Dillon be losing his Mojo here because we love him. He cant go full villain because we like each other LOOOOL
[ESPN] Dillon Brooks: "[Houston] wanted to keep me to build more and more to that franchise. But overall, when you got a guy like Kevin Durant, you cannot pass up on it. And they're doing well. They haven't fell off -- like Memphis did."
Words: They wanted to keep me Actions: They sent me packing Bald Stone Liar Should’ve sent Fred or Jabari or Reed or Tari
Contract wise none of these guys would have worked individually, short of Fred doing a S&T, not even if that would even be possible given the Suns being deep into lux tax.
Yeah, package ‘em Jalen 33.5 + Dillon 21.1 = 54.6 (Durant $54.7) Fred had a $42M/$43M player option he opted out of. Jabroni 12.3 + Reed 10.6 = 22.9 (Dillon 21.1) Suns wanted Jabroni & Reed. “The Suns' trade conversations focused on the Rockets and Heat in recent days, but both teams showed an unwillingness to part with young cornerstones such as Jabari Smith Jr. and Reed Sheppard (Houston) and Kel'el Ware (Miami) in a Durant deal, sources said.” Athletic sources: The Rockets maintained a firm stance in their refusal to include these young players in the Kevin Durant trade: Reed Sheppard, Jabari Smith Jr., Tari Eason “Cornerstones” lol Jabroni, injured every sEason, traffic cone untouchable?!
I wouldn't trade Reed but I absolutely would've included Jabroni over Brooks. I wouldn't have traded Tari at the time, in retrospect even though I love him and his Mom I'd probably do Jabroni and Tari and whatever to make the money work to get KD and keep Dillon.
Brooks was the right choice in the trade - but hoping we can reconnect with him at some point - loved the grit he brought. He is a true hard work culture guy. The reality is in trades, NBA players are assets and your job is maximize the value of your assets. Sending Tari or Jabari out with Jalen would have lessened the asset value returned because we would be sending out more. Brooks wasn't going to fetch as much because he is a known 'okay' but not great quantity at the time and didnt project to improve much. Effectively Brooks was the contract filler needed to make the money work. I know we don't love Tari's injury history, silly fouls, or roguish offensive tendencies from time to time and Jabari has been a very underwhelming player on both sides of the ball and is frankly struggling to be a league average 3 and D forward but I think both players will fetch reasonable returns if we were to include them in trades over the next year because they still haven't hit their ceilings. Throwing them into trades with KD would have been a mistake even if we ended up with a better team because we would be giving up value on an asset. It's one thing if Brooks were the last piece of the puzzle, but I think the reality is we are probably still several trades away from the final version of what this team could be as presently contructed around Sengun...or Amen...or Reed.
