I have to disagree with this statement. We might be top 5ish and maybe top 3 but far from the top of the list. OKC, Utah, San Antonio all have a much larger pile of picks. The Spurs have 14 #1's over the next 7 years, OKC 15 , Utah 10 and the Wizards 10. The Rockets have 8 #1's, including their own. What the Rockets do have is a few picks that have the perception of being possible lottery picks, two in 27 (PHX & Brooklyn swap) and two in 29 - Dallas & PHX. OKC owns Dallas pick in #1 pick 2028. The Spurs own Dallas #1 pick in 30 The Spurs own Atlanta thru 2027 and a Sacramento pick in 2031. I think it's fairly easy to put OKC & San Antonio in the top two .... the 3rd spot is debatable between Houston, Washington & Utah. Orlando & the Knicks both have more picks than the Rockets over that span too (9).
I don't think that's a disagreement. You're talking about volume of picks regardless of their quality. I'm saying we're the richest overall in the trade market. If we lack a franchise player as people say, then Amen/Sengun/Green are the best young acquirable expensive pieces. Green and Sengun only make $30m-35m. Then there's Cam, Bari, Tari, Sheppard. All these guys are acquirable whether we like it or not. Then there's Brooks' measley $20m with 2 elite wing players to replace him. Any contender would love to have him. Then there's FVV flexible contract, becoming an expiring or available for renegotiated extension/SnT practically at our discretion. THEN we have a top 3 pick stash. Most online articles evaluating future picks have us with 2 out of the best 5 tradable future picks. Plus we have a volume of FRP's behind that. I'm not treating all future picks as equal because that's just not reality. A couple of our picks are worth 3 normal picks judging by Suns cashing in a good pick for 3 mediocre ones. We're the richest by far. I'm talking all assets a team is willing to put on the table in negotiations this summer. We big pimpin' this summer.
I would rather see it this way: KD is to replace Jalen as our top scorer/offensive option. Booker is an upgrade of FVV's shooting and play-making. KD+Book+Alpi is unstoppable inside-out, surround them with the terror twins Amen and Tari and this team is ready to contend i'd trade FVV+Brooks, Green+Jabari, Suns' 27' FRP+Nets' 27' Swap+Suns' 29' Swap for KD + Booker + R.Oneale trade Landale+Holiday for a backup center, ideally Zach Collins who's the perfect backup to Alpi. split the MLE on C.Boucher ($8.6M) and CP3 ($5.5M) Re-sign Adams and Tate use the Suns pick to draft Collin Murray-Boyles Sengun, Z.Collins, S.Adams T.Eason, C.Boucher, CMB K.Durant, C.Whitmore, J.Tate D.Booker, R.Oneale, N.Williams Thompson, CP3, R.Shepperd this is to replace Jalen with KD, replace FVV with Booker, start Tari over Brooks, and move Amen from PF to PG. CP3 would be perfect backup PG for 1-2 years, to run the 2nd team and for his leadership. Championship team!
I like the idea of getting both. But, that's too much. I'd be willing to give up Jalen + the PHX assets.. Forget about Jabari, though.
PHX sucks so much and you wanna make their problem our problem? lol I'm open to KD because the dude is a top 5 NBA player in the world but Booker is just overpaid and one of the worse super maxes in the world. We trade Jalen for him and Jalen will be better in 3 yrs.
people that want Booker should go visit Suns circles most often and see what they've been saying about Booker lately I'm not so sure we should be paying for a guy the supermax who has shown signs of rapid decline tl;dr Suns fans have been saying Booker has become an injury prone liability who can't drive past guys anymore because of his recurring hamstring injury (reminds me of a certain bearded star)
The name Booker only came up because the Rockets own the pick swaps with Phoenix.... Last time it was Mikael Bridges when the Rockets owned the Brooklyn pick swaps......
If you still want to trade Jalen Green for Booker or Durant you are lost in basketball analysis. Your brain turned to mush. You need to stop following the sport. Right now the only thing that would make sense with the Suns is getting Durant without trading Amen, Jalen, Alpi, Bari and Tari which between the picks and Cam, Reed, Brooks etc the Rockets could pull off. But we are past the phase where we should consider trading one of the major young pieces for Booker or KD. If a player of Giannis caliber is on the table, then we talk about one of the main young guys as a trading piece. I'm 90% confident that the coaching staff and Stone are on the same page on this.
Your calling card of personal attacks is an ancient schtick. Every day, for years, thread after thread..you've peppered our board with the same drivel. It seems you're incapable of interacting without it. It's poison, man. Perhaps, a symptom of society in general these days. Nevertheless, I know there are many that concur. So, take a look in the mirror, and ease off the pedal, please.
I'm sorry your basketball analysis is doggy doodoo. But have some personal responsibility and own up to it.
Exactly people wanted Mikal last year look at him now. People want Booker now the dude looks washed at age 28 lol.
I don't think Green for Booker is crazy from a talent perspective--Booker is still clearly the better player, and it will be hard for JG to get to his level, let alone exceed it. (Not impossible, just not something I'm betting big money on.) However, paying Booker a supermax contract would be insane, and he's due for one soon. I also don't like that he's getting close to age 30 when all of our young core are still in the first third of their 20s (except Tari I guess).
I disagree with this. OKC have a much larger asset stash but after them there is no team with more assets than the Rockets. When you talk about ASSETS you also need to consider young players and again apart from OKC no other team has a collection of young studs like the Rockets. Lets assume only Amen is untouchable, which among those teams have a 23 yr old all star in Sengun or a young player trending upward like Jalen? Jabari, Tari, Cam if these guys were put on the block they would fetch either a lotto or multiple low frps. Having picks are nice but the quality of picks of these other teams are pretty low. Spurs only have their picks, their team is full of trash players aside from Castle and Wemby and I figure those 2 are untouchable for them.
Actually he is not just close he will be 30 by next year lol. I also dont think its crazy Jalen will leap over Booker, I mean if you are talking about Finals Booker sure I am not sure Jalen will ever reach peak Booker. But Booker is no longer that guy I dunno if it is due to injury or what but just like FVV Booker has been undergoing premature decline. His stats have been dropping across the board even if he is supposed to be in his prime at age 28. If you watch him, he is now the Klay Thompson to KD's Curry even if its supposed to be the opposite. He is barely better than Jalen with only 4% better efficiency but worse 3 pt shooting ,worse defense and of course with 40% more salary. Just not worthit he is Cliff Paul 3 all over again IMO.
The Bridges/Booker trade targets are about getting extra value from the picks - for example, Houston's acquisition of Brooklyn's picks: - triggered the Stepien rule for Brooklyn for many years which prevented them from being competitive in offering future firsts in trade(generally a prerequisite in upgrading to a starter type player) - allowed Houston to 'profit' in the form of better pick value off Brooklyn's competitive disadvantages caused by the Stepien Rule - removed strategic incentives for Brooklyn to "tank" to add value to the org via higher draft picks. ...there are obviously ways you can mitigate some of those negatives - Brooklyn traded Durant giving them more coverage of first round picks to ease the Stepien restrictions but they were still limited to pursue the 3rd option as a strategy which is another competitive limitation(because we know teams tank for strategic advantages it provides to get a Wemby of Flagg). Ultimately Houston was able to get some value out of those Brooklyn picks by trading back in exchange for Phoenix's picks and thought it might not end up giving them a discount on acquiring a big star, the fact that it is a possibility is itself a way to add value to your team assets because #3 is of some additional value to a team heading towards the bottom of the standings.
I am not sure whether Booker is declining or just having a down year on a team with horrible roster construction. It could go either way right now. I just want to be sure to point out--Devin Booker has been an All-Star 4x, All-NBA twice, and was the clear-cut best player on a team that went to the NBA Finals coming out of the Western Conference. If Jalen accomplishes all those things by age 29 I will be ecstatic, but he better get busy if so. Regardless, I would agree that he's not worth it. That's more because I think he's barely even worth the massive superstar-level contract he's about to get even if he returns to his peak levels of production for a few more years. And the odds of that are at best 50/50, maybe worse. So the overall expected value of a Devin Booker supermax contract is pretty deep in the negative. And that's before you get into all the trade assets we'd have to give up to land him...
