Alongside Devin Booker, the Phoenix Suns are one All-Star away from being a regular playoff participant. Could one unexpectedly become available to them this summer?
Phoenix Suns General Manager James Jones has apparently put all of his eggs into the summer of 2020 basket, one year before a number of stars become available.
With potentially upwards of $30 million dollars in cap space from the loss of several restricted free agents (Tyler Johnson, Dario Saric, and Aron Baynes at the top of the list), Jones will have a bunch of money to play with in both trade and free agency to build around Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton.
Throw in the potential trade piece of Kelly Oubre as well as Ricky Rubio and Jones has the ability to more room to work with heading into the summer since Bryan Colangelo had in 1999 – pre-lockout.
That said, he needs players worth acquiring – and this summer’s free agency list is quite weak.
Andrew Clark broke down the list in depth here, but for a quick re-cap:
Gordon Hayward would be nice, and could potentially be signed with the max without moving any significant pieces, but with both Oubre and Mikal Bridges on the roster, coupled with Hayward’s injury history (not to mention that moving back to the Western Conference diminishes his ability to ever play in the NBA Finals), and such a signing seems highly unlikely.
Paul Millsap is 35. Enough said.
DeMar DeRozan and Otto Porter would be nice additions, however they come at extreme expense as well, and again, they only change the talent at one particular position (small forward) rather than filling in a gap that is desperately needed: power forward, if not point guard.
Andre Drummond and Hassan Whiteside are redundant to Ayton, and Anthony Davis is never leaving Los Angeles again.
Nicolas Batum? Marc Gasol? Move along.
Serge Ibaka and Danilo Gallinari would be solid additions and true upgrades at power forward, but in order to sign either one of them Phoenix would have to overpay, and we already see with Ricky Rubio how overpaying for an average player doesn’t necessarily guarantee anything in the regular season.
There are plenty of other names that may be fairly floated around as possibilities for the Phoenix Suns to sign, and who knows, James Jones may have reason to add a couple of them to provide further depth to the roster.
However, none of them – not one of them who may even give the franchise the time of day with a free agency interview – gives the Suns another star to pair up with Devin Booker, which means that trade is going to have to be the way to go.
But who?