The Suns won’t exercise the 2022/23 option on 2020 lottery pick Jalen Smith, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
[RELATED: Suns Exercise Cameron Johnson’s 2022/23 Option]
As a result, Smith will become an unrestricted free agent during the summer of 2022, two years before his rookie contract normally would have expired and two years after being drafted 10th overall. Phoenix – or whichever team finishes the season with Smith on its roster – won’t be able to offer him a starting salary that exceeds $4,670,160, the amount of his declined option.
Smith, 21, appeared in just 27 games as a rookie last season, averaging 2.0 PPG and 1.4 RPG in 5.8 minutes per contest. The big man flashed some promise in recent months with his play in Summer League (16.3 PPG, 12.5 RPG) and during the preseason (9.5 PPG, 8.0 RPG).
It’s rare for teams to decline options (especially third-year options) on rookie scale contracts, since it’s still so early in the player’s career and the price is typically pretty reasonable. As our tracker shows, Smith is the first player still on a rookie contract whose third-year option is being turned down this year. Jarrett Culver‘s fourth-year option is reportedly being declined by Memphis.
Passing on Smith’s ’22/23 option should allow the Suns, who project to be a taxpayer, to replace him with a minimum-salary player next season.
Reports during the offseason indicated that Smith was a potential trade chip. It’s safe to assume Phoenix will continue shopping him leading up to this year’s trade deadline, though the fact that the team turned down his option signals that he doesn’t have a ton of value.
Wow. He was a lottery pick just couple years ago.
Either their admitting it was a mistake, or their just focusing on getting someone more ready.
Too bad for smith the Suns became a contender and he didn’t get a shot.
Mistake….one of those picks where the Suns we’re trying to be the smartest person in the room….except.,..well…not
Everyone but the Suns knew it was a bad pick even on draft night.
It was a surprising pick on draft night. But it’s hard to characterize this as a failure on the player’s part because he did not get a chance to play. The team acquired several other very good frontcourt players and made a run to the NBA Finals. This is more about managing salaries than the quality of the player.
He didn’t get a chance to play, but he also didn’t force the Suns to give him a chance to play by being a standout in practice either. The people that run pro franchises are not morons. They get to see far more of these guys than any of us do. They know far more about each player than any of us do. Do you really think they wouldn’t have played him if they thought he had any real ability at all? They just took a gamble on draft day and lost. With apologies to Dennis Green for the paraphrase, the player was not who they thought he was.
That’s a cute turn of the phrase at the end there, but the truth is we don’t know who the player is on the NBA level – yet. The Suns elected to give playing time to DeAndre Ayton, Jae Crowder and Dario Saric ahead of Smith. I think anyone would have done the same. That doesn’t mean Smith cannot become a good NBA player. Many folks underestimate how hard it is to get on the court in the NBA – when you are on a good team.
There is one thing that we had both forgotten that probably had the most impact on declining the option. Phoenix does not have a G League team this year, so while they might not be impressed with his development thus far, he also would have not gotten any more since they don’t have an affiliate to send him to. So you are correct that he still COULD become a good NBA player, there was very little chance of it happening in Phoenix.
Although he does have the stain of the “bust” label which can be hard to overcome.
G-league thing is a good point. I would take a chance on him. Imo rebuilding teams should be all over this. Don’t know what went wrong in Phoenix. But I liked him coming out.
I don’t think it’s fair to say we don’t know ANYTHING about him at the NBA level. We weren’t at the practices, but it’s pretty safe to assume he did not overly impress there. It’s not like the Suns declined his option flying completely blind.
So while I think it’s fair to suggest there is still some hope for the future for young players who have dealt with a variety of challenging circumstances over the last couple of years, particularly those who never saw a ton of game action, you can’t completely whitewash away the lack of impressing the coaching staff or organization.
Of course, Sarver is a cheap owner and already tightening his purse so it’s possible this may have played a part in the decline, even at such a low price point.
Semantics…you just repeated everything said in this thread already using slightly different sequencing of words, jalen smith sucks and is a bust right now maybe he goes to the lakers and him and sekou form the highly drafted 2 way slots the lakers have always dreamed of
Smith 10th pick
Culver 6th pick
Trade them to bad team for a 2nd round pick
Culver isn’t on the suns, and he was already traded this offseason, Memphis made a zillion trades this offseason so if culver could’ve gotten them a second rounder he for sure would have
Haliburton would’ve been nice for them. Lol.
Trade Smith for Culver
Cost saving should be the key for any deal
So it has to be a future pick
The Suns needed to clear out that $4.7M next year if they want to keep Ayton.
We keep seeing these players who are very tall but not really bulky getting picked really high in the draft like Marvin Bagley, and most of them end up being a bust.
A team wouldn’t decline a 5 mm option for next season solely because of its current payroll or current available playing time.
PHX will be knee deep in luxury tax next year (regardless), and thus committing to his salary (plus the tax on it) a year in advance might have sent Sarver running for his medication. I suspect they tried to trade him as a way of not being bound to that $$ hit, but still recouping some value for him beyond this year. I guess there were no takers at a price that they deemed more valuable than his services to them this year, which doesn’t appear high right now.
I know that what I did see of him in NBA Summer League (16.3 ppg, 12.5 rpg playing 32 minutes per game) indicated he could develop into a useful backup big man in the NBA. He isn’t without talent. The point I am making is that financial considerations are playing a part in their declining his option. On a lower-tier NBA team, he would have played some real NBA minutes by now and the decision would be made more on the strength of that.
It’s official now: Sarver is cheap.
Nice pickup for someone else.
if other team want to sign Jalen Smith,did other team have limit number of highest salary?