The Phoenix Suns should trade for the 4th overall pick

Now that the New Orleans Pelicans have the fourth overall pick along with the first overall, the Phoenix Suns should offer a trade to take what was once the L.A. Lakers’ pick.

The Phoenix Suns need a point guard and there is a chance that the best available in the 2019 NBA Draft will be Darius Garland.

Now that New Orleans has the the fourth overall pick following their trade with the L.A. Lakers for Anthony Davis, and point guards Lonzo Ball and Jrue Holiday already in the fold, the Suns need to reach out to the Pelicans and make a secondary deal happen.

With the NBA Draft now only five days away, the James Jones still has time to compete with other teams around the league for this pick.

At this moment the New Orleans front office is sifting through a number of trade offers, but the Suns can not only offer talent in the way of players already in the league, but an early pick of their own, sixth overall, plus more.

The Suns should offer a simple yet enticing trade of:

The Pelicans fall back only two spots and can still target a decent player at that spot, but they land a solid outside shooting small forward who can not only help them right away but who’s contract does not hinder their continued ability to add to the roster in the future.

The Milwaukee pick would hopefully further put the Suns over the top in their offering as it is hard for me to believe that a team can offer such a low pick this year, plus a productive player for now, and a future first round pick as well.

I would say that the Pelicans “lose” Solomon Hill, but it’s not like he’s any good anyway.

Generally a good defender, offensively Hill provides very little to nothing to a team.

Hill’s contract is a hair larger than T.J. Warren‘s this season, however he is a free agent after 2019-20 which does help Phoenix gain cap space for next offseason with Warren’s contract running through 2022 (and Tyler Johnson‘s coming off the books as well).

With the fourth overall pick, the Suns would then have the opportunity to draft Vanderbilt point guard Darius Garland, who while only played five games before tearing his meniscus in his left knee, lit college basketball on fire with his incredible offensive play.

Garland could easily be the second overall pick if it weren’t for the injury, and at 6’2″ and 175 pounds, he is almost the identical size of Ja Morant, who lists at only one inch taller (although I have seen Garland listed at 6’3″ as well, and at 19-years-old, could still grow a little bit more for another two years).

According to basketballsocietyonline,

"Garland has elite quickness, mixed with his Kemba-esque package that helps him to continue to keep defenders off balance."

If drafted, Garland would presume to start on day one for the Suns and would easily be the point guard of the future, although there is one problem: in his five games at Vanderbilt, he recorded only 13 total assists…

An amazing outside shooter in those games (11-23 for 47.8% from 3), his 2.6 assist average leaves much  to be desired for a team like Phoenix who is desperate to have an offensive that finally flows well.

After doing some reading though, it appears that Garland’s teammates failed to convert on his passes (missing 18 of 28 shot attempts on passes that should have been assists) which not only hurt his assist rate but also caused him to play more selfishly in the half court.

Thus, one cannot help but think that an NBA head coach design an offensive system that not only accentuates Garland’s offensive ability, but that his teammates in the Association would be more efficient converters of his passes than his college ones.

James Jones should reach out to his Phoenix Suns predecessor Dave Griffin right now and make the offer above so that Monty Williams does not suffer the same fate that his own predecessor Igor Kokoskov had to deal with in not having a point guard on the roster in his first season as head coach.

With this deal, the Suns would not only have a point guard of the future, but they save money on the position in the process, saving enough money this summer to not only re-up Kelly Oubre but also acquire a starting power forward, while still saving money for next offseason as well.