Would the Phoenix Suns swap rosters with the Philadelphia 76ers?
By Adam Maynes
Overall
Overall, the Phoenix Suns would probably be willing to swap entire rosters.
While they would hate to give up Devin Booker, if it was possible to have a young team that included Ben Simmons, Tobias Harris, Al Horford, and Joel Embiid, they would do it.
Phoenix Suns
Position-by-position though, the two teams are much, much closer than might appear to the naked eye.
Ricky Rubio is a very good point guard and in offensive awareness is similar to that of Ben Simmons.
Devin Booker is a superior player to even Simmons and would be the best player on Philadelphia if not second to Embiid alone.
Kelly Oubre is at worst totally comparable to the much higher-paid Tobias Harris.
Al Horford is better, but Dario Saric isn’t bad and is much younger (and cheaper).
And Deandre Ayton was selected first overall for a reason: he’s by no means a scrub even when compared to Joel Embiid.
While comparatively speaking, the Phoenix Suns had been considered the Philadelphia 76ers of the West for the last couple of years because of their attempt (well, Ryan McDonough’s attempt) to generally build through the draft, not only is that regime gone, but that youth in general is out of here as well.
If Deandre Ayton does eventually (hopefully within the next year) become somewhat similar to Joel Embiid in game-changing ability, then an argument can be made that the Phoenix Suns would not swap rosters – especially if Kelly Oubre continues to hit his 3’s.
However, for this season alone, while the Philadelphia 76ers in the Pacific Division might also be 4-2 prior to the evening of Monday the 4th of November, every NBA fan would have entered the 2019-20 regular season with thoughts that that team is a title contender regardless of the Conference they played in.
Which just means: if James Jones could and wanted to win today, he’d swap entire rosters with Philadelphia. If he wanted to attempt to win in a year or two, holding pat would be the sound choice.