If the Suns do intend to part ways with Ayton via a Sign & Trade, what kind of trade ideas do you think could be beneficial and realistic?
I'll throw one out to start it off.
Orlando receives:
Deandre Ayton + Jae Crowder
Phoenix receives:
Mo Bamba + Jonathan Isaac
CP3 and Ayton to Portalnd for Dame. Plus a draft pick in '23.
But then again I don't think Portland would let Dame go. That would be like the Suns trading away Booker.
Quote from: azfan on May 17, 2022, 09:43:45 PM
CP3 and Ayton to Portalnd for Dame. Plus a draft pick in '23.
The Suns actually publicly apologized for their disgraceful performance. I haven't seen that happen before in Pro Sports that I can remember.
Trading Ayton is a massive overreaction. CP3 has grown his game and is now stunting his game. We take the good with the bad here. CP3 is not going to be around forever. Booker and Ayton with Bridges and Cam Johnson is a Core 4 that can play together for 10 years if they want to.
The Suns will match any qualifying offer so it doesn't really matter. However, it comes down to if Ayton will make it a problem. If he does, then I believe there are a multitude of trades available and the Suns will be able to command a monster haul that will keep them at the top for a long time.
Arxpert - I agree with everything you said, but you left out what hypothetical trade(s) you had in mind if they did need to go that route.
Azfan - Although I think that's possible, I think Portland would actually be more interested in trades that don't include CP3, and that makes it more difficult.
Quote from: |P|R|Y|M|E| on May 18, 2022, 05:50:21 PM
Arxpert - I agree with everything you said, but you left out what hypothetical trade(s) you had in mind if they did need to go that route.
Azfan - Although I think that's possible, I think Portland would actually be more interested in trades that don't include CP3, and that makes it more difficult.
I'll post some scenarios. Whether or not the teams involved would do the deal is not certain and irrelevant, but I would take Ayton for any of these packages. These will all be trade machine acceptable. In real life, there are cap-holds, sign and trades, etc and circumstances that would have to be hammered out, but given those small factors being generically taken care of, these are some trades I could see happening.
I wouldn't want them to happen. Mind you that most of the Suns are on good contracts so we don't have anything we have to try to purposely off-load except for maybe Landry Shamet.
Blazers - Dame and Ayton paired.
Anfernee Simons, Jusef Nurkic, #7 Overall (could be Benedict Mathurin) and a future 1st for Ayton
In this scenario I would try everything humanly possible to Re-Sign JaVale McGee and sign Montrezl Harrell in Free Agency
Raptors - Scottie Barnes and Ayton long term core duo
Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet for Ayton, Landry Shamet, Cam Payne and a future 1st rounder unprotected
In this scenario Toronto offloads both players they don't want to hold long term Siakam and FVV and gets a stable Duo in return. I would try whatever possible to bring back JaVale McGee. CP3 retires in a year, FVV takes over, Booker Super Max's
3 Way Trade
Suns Receive - Rudy Gobert and Rui Hachimura
Jazz Receive - Kristaps Porzingis, Cameron Payne
Wizards Receive - Deandre Ayton and Multiple 1st round Draft Picks
Suns try to sign Harrell and Pat Connaughton.
Rui Hachimura is a Mid Range Maven at PF for a year. Fits right in with what we do for the championship window.
Wizards get rid of Rui before he needs to be paid and are SuperMaxing Brad Beal so it gives Beal the All Star Big that they need.
Jazz offload Gobert to keep Donovan Mitchell happy basically.
Looking around the league and the teams of which are serious contenders for this - it would be a challenge for the Suns to replicate Aytons prodcution in the form of another center. This is incredibly biased of me, but perhaps they could trade for picks that would allow them to draft Loko and Mathurian. I understand this is a longshot. Bennedunk would be a much bigger challenge however since he is projected to be a lottery pick. Just a thought. This involves a lot of risk and would take a year or two for the Suns to become serious contenders again.
Personally I'm with Arxpert on this; trading Ayton would be an overreaction. But if the dude does not get paid he's going to want out immediately. I don't have much faith that Sarver will pay him.
Quote from: azfan on May 18, 2022, 08:56:39 PM
Looking around the league and the teams of which are serious contenders for this - it would be a challenge for the Suns to replicate Aytons prodcution in the form of another center. This is incredibly biased of me, but perhaps they could trade for picks that would allow them to draft Loko and Mathurian. I understand this is a longshot. Bennedunk would be a much bigger challenge however since he is projected to be a lottery pick. Just a thought. This involves a lot of risk and would take a year or two for the Suns to become serious contenders again.
Personally I'm with Arxpert on this; trading Ayton would be an overreaction. But if the dude does not get paid he's going to want out immediately. I don't have much faith that Sarver will pay him.
I think Ayton will 100% be paid. He is going to get a Max contract offer and the Suns will match it. It is only a question if Ayton wants to be here anymore. Any deal that would send Ayton away would need to land a Center in some capacity. If it's the Gobert deal, it's actually very solid as CP3 would work well with him. If not, then the focus would be Re Signing JaVale McGee and playing a little smaller next season, but still having McGee available.
Other trades that would make some sense:
Pistons -
Jeremi Grant
Saddiq Bey
#5 Overall and some more picks
- Must re-sign JaVale McGee and look to add Connaughton a 3pt shooter off the bench
Thunder
Shai Gilges-Alexander and #2 overall
for
Ayton
- Thunder would be a little crazy here, but they want to get rid of SGA and his 5 year deal at over 30mil a year, so replacing it with Ayton would make sense because they have Josh Giddey and 17 other picks. This isn't a Lebron draft. There are a lot of good players, but no Franchise Starter Packs.
SGA does nothing for the Suns at 30mil a year as a 6th man, so I would demand that #2 overall pick and draft Jaden Ivey or Chet Holmgren. They won't do it, but that would be the type of hard ball I would play. Again, this all has to do with Ayton's ability to not have a breakdown and try to force his way out which would tank his value.
Pacers (less likely, but interesting)
Myles Turner
TJ McConnell
TJ Warren (If Healthy)
#6 Overall and a future set of picks
For
Ayton
Landry Shamet (offload 4 year deal)
- Not the deal I'd want, but TJ McConnell would be a good PG behind CP3, Warren can light it up if healthy from deep, Turner is a rim protector. 6th overall could be any type of useful piece or packaged up with more picks and players to move up to #4 maybe and snag Jaden Ivey/Banchero/Holmgren/Jabari Smith who could step right in and help.
I'd much rather Prefer Tyrese Haliburton in a Pacers deal and he could be added to that offer and still work with the trade machine, but the Suns chose to take Jalen Smith over Haliburton in his draft because he is redundant to Booker. So the Pacers are not really a team I would want to be trade partners with. You can't really stack 15 players deep and expect to be a great playoff team as we saw this season Monty doesn't know how to make adjustments with just about every type of weapon possible.
----->
If I were coaching, by Game 4 I would have had a thicker, more athletic Aaron Holiday sticking to Brunson like Glue. I would have had Payne, Booker, Bridges, Cam Johnson, and Crowder playing at the end of the 1st quarter into the 2nd when Luka was sitting out and Sub Payne/Holiday until CP3 came back in mid 2nd quarter. What Monty did was the inverse. He put Booker on the bench when Luka was out and rode with slow CP3 vs Brunson and Dinwiddie and got chewed up every time.
I also would have tried some McGee and Ayton lineups by game 4 and gotten Ayton some looks from the Elbow with some bully ball. The Mavs made a ton of 3s and I know it scared Monty away from using 2 Centers, but they also bricked a ton of 3s and we gave up way too many offensive rebounds. We didn't chip away enough 2s consistently to put any pressure on the Mavs either. So Mavs packed the paint, but with the Twin Towers look, they would have been able to play Volley Ball up high often enough and instead of Crowder taking all the 3s, Cam Johnson and Booker could have taken those shots with Crowder out of the game in those stretches.
The Suns were one of the worst 3pt shooting teams in the Postseason if not the worst. Also the worst of any elite team in the regular season. Once Booker hurt his hamstring and stopped going to the rim and getting to the FT Line, the writing was on the wall. The whole team settled for level 10 difficulty hard mid range shots and to their credit they made plenty of them, but this isn't the 90s. Teams are just going to jack up 40-50 3's per game if they have to and negate all that hard work to get 2's that aren't dunks and layups.
Monty is paid the big bucks to coach. I'm not, but it doesn't excuse him from conceding Game 4. The "egregious fouls" game is 1 thing, but you don't need to give away 3 road games doing the same things. Biyombo was over-used. Bridges was runner up to DPOY, he should have just take the challenge of guarding Luka until he had 4 fouls, then you switch it up. So many ways the Suns could have approached it. Some of it makes me think CP3 refused to admit this series was not a good matchup for him personally and Monty dared not bench him.
In the end, I don't think Ayton will demand out of Phoenix. I think he will get his money and be satisfied running it back 1 more year until CP3 is finished. The real question I have is can the Suns get Booker to sign a Supermax extension because he only has 2 seasons left I believe.
Any chance Sarver has to keep Booker, Ayton, Bridges, and Cam Johnson together for the next decade he better take. Learn from the Warriors and keep your Core no matter who comes and goes (CP3 came just like KD came). It is a lot easier to plug in the next version of CP3 in a Lowry type or attract someone like KD or Kawhi to come join up for a year when you have the pieces in place. You never know and you don't get chances to keep a core like this very often.