Once the Suns officially sign Bol Bol, their 15-man roster should be set for the regular season, tweets John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7. Phoenix will have 13 players on guaranteed salaries, with Jordan Goodwin on a partially guaranteed contract and Ish Wainright on a non-guaranteed deal.
While the Suns could make additional moves with their two-way contract slots – Saben Lee is currently the team’s only two-way player – Gambadoro doesn’t anticipate any more changes to the standard roster before the season begins. As he observes, a pair of recent trades replenished the club’s supply of second-round picks, so those second-rounders and a pair of traded player exceptions could be used during the season in order to seek out further upgrades to the roster.
Phoenix’s $5MM trade exception from last season’s Dario Saric deal will expire in February. The new $6.5MM TPE created in the Cameron Payne deal technically won’t expire until next July, but the team will only be able to use it up until the 2024 trade deadline, notes ESPN’s Bobby Marks (Twitter link).
At the end of the 2023/24 regular season, more punitive restrictions for teams above the second tax apron will go into effect. One of those new rules will prohibit those teams from using trade exceptions.
Here’s more on the Suns:
- Phoenix sent $5.7MM in cash to the Spurs in the Payne trade, according to Marks (Twitter link). Teams above the second tax apron also won’t be permitted to send out cash in trades after the ’23/24 regular season, so the Suns are taking advantage of the opportunity to do so while they still can.
- The 2024 second-rounder that the Suns acquired in the Payne deal is San Antonio’s own pick, per Marks (Twitter link). However, the Spurs already traded that 2024 second-rounder with top-54 protection to the Celtics — they put top-49 (and 55-60) protection on it in the deal with Phoenix, so the Suns will receive it only if it lands between 50-54.
- Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic shares five takeaways from the Las Vegas Summer League, while Gerald Bourguet of GoPHNX.com provides five takeaways from the club’s recent transactions.
- The Suns are moving forward with their transition to Gray Television for game broadcasts after Diamond Sports Group declined to make a counter-offer. Rankin has the details in a story for The Arizona Republic.
Love that Phoenix partnered with local over-the-air television for their new contract. Everybody in the area gets to watch for free, translating to ad revenue, high attendance and fan interest. Nobody wants to be boxed into having to have subscriptions for AppleTV, Disney+, ESPN, Hulu, Prime, etc. just so they can follow their own team. I hope we see a bigger push throughout the league for this with broadcast television partnerships as older contract agreements, especially with the devil, I mean Bally Sports, lapse/default.
How can a team trade a pick that has already been traded?
What happens for the Suns if the traded pick falls outside of the top 54 and goes to the Celtics? What do the Suns get then?
If the pick lands within the top 49, what do the Suns get then?
All the exemptions, exceptions, protections, future draft choice trading are making it virtually impossible to understand and follow all of the off court moves unless you are a lawyer or an accountant. Well past the time to eliminate rules and simplify.
KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID !!
The spurs had to technically send back something, so they sent a second rounder with heavy protections. The suns did the trade to get out of the luxury tax penalty of keeping Cam, they didn’t need anything back. If the pick falls In the protected range (which it almost most definitely will) the Suns get nothing
The Suns would get nothing if it doesn’t land between 50-54.
I had to read that paragraph four times and then your explanation before I finally got it. I think my hang up in understanding was that the “Spurs already traded the pick.” As most here would agree, I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
crayon, brightest crayon.
Those picks seem unlikely to actually happen
Silver needs to call PHX and tell them to knock if off, or he’ll find them in violation of one of his Byzantine rules that nobody understands.