With JaVale McGee and Aaron Holiday headed elsewhere and Elfrid Payton not expected to return, the Suns‘ additions of Josh Okogie, Damion Lee, and Jock Landale will help replenish their depth, tweets John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7. According to Gambadoro, Phoenix is done adding role players for the time being, though the club could still bring back free agent forward Ish Wainwright.
As for the Suns’ bigger-business items, there was no movement as of Sunday morning on the Kevin Durant front, according to Gambadoro, who tweets that Phoenix remains interested but doesn’t want to gut its roster.
Additionally, Gambadoro confirms (via Twitter) that the Suns and Jazz have had a discussion about restricted free agent center Deandre Ayton, who was previously linked to Utah. However, Gambadoro isn’t sure how far that conversation went and notes that many teams aren’t looking to spend big money on a center at the moment.
Here are some other notes from the Pacific:
- The Lakers still have glaring issues despite making some free-agency additions, Jovan Buha of The Athletic opines. Buha writes that Los Angeles could use more shooting and size. The team has has signed Damian Jones, Troy Brown Jr. and Juan Toscano-Anderson in free agency so far, and agreed to a deal with Lonnie Walker.
- Cole Swider‘s two-way contract with the Lakers covers two seasons, per Dan Woike of The Los Angeles Times (Twitter link). Swider, who went undrafted last month after spending three seasons at Villanova and one season at Syracuse, averaged 13.9 points per game last year, shooting 41% from deep.
- Jazz head video coordinator Charles Allen is leaving Utah for a job with the Kings, tweets Tony Jones of The Athletic. According to Jones, Allen will be Sacramento’s head video coordinator and a special assistant to new head coach Mike Brown.
Luke Adams contributed to this post.
Kangz
With Irving, Lakers are still the 4th best team in Pacific Division
3 Pacific teams will win 55 games but Lakers won’t.
My predictgion
Clippers 60 wins
Suns 59 wins
Warriors 58 wins
2nd half of season, Warriors rebuild starts
Warriors should start Santos and Justinian Jessup
They are really good.
So you’re saying Irving makes the Lakers 22 wins better than with Westbrook? If he’s a 22 win better player, why do the Nets make that trade again? Big fans of the Rockets?
I misread that to say it made the Lakers a 55 win team. Sorry. How many wins do you put them at?
My prediction
Lakers 42 wins with Irving
Lakers Bench is the worst in the nba.
My Lakers grade
Draft market – Big F
Free Agent market – Big F
Trade Market – A++++
It takes a special amount of bias and delusion to think a team with LeBron, Kyrie and AD in their lineup is anything but #1 in the conference. Not to mention they will get Curry or Harris in the deal.
I’m pretty neutral by nature. I try to look at everything from a moderate emotional state. The problem I see with the Lakers hasn’t changed. Health is still a persistent issue. Irving isn’t immune to injury either. However, I don’t see how AD holds up after so many years of constant injuries. That extra wear takes a toll. I figured they’d get maybe one good year of him and that’s about it. So far, that’s been the case.
Although, it did pay off for them. I’m sure they think it was worth it. Lebron probably isn’t too happy. Getting Irving could help alleviate that. They just don’t have the depth they need to get past the Warriors and Boston, assuming they even make the playoffs.
Sillivan doesn’t always make sense but he’s about as unbiased as it gets. LeBron is getting older, AD is injury prone, Irving is at best flighty and Austin Reaves and Tuscano-Anderson arent much of a bench. 42 sounds about right.
No… it takes a special kind of bias to think swapping Kyrie for Westbrook turns a 33 win team into a 55-60 win team and better than the reigning champs. With some health luck maybe they’re #3 in their division. But #1? C’mon.
LeBron and AD both missed significant time last year. It’s not like they were a 33 win team when healthy. Idk what world you live in, but Kyrie is an elite PG while Westbrook is detrimental to his team. Lakers have the best roster in basketball if they somehow make this trade and it will be cute to see how the “they have no depth comments” will be proven wrong. Big 3s never have good depth
They will have Curry or Harris and fill out the bench. Melo, Nunn, Toscano, Reaves, likely Dwight and another Center.
I don’t see the Clippers being as dominant as that. John Wall isn’t nearly the same guy as he used to be. Sure, he likely will score 20+ points a game if needed. However, I don’t see a lot of desire from him to be great anymore. That could change playing around Kawhi. Keep in mind, that could also be hindered if he thinks he should be pampered like Kawhi does.
@benboy
They’re two types of guys. Those who’d play basketball for free because they love the game. Those who love it but allow the money to make them lazy and they want to just kick back. Usually the allstar caliber guy’s want to play and the money just enhances their lifestyle. Let’s assume that Wall is the guy who loves the game. He rehabbed from his injury and came back wanting to play. It was him that asked to be traded from Washington because he was offended by how they, in his eyes, didn’t respect him. if he didn’t want to play he could just take the guaranteed money and retire. instead he wanted to keep playing and joined the Clippers. The Clippers need a point guard. they’d love the Wall of 5 years ago but if they can just get a competitive competent guard that can distribute the ball the right way to PG, Kawhi and others and contribute 10-12 points I think they’d be happy. They don’t NEED him to be a star.
@KnicksFanCavsFan. That’s a good point. I suppose it’ll depend on who they end up trading away and bringing in, too. There was talk of them trading for Conley, now as a backup. Could still happen.
Plus, hard to say how Kawhi and George will hold up. Never seen so many guys get injured compared to days of yore. Could be that they catch more injuries sooner? If so, then players are able to play longer careers on average. I will say that most players aren’t as muscle bulky as they used to be. That could explain it as well since they have less padding for falls.
No team with Kaui, see what I did there, will win 60 games. He’d have to play 82 games for that. He’s a walking vacation lately. Your prediction is a bold take. Wish him and John “free money” Wall the best.
I guess Londale potentially spaces the floor for them, but not sure he gives them what they would use out of a floor spacing 5 defensively. Jalen Smtih would have been a great fit. Ibaka is still out there, though I think he might end up in GS
Lakers still need another 3 and D guy on the wing, and a scoring/spacing 4 off the bench. They dont need more bigs. They dont need more guards.
Suns shouldn’t trade everything for KD.
Instead like suggested a couple weeks ago, they should do the simple Myles Turner for DeAndre Ayton via sign and trade.
Why would Indiana do that, even though they have Jalen Smith. Myles Turner is infinitely more valuable than Ayton. That would be incredibly perfect for Phpenix though
Also, why would the Nets want Ayton in a KD trade? They would want Bridges, Cam Johnson, Crowder/Craig, Saric and the picks, and obviously, that makes very little sense for Phoenix to do as well b/c they would be left with very little, with not much left in FA to build the rest of the roster
@formerly
Why wouldn’t the Nets want Ayton? Also, do you buy into metrics like DefRtg?
I take it into consideration, but it depends on who else is around that person, and how it effects them
And the Nets wouldnt want Ayton b/c it makes no sense to pay a big like him the amount he is looking for, especially when retooling your roster, and especially when you have a piece like Simmons there, who you are likely playing at either the 4/5/1 spots. You would take Ayton at a certain price, and he would come off the bench as a high usage player, but you would prefer pieces you can actually build around, over something you can get in FA for cheap
@formerly
Can you really get a 17/10/.55% FG/75% FT center cheap? Because that’s a small list of players.
Jokic, Embid, Sabonis, Giannis, Jonas V and KAT. That’s 6 guys and add another 4 or 5 that lacked in one category like Randle, Vucevic, Gobert, etc.
I really think Ayton has thr moves to be a legit 22+/10 guy if he’s in an offense that gives a darn about getting him the ball. He’s never taken more than 15 attempts per game and that was the year before CP3 when he enjoyed a career average of 18 points a game despite only 2 FTA per game. He’s not a clumsy clod with no moves. He’s got great foot work, a smooth hook shot and can catch lobs. 15-20 attempts a game for a kid with a 60% FG % deserved the ball more than a 12 per game line. And a big who can shoot FT at a career mark of 75% should add another 5 points a game once the refs start giving him more calls as he establishes himself. That star treatment most post beasts get.
I’m not the smartest guy in the world but when you have a legit big (6’11/250 lbs man child) who can dominate in the post @ 60% FG and hit FT @ 75% for his 4 year career, I don’t know, maybe he deserves the ball more??? His career DefRtg of 109 indicates he’s not a liability on the court.
I’ve explained this many, many times. I’m not saying he isnt useful. I dont care about counting stats. You want to give the ball to a big every time to be a blackhole and to get numbers, thats fine in the 2nd unit. Doing that slows the pace of the offense, and makes it easier to guard as well. The more he has the ball, the less everyone else does. That can be useful in the halfcourt, if you are efficient in those style of possessions, in the playoffs vs certain matchups, but this is primarily a full court game, and you have to also prove you can get yourself those easy baskets in those situations. If you arent Embiid, Jokic, anthony Davis, KAT I cant justify a salary over a certain amount. There are a couple of others you can put in there for their versatile defense and playmaking, but even they shouldnt get anything in the amount Ayton wants.
I’ve said this many times as well. Ayton has improved a lot. I never said be hasnt. A significant reason for that improvement is Chris Paul, on both sides of the ball. Defensively, its Chris Paul, Mikail Bridges, Jae Crowder, Cam Johnson, Torrey Craig. Dayton isnt going to defend pick and roll or really protect the rim. Still he is useful against other bugs at times in certain matchups.
This is how he single handedly, besides Monty Williams, cost them the championship against Milwaukee. Every series before that, he matched up with bigs where him playing more minutes helped. In the finals, they were up 2-0, and in game 3, Milwaukee stopped using Brook Lopez more and more and more every game, and Phoenix never went back to what they did all season, and couldn’t stop Giannis or Portis at the 5, and also kept giving up corner 3s b/c of it
It’s the exact way the Heat lost to Milwaukee. Saric got hurt on game 1, but they had Kaminsky, who played all season, but barely went to him, and they lost b/c they kept Ayton out there for 40 minutes
Again, not saying he isn’t useful, and ot saying he shouldnt get paid. I’m saying that paying him more than a certain amount makes it harder to build a winning team. That’s what matters. Not stats. I can get bigs that can provide enough of a facsimile of what he brings for cheap, and use my money trying to get versatile defenders, playmakers, and shooters, who are the most valuable pieces in the league. So why should I pay my big a significant amount and preclude myself from.being able to get those other more important pieces?
@formerly
What’s the value of a highly efficient big who I believe is likely to give you 20/10 on 60/75 FG/FT% shooting? $20-$40mil? Maybe you can get on an aggregate subscribing from the “moneyball theory” but typically those guys get paid and in a league flush with money and about to dump a lot of salary in Irving and Durant and maybe Simmons midseason then why not Ayton @ the 4 year RA max 4/$131. I mean who is Simmons passing the ball to? Why not help him by giving him a 60% shooting weapon down low?
If the Jazz aren’t rebuilding then I’d say do the rumored trade of Pat Bev and a pick for a sign-and-trade Ayton. The pick then goes to Brooklyn. Ayton’s money frees up for the Durant trade.
If the Jazz decide to trade Mitchell, then they may decide to go all young, rookie scale contracts. Develop them along with our rookie coach. Trade up every year to get the best players possible. Then in 3-4 years start filling in needs with veterans and go for a title. If I truly wanted a title then that’s what I’d do.
Every championship team needs that MVP level talent at the head. Staying relevant yet never getting a top 3 pick makes that much harder. The only variable then becomes which MVP player that ends up being.
You can get an MVP outside of the top 3. However, history has shown that’s where they mostly are located.
The alternative is stacking with all-star level talent but not a true MVP. That requires a master plan and a coach that can handle balancing egos.
It also requires a front office to get these players to buy into taking less so they can build a title team. That’s harder to do, in my opinion. It’s especially hard when it seems every quality player, deserving or not, keeps getting these max extensions.
Getting players to work for less… funny. That is a bad plan that belittles humans and their behaviors.
The hard work you mention in bringing it all together is why it’s all worth a watch, whereas track & field is so blah and individualized, just an exhibition of talent.