Chandler Buyout
This deal should irk everyone.
It looked as if all it was was a friendly nod to LeBron James by his ‘ol buddy James Jones.
Eventually it was reported that letting Tyson Chandler leave for the Lakers for free rather than trading him as an expiring contract was all Robert Sarver’s doing (which makes sense since the move made zero basketball sense whatsoever and it is difficult to blame an actual basketball mind on such a deal), and maybe Jones didn’t protest because it was helping LeBron some, but this probably should have been the first real even that Jones pushed back on and found a way to trade Tyson and get something back in return.
The problem is, while he was the first buyout player that should have been traded for an asset, he was not the last.
Ariza for Oubre / Rivers (waived)
This trade is a conundrum to grade as the acquisition of Kelly Oubre was an apparent accident as Jones was not actively speaking to both Washington and Memphis about a deal but was allowing those two teams to discuss the perimeters then fill the Phoenix Suns in however they deemed fit.
In the end, Phoenix thought they were getting one Brooks (Dillon) while Memphis thought they were sending another (MarShon), and the trade fell apart.
So, Jones went around Memphis and went straight to Washington managing to snag Oubre – who had originally been going to Memphis – for Trevor Ariza.
That ended up being a tremendous deal for James Jones and the Suns and has thus far worked out beautifully, although it was still all apparently an accident.
In the process, Jones did acquire Austin Rivers (a point guard – who they still needed at the time) only to waive him instead of utilizing the final year of his contract as a means of acquiring an asset somewhere else down the line.
However, Rivers is not a difference maker in the NBA and his value was probably very low, so it may have come down to it being simpler to just let him walk.