Four veteran point guards John Gambadoro says the Phoenix Suns might target
By Adam Maynes
T.J. McConnell
T.J. McConnell is the final player mentioned by John Gambadoro, and one that has great local attraction due to his college days at the University of Arizona.
Long lost in the shuffle of point guards with the Philadelphia 76ers, McConnell has one very interesting attribute that the other three lack: he is young and fits James Jones’ target age of no older than about 27-years-old.
T.J. McConnell will be 27 for the entire 2019-20 season.
Not a offensive threat in his career, as the predominate backup with the Sixers, McConnell has averaged between 6.1 and 6.9 points per game in his four NBA seasons.
Where he lacks in scoring average he makes up for in offensive distribution, averaging a respectable 4.7 assists per game in his career (almost all as a backup), and 6.6 per game in his second season, the only year of his career where he started a majority of games played: 51 of 81.
Suns not shopping the 6th pick for a veteran point guard as per reports. A few names to keep an eye on in free agency are Cory Joseph, Pat Bev, Darren Collison, TJ McConnell.
— John Gambadoro (@Gambo987) June 4, 2019
Offensively he is not quite the duel-threat that the Gambo recently said Phoenix is looking for as his 3-point shooting is nothing special – 33.5% on his career on only 248 career attempts.
McConnell might be the only player that James Jones would sign to a four or five-year contract due to his age, although in my opinion, that should only be a consideration if Jones believes that there is a statistical explosion in hidden within him just waiting to burst out.
He’d certainly be cheap having been a career backup and with presumably low expectations which combined would temper an already non-competitive market for his services.
Phoenix’s consideration of signing McConnell would have to be based on the answer to some very important questions.
Is he just a career backup? Or is he a good starter who has unfortunately always played behind someone better?
His ability to run an offense should be good, but can he shoot? Sure, he once averaged 43.5% for a season, but he only attempted 62 shots. Can he take 300-400 3’s in a year? If he did, would he hit 38% of them? Or closer to the 20.0% he fired three years ago on 55 attempts.
Next. The value of the Phoenix Suns' 6th overall pick. dark
None of these four players are the penultimate answer to the Phoenix Suns’ problems at point guard, although three of the four of them would help the team improve at least somewhat right away as they have strengths that have been serous weaknesses for some time.
Would any of these point guards only be signed if James Jones drafted a rookie sixth overall? Or might they be targeted early for their presumed affordable contract which would allow for the signing of a much bigger fish elsewhere? These questions – and more – will be answered soon, and hopefully correctly.