Honestly didn't think they would go so high. Hope he can remain healthy and play up to his potential.
If the 70 million number is correct, all the boasting about the Suns absolutely positively keeping Dragic is about to be severely tested. I think the Suns put him on the market and see what kind of offers they get. Yep, yes indeed.
And some said Bledsoe and his agent were idiots for waiting. I'll be an idiot all day long for an extra $22M!
Woj was some $20 million off. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Eric Bledsoe's five-year, $70M <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Suns?src=hash">#Suns</a> contract starts at $13M with annual $500K raises. No options. No ETOs. No trade kickers.</p>— Paul Coro (@paulcoro) <a href="https://twitter.com/paulcoro/status/514936173202898944">September 25, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
A 3-headed monster at the guard position. Suns will keep Dragic. I see what they are doing, Hornacek was on record this summer saying they like having 2 point guards on the floor at all times. Last year they tried a 3 point guard rotation with Ish Smith as the 3rd, Thomas is an upgrade. 96 backcourt minutes to split: 26 min/game for Thomas 32 min/game for Bledsoe 32 min/game for Dragic 6 min/game for Ennis They'll rotate Gerald Green/PJ Tucker/TJ Warren around at the 3. Gerald Green probably is expendable, and is an expiring....who knows, maybe they could flip Green/Plumlee for Vucevic, I imagine the Magic aren't going to want to pay him next year.
Dragic is a goner after what they gave Bledsoe. They know it. He knows it. No way they let him play out the season and walk away for nothing next summer. Suns will trade him to whoever makes the best offer.
It would be nice to have Dragic back, but is there really any logic to why the Suns would trade him or let him go next year? Can someone explain this? The only >$10 million contract the Suns have now is Bledsoe, and after that it's Thomas at $6 mil. They have plenty of space for Dragic, and they already have evidence that a Bledose/Gogi backcourt can work. Aside from the love for Gogi, which I get, the rational side in me puts our chances of landing him at something like 1%.
Logic is Sarver is one of the cheapest owners in the NBA. Wouldn't surprise me to see him move Thomas at the deadline.
I'm still confused why Isaiah Thomas signed with Phoenix to begin with. You figure he could have started somewhere.
TL/DR: They just signed Isiah Thomas to a 4 yr, $27ish million deal (perhaps the signing of the offseason in terms of value... can't defend and more of a scoring point... BUT put up a better PER than Bledsoe, while staying healthy) and can't, in a salary cap league where they have other holes to fill, field a championship level team by paying 3 guys $37+ million between them who all play the same position. One of the three has to go. Longer form Can you really be giving what is basically 2 max level deals to two guys who play the same position... and frankly two guys who are "borderline" max guys in the first place? Maybe in the new NBA, which is more guard heavy, where PG who can defend some 2's (as in instances Dragic can, and Bledsoe can) and can play off the ball with other points (as both can a bit).... maybe. But it still seems in a salary cap league, when you've ALSO signed Isiah Thomas to a meaningful deal... that it is kind of idiotic to do that. The Suns 3 best players will be Bledsoe, Dragic and Thomas, imo. Maybe some of their other players develop.... but right now they just have a bunch of other guys that play hard. The team's biggest asset frankly is Jeff Hornacek. Dude is a beast of a coach, imo, in the Jerry Sloan vibe. Give him any group of players and he'll make it work enough to be sure they are playoff competitors every year. Give him a team with a lot of talent, and he can certainly win a championship. While Sloan's Jazz didn't win any championships... he ran up against MJ twice, and the Rockets regularly in a 3 year stretch when Hakeem Olajuwon was undoubtedly the best player in the game. Point being, the Suns need a balanced roster. The real issue is how do they get that? Who trades what for Dragic, since he's got just the 1 year left (he will obviously opt out), and other GMs will be thinking what everyone is thinking - will the Suns really resign him? To be certain, the Rockets best offer, which would include TJones, would improve them at another position. He is at 22 a better player than either Morris brother at 24. But not at the moment other worldly better. Not to mention from the Rockets perspective, then they don't have a competent PF aside from DMo, who is a backup through and through. The issue, as Bledsoe has found out, is that it is a point guard heavy league, and being the 14th or 15th best point guard in the league doesn't mean much. Both Dragic and Bledsoe - especially Dragic - were better than that last year... you could argue Dragic was a top 5 point guard last year... but that's one year of service. The Suns best bet might just be to trade Dragic for young player and draft picks, and then use cap space next offseason to try and go HARD after a Hibbert, Marc Gasol, LMA or somewhat less hard but still pursue an Al Jefferson, David West, Paul Millsap, Deandre Jordan, Faried, Vucevic, type. Thomas gives them great bang for the buck, though. I'd LOVE to have him coming off the bench at $7 million a year. Does his game have short-comings? Sure, he can't make himself taller. But as noted, he could start somewhere. He put up a 20+ PER last year. He can run in small ball lineups all day. The PG rotation that makes the most sense for the Suns going forward HAS to be Bledsoe/Thomas. But whether its Bledsoe/Thomas or Dragic/Thomas.... the league is too competitive to allocate so much cap space to Dragic (when resigned at MAX), Bledsoe and Thomas.
Thanks for the well-considered comments. For me it comes down to the fact that Gogi is their best player and played at All-star level last year. It is extremely rare for teams to let their top player leave as a FA especially when that player is popular with fans, happy with the city, and worthy of a big (if not max) contract, and when the team is not close to the salary cap. It's true that a Thomas/Gogi/Bledsoe team has a very tough path to a championship. But PHX has never been a "championship-only" kind of team. Even in the height of the Nash era they were fine with dumping Joe Johnson and fielding an A- team instead of going for the A+. A team with Gogi and Bledsoe still has the potential to make it to the A- level, with good GMing. I think they'd be happy with that. I suppose a trade is possible, but they don't have an incentive to take back pennies on the dollar.
