D’Angelo Russell together in Brooklyn does not make a lot of sense (the link to that opinion is highlighted below), often times in life, the thing that makes the least amount of sense becomes reality, so as critical I may be of an idea occurring, there is every reason in the world to believe that it could still happen.

What I mean is this: Who knows! If the Brooklyn Nets do land the services of one Kyrie Irving, maybe they do pair him together with their current All-Star point guard, D’Angelo Russell.

For most Suns fans that idea hurts them to the core as both should  be targets of Phoenix, and if they end up playing together on another team, that embarrassment of riches smacks too closely to the history the Suns have had at that position, and yet at this moment, are as poor as Aladdin without a magic lamp.

Phoenix Suns

(Honestly, if you found a magic lamp with a genie, would you waste any of your three wishes on something sports related, like making the Phoenix Suns a perennially dominant NBA team? I would be curious as the happiness you would bring to millions would be undeniable – although at the expense of many more millions. Hhmmm…)

But if that pairing does happen, the Nets would be allocating around $70 million a year to one position between three players – including Spencer Dinwiddie who’s personal contract extension kicks in this coming season, beginning with $10.6 million for the first year.

Brooklyn will need to diversify their talent somewhat specifically by bolstering their frontcourt, and while the Suns could potentially offer Josh Jackson, they could too offer T.J. Warren and further acquire the Nets’ 17th overall pick in this draft (although if that is too high, their 27th overall pick from Denver, or even their 31st overall pick (the first in the second round), from New York via Philadelphia).

Dinwiddie would be an absolute upgrade over everyone Phoenix currently employs at point (I say that often when writing about PG’s as almost anyone  they may acquire would be an upgrade), and at only $10 million this coming season, by swapping either Jackson or Warren’s contracts, the Suns would still the same relative amount of cap space that they are currently projected to have already.

He too is a veteran, right at about the age that James Jones had said he wants to acquire players (Spencer will be 26 for all of next season) and is only under contract for three seasons should either he not work out to the level that maybe the front office would wish, or…

Even if the Suns were to acquire Dinwiddie in trade, they should still seek to acquire a second point guard, and what better situation than to draft a prospect at sixth overall (likely someone with only one year of college experience anyway), let him develop for those three years (which technically should be through his senior season), and by the time Dinwiddie’s contract expires in the summer of 2022, Phoenix will know exactly what they have in each, giving them the kind of option they would love  to have right now.

There is a chance that that the Suns too will have their pick of the second best point guard in this draft behind Ja Morant, and at six decide between Vanderbilt’s Darius Garland and North Carolina’s Coby White.

Whichever they chose, chances are neither are going to be ready to lead an NBA team this season (even Steve Nash needed to wait until his third season in the league before becoming a full-time starter, and did not average double-digit scoring until his fifth year in the league or double-digit assists until his ninth year) further raising the necessity of acquiring a short-term answer, although still somebody who will help the current core progress into a continual playoff team.

(I wrote recently about the Suns potentially signing Ricky Rubio as a long-term option, although hypothetically he too could be a target under this scenario, although likely a much more expensive one in terms of dollars).

If James Jones does bank on either Garland or White becoming the point guard of the future over time, then the necessity of acquiring a bigger name like Lonzo Ball or D’Angelo Russell does not make sense in the grand scheme of the team’s development.

However, if the Brooklyn Nets do end up with Kyrie Irving and D’Angelo Russell on the same roster, the Phoenix Suns might have the kind of trade offer necessary to acquire a very solid Spencer Dinwiddie for the next three years, while developing their point guard of the future at the same time.