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this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
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Suns fan here, and I don't get this trade at all. The main reason is, Ayton's stock has taken a huge dip in the last few months. Rather than give up and cash out, we should have held out if there wasn't a good deal. Ben Simmons was an negative asset, and by waiting 6 months, Philadelphia got James Harden back by waiting. There is zero reason to give up.
Second off: this doesn't help the team. The biggest weakness the team has is that it is very reliant on 3 star wings that have an injury history. Ayton isn't the healthiest, but is 4 years younger than Nurkic, and has played more in general. If we had solid backups, that my be fine, but the team is very weak at the big positions. And it isn't like Grayson Allen is some HUGE pickup that to overcome the weaknesses we take on with downgrading at center. The team seems objectively worse.
Third off: I have had one championship in my lifetime (Diamondbacks in 2001). That team was a bit of a unique situation because they were an expansion team that got all the right pieces early, but I still loved the big players. Johnson, Schilling, and Gonzales all joined the team at 30 or layer, and stayed 4-7 more years with the team. They felt like they wanted to be in Phoenix, and be on that team. The community loved them, and they loved them back.
This current Suns team is 15 months away from a 64 win season, and the only players who saw any consistent play time still on the team are Devin Booker and Bismack Biyombo. The rest of the team are guns for hire. They will do their job, but move on to the next place in a few years. Even if the Phoenix Suns organization wins the championship, it won't be won by a team that I watched struggle to get there.
I really thought that Booker, Johnson, Bridges and Ayton was a solid core that would put the Suns near the top of the league for a decade. It is so sad to all of it gone.
Yeah I see people talking about Allen’s shooting but it wasn’t ever really there for the bucks when they needed it outside maybe 1 series that I can think of. Think this move happened for the suns more because it’s hard to compete when Ayton is as unhappy as he is but as you said they could’ve waited a bit.
I think the main benefit for the suns is just splitting up Ayton's salary into multiple pieces which can be traded later this season. Watch they'll trade for a solid $10-15m rotation player before the deadline.
Yeah, this is not an obvious move for the Suns. After their big trades I was pretty worried about their depth, and I can see why this move would appeal to them, sort of? At least they're getting a mix of youth and experience, with decent upside.
If internally they've given up on Ayton for reasons we don't know about, maybe it's not the worst trade in the world. Certainly not the best. Little and Johnson are interesting. I'm really curious about what Ayton's value will be in a year.
But none of that changes the guns for hire feeling. Being a fan is hard in the analytics era, as much as I enjoy it.
I think this should tell you how bad the situation was with him though. Chemistry is already going to be a pretty big hurdle, that and depth. They must have thought a mediocre return for Ayton was better than having him share the court with Beal and KD at all. That's very telling imo. The tensions/disruptions that would come from Ayton's lack of effort could very much ruin everything. You guys are essentially trying to pry open what could be a very short championship window. Hopefully it works!
Fair warning I only really watch the Suns playoffs games. But I personally have not seen anything from him that places him far above even Nurkic for the Suns.
I think he himself is a net negative bc he views himself as an all-star (which he is don't get me wrong but not on par w KD/Booker). The suns need someone like Looney who's gonna hunt rebounds and get easy buckets. They need more of a role man in that position. Now he absolutely can be this man, but he's just not. He's not aggressively hunting rebounds or using his size to his advantage and often settling for mid range jumpers (which are good but again you have book and KD who are both better at this)
I think even Biyombo is still a free agent.
So there are changes to the CBA that will come into affect that make the trade make more sense. Their trade options become more limited moving forward and splitting Aytons deal now will let them pickup someone at the trade deadline. Waiting could have meant that trading him would be impractical if not impossible, and if the off court issues got bad enough that coaches wanted to bench him they couldn't really afford to.
That said this is insanely low value for him. I can't believe there wasn't a team willing to give up anything decent for him, but I can't imagine doing this deal without exhausting other options.
Hopefully you guys can figure out a way to get a few more quality role players on the team.