Feigen: Rockets offered the Nets their draft picks back at the deadline for the Suns’ Draft Picks

I think this solidifies the Suns aren't ready to break up the team and will go hard on improving to push this group for at least next 2 years... https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/...ort-agrees-to-five-year-50-plus-million-pact/https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/...ort-agrees-to-five-year-50-plus-million-pact/

 

Suns aren't going to break up team soon, but Durant and Beal only have so much time as good players. Beal's contract is already well underwater.

 

Sean Marks should have his jersey retired at Toyota Center for declining Stone's offers.

The Nets picks are better, they don't have any stars or imminent cap space. Suns won't be under .500 for 5-6 years. Not worth it for one mediocre additional pick.

Someone has to tell Stone to stop making risky offers. We're in control of our own destiny. He's trying to hit home runs when we don't need it.

 

Exactly and why I likely wouldn't consider this swap of picks straight up. The Suns owner is on his 3rd coach in 3 yrs of ownership--highly impatient sort it seems. Hiring Mike B is about going all in with this core and trying to get as far as he can. Unless Durant and Beal find the fountain of youth or their GM can pull off some kind of great trade I don't see them progressing.

 

I think this draft is so wide open that almost any name in the top 10 is possible to be available depending on what different teams rank different prospects. Its so hard to know who will and wont be available at #9 except probably Sarr and Risacher. I've seen players like Castle mocked as high as #3 and as low as #12

Reed Sheppard is mocked #2 on CBS now who has been a popular target.

At the end of the day its going to come down to our scouting report.

3 players i like are
Reed Sheppard
Donovan Clingan
Cody Williams

fwiw i also like Devin Carter who tends to be mocked more at the tail end of the lottery range to the 20ish spot.

 

I can appreciate the question and there’s merit to asking it. I personally think we are at a place as an team where we can take big swings at positions of need, and I think we are in a position where some young players aren’t going to be able to be resigned due to them overvaluing themselves and the Rockets will need to trade some of them.

You also could have injury riddled seasons. Even last year with a relatively healthy squad, we still had stretches where we had a very small and very short rotation with rookies getting 35 minutes of PT.

Yes taking more young players next season and the season after poses the risk of adding another TyTy or Garuba miss…. but that’s just a sign of an insecure GM if he doesn’t trust himself and his staff to draft in the middle or late in the 1st round, and prefers to stay safe will filling out the back half of his roster with 6’5” undersized power forwards that went undrafted…. And who will never be expected to contribute.

I’m obviously not all that impressed with Stone so take what I say with a grain of salt, but I do feel pretty strongly about the strategy here. The motivations and tactics I guess are where the subjective arguments come into play. I think the strategy to continue to use the media to fool people is a huge red flag about him personally as a GM. No offense to Feigen but it’s also telling that Woj and Shams could care less at this point to run his for sale advertisements for him. It’s

Its frustrating because I’m just like dude… this isn’t that hard. Build relationships and trust with other GM’s and make some damn calls. And show some faith in your drafting ability and the people out there scouting for you that you can “handle” bringing in more talent.

 

It's a crapshoot to be honest. The rest of the lottery viable are:

Sarr/Topic/Risacher/Dillingham/Walters. Sarr isn't dropping past 2 and Clingan probably not past Memphis. Of the ones I listed I'm taking the over on 4 or more being there at 9.

 

It was the suns owner's first season with the team if I'm not mistaken.

 

You're right, they bought the team in Dec 2022 and first season was last year, but they have fired 2 coaches and now hired a third in a very short amount of time.

 

I would like for you to be right, but by the time Amen and Cam extensions come up (3 years from now?), its almost certain we have 2 max players signed already. Which means to me, our payroll is probably maxed out by then also. Dont see where that leaves room for Amen or Cam if they develop into the players I think that they might.

Its possible we have 2 max players signed by the 2025 off-season. But admittedly, I am no expert at payroll for NBA teams.

 

It wouldn't matter, we can go over the cap to sign our homegrown players to any amount even if we're capped out.

So if you want to extend Amen for max for example you can just trade Green's max contract for an expiring contract plus picks to clear future salary.

We can also just keep 3 max players and drop other big contracts. If you have 3 guys legit worth the max then you go into luxury tax no problem unless your owner is a cheapskate. Clippers are holding 3 contracts which are bigger than the 3 we'd have.

I'd say honestly with Amen he can't be worth the max without a good jumper and that might take till 2026-2027 to develop. It certainly won't be developed by next summer.

 

That is assuming our poor billionaire owner will be willing to pay the luxury tax. I think he has said he is willing to do so but actions speak louder than words.

 

dude... nows the time to be doubling down - not tryin to stockpile future assets imo...

we did the tank...

we got some guys with potential...

we got a couple stand up vets...

we got a coach with some nuts...

time to take a swing or two and give us as many chances to gel into something special as possible...

 

I agree with you, I worry about Tilman's willingness to pay the tax until after a team wins a title.

However when you're building the team you just have to build a strong team and do your best to convince him to pay up. We can't operate at a financial limit vs other competitors, it's too big a disadvantage to overcome when things are so tight at the top.

If he doesn't pay up, we're screwed anyway. I'm not trying to pin my hopes on a discount contender again. We wasted Harden's prime penny pinching over role players and the end result was we lost 4-3 and 4-2 to arguably the most talented team in NBA history (Durant's Warriors).

Tilman better be ready to spend this time, he's made so much money already and the Rockets are already worth a lot more than when he bought it.

 

Wake me up when we are relevant

 

Does being relevant in the Draft count?

Nvm sleep tight.

 

Or it could just mean that the Rockets think this draft is weak, and pushing first round selections farther out not only can allow them to draft from a deeper class, but also we need to figure out what we are paying 4 of our guys in near term I don't think the Rockets are looking at it as they have too much talent, they are likely looking at it from the prospective that they do not know what they have yet, and need to let these guys play to figure out who is getting paid and who is going to get traded. If they saw generational talent in this draft, then they would not do this. You have to figure things out for Tari, Jabari, Green, and Sengun soon. We literally do not know if Green deserves a $20M guaranteed contract or $200M guaranteed contract, that is significant and why they would opt to push the picks back. Not one person can confidently assign contract values to any younger guy who is due for an extension in the next 2 years on this roster.

 

How about you don't post until you deem us "relevant?" We'd all be thankful.

 

How about you suck a fatty?

 

@Fatty's breathing intensifies