JULY 17TH, 7:32pm: The signing is official, the Suns announced. “We are delighted to have reached a multi-year agreement with Brandon,” said president of basketball operations Lon Babby. “He will be an integral member of our team on the court and will enhance our culture with his leadership and professionalism.”
1:57pm: The Suns won’t be trading Bledsoe even though they’ve secured a deal with Knight, as a source strongly emphasized to TNT’s David Aldridge (Twitter link).
1:48pm: The Suns and Knight have reached agreement on those five-year, $70MM terms, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports confirms (Twitter link).
10:52pm: If the Suns re-sign Knight, they would seriously consider trading Bledsoe, Marc Stein of ESPN.com tweets.
Courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
JULY 1ST, 5:46pm: Brandon Knight, who will become a restricted free agent on July 1st, will sign a five-year, $70MM contract with the Suns, reports Gery Woelfel of the Racine Journal Times, who cites a league source. Of course, it is illegal for sides to have discussed a dollar amount and length of a potential deal before July 1st, but that doesn’t mean negotiations didn’t happen.
Knight, 23, was traded to the Suns in February in a multiple-team deal. He has expressed interest in re-signing with the Suns and mentioned that he was looking for that to happen swiftly. The Suns, reportedly, want to bring him back, and Knight told them that he has no issues sharing duties with Eric Bledsoe in the backcourt. Interestingly, Knight’s reported deal worth $13MM annually for five years are the exact terms the Suns gave Bledsoe last September.
Knight was averaging 17.8 points per game and 5.4 assists per game before the Bucks dealt him to the Suns. He then played 11 games for the Suns, averaging 13.4 points per game and 4.5 assists per game. After suffering an ankle injury March 9, Knight missed 16 of the Suns’ final 17 games. He underwent minor arthroscopic surgery on his left ankle in April.
Personally would prefer Bledsoe to Knight. Phoenix has a lot of young guards though, so maybe they get a lot of value out of Bledsoe in a trade, and start to incorporate those guys into their rotation? Whether or not I would agree with that thought process would probably depend on what they get back in a potential Bledsoe deal
Do you think they need to trade Bledsoe, or can he and Knight co-exist in the same backcourt?
They can likely co-exist b/c of Bledsoe’s versatility. Still, I feel like they can use another defender on the perimeter.