AYTON TRADED!

[AzCardsfan76]

Right. Pairing him with Gordon gives you a legit backup backcourt.

Allen one of the guys you love to hate when he's on another team but I'll take him on ours, that's for sure.

 

[Cheesebeef]

SeparAyton

Hehe…

 

[Raindog]

The Suns will be able to keep Little going forward as he is under contract for 4 seasons.

Nurkic is under contract for 3 more seasons.

Grayson Allen is expiring but they will get a chance to look at him.

Maybe Keon Johnson gets waived.

Nurkic being under contract for 3 more seasons may very well end up being not a good thing. If he stays to form healthwise - or is the defensive liability that most fans in Portland seem to regard him as - we may be desperately trying to dump him by as soon as next offseason (just as Portland was, apparently).

 

[Proximo]

Right. Pairing him with Gordon gives you a legit backup backcourt.

So you don't want to always leave either Booker or Beal on the court? Because I always thought that was the idea - that is the smart thing to do anyway.

 

[Quagmire]

The Suns get salary relief next year with Allen's $8.9MM expiring deal.

They took on more salary this year $34.9MM incoming vs $33.6MM outgoing. They must like Keon Johnson($2.8MM) because the deal could have been made w/out him.

 

[Cheesebeef]

He’s not a cancer but Zach Lowe said it best a while back. There’s a “collective eye rolling” with him throughout the organization. That gets old year after year and they finally pulled the trigger.

And the dude literally quit on the court against the Nuggets and then literally quit off it when he sat his quitter ass on the bench in street clothes because of… bruised ribs… in a close-out game.

 

[Chaplin]

Nurkic being under contract for 3 more seasons may very well end up being not a good thing. If he stays to form healthwise - or is the defensive liability that most fans in Portland seem to regard him as - we may be desperately trying to dump him by as soon as next offseason (just as Portland was, apparently).

LOL, replace "Nurkic" with "Ayton" and "Portland" with "Phoenix" and the statement still works.

 

[AzCardsfan76]

He’s not a cancer but Zach Lowe said it best a while back. There’s a “collective eye rolling” with him throughout the organization. That gets old year after year and they finally pulled the trigger.

Agree, but quitters can be just as bad as cancer type players...

 

[Cheesebeef]

So you don't want to always leave either Booker or Beal on the court? Because I always thought that was the idea - that is the smart thing to do anyway.

Yeah, if you want both completely worn down by the end of the season.

A team can NEVER have enough playmakers on it and now we have two solid ones to come off the bench with a bunch of young talent, but young talented question marks.

 

[Proximo]

I don't think this helps our depth much. Johnson and Little struggled to find minutes on a really bad Portland team, either one would need to make a real leap to find minutes here. Our big man depth just got worse.

Everything got worse.

We are unquestionably a worse team after this deal, potentially much worse depending on what Nurkic does.

 

[Chaplin]

Everything got worse.

We are unquestionably a worse team after this deal, potentially much worse depending on what Nurkic does.

Debatable. There is no "unquestionably" here. That is a statement that people that believe whole-heartedly that Ayton was the key to winning a title. Come on.

 

[Mainstreet]

Nurkic being under contract for 3 more seasons may very well end up being not a good thing. If he stays to form healthwise - or is the defensive liability that most fans in Portland seem to regard him as - we may be desperately trying to dump him by as soon as next offseason (just as Portland was, apparently).

I'm not high on Nurkic because of injuries, but what the Suns did is breakup being locked into Ayton's huge salary.

 

[Chaplin]

I'm not high on Nurkic because of injuries, but what the Suns did is breakup being locked into Ayton's huge salary.

That's really the key. If you believe that DA is the DA in the playoffs, do we really want him on that salary for that long? That's tough.

 

[Chris_Sanders]

The Athletic grades:

Milwaukee: A
Phoenix: B-
Blazers: B+

 

[Cheesebeef]

I don’t really like the trade, but I do understand this… to win a title, you’ve got to have 100% buy in from every player, especially your biggest pieces. Ayton could and would never provide that and it’s pretty apparent to me that feeling was shared widely by the franchise and especially the team’s franchise star.

Time will tell if it was the right move, but Ayton is the wrong player to pin a solid amount of Hope on to try and win a title.

 

[AzCardsfan76]

Everything got worse.

We are unquestionably a worse team after this deal, potentially much worse depending on what Nurkic does.

Addition by subtraction sometimes works out. Ayton was a quitter, which can be as bad as a cancer type player. Clearly management, coaches, but more importantly his teammates felt the same.

 

[Cheesebeef]

Agree, but quitters can be just as bad as cancer type players...

Yup.

 

[Raindog]

The other potential downside to this is by moving Ayton, we definitely have put ourselves further behind the 8-ball with needing Booker, Beal, and (especially) Durant to stay healthy through this season and especially the playoffs.

While we still had Ayton as a "3.5" level player, we could definitely better withstand a block of games (even in the playoffs) where any one (or possibly even two) of the stars were out. Now we no longer have that luxury. Now the dropoff if we lose Book/Beal/Durant for any length is going to be far more precipitous.

And it seems like there will be a very good possibility that we will be looking at that sometime in the next two years of having a viable window with this roster.

 

[Hoop Head]

What this trade does is give the Suns 3 smaller deals now to move going forward, in addition to 2nd round picks.

Nurkic is 16.8 million a year, he has 3 years remaining
Grayson is 8.5 million in his final year
Little is 6.25 and he has 4 years

That opens up a lot of moves going forward.

 

[Proximo]

Yeah, if you want both completely worn down by the end of the season.

A team can NEVER have enough playmakers on it and now we have two solid ones to come off the bench with a bunch of young talent, but young talented question marks.

Oh come on

Booker 34 minutes
Beal 34 minutes
Gordon 20 minutes
Goodwin/Allen 8 minutes.

Booker and Beal's career minute average is 34 per game, Gordon played 25 per game with the Clippers last year

So how exactly is keeping one on the floor at all times going to burn them out?

 

[TJ]

Ayton was never like the rest of them.

Never. Addition by subtraction.

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Yeah, let’s lump one man’s career into a 10 second clip. You’re not thinking with your head if you think this is addition by subtraction.

 

[Chaplin]

Yeah, let’s lump one man’s career into a 10 second clip. You’re not thinking with your head if you think this is addition by subtraction.

True, that clip doesn't define his career. However, the playoffs this past year had multiple examples of this kind of play. Unfortunately this isn't an exception to the rule.

 

[TJ]

The Athletic grades:

Milwaukee: A
Phoenix: B-
Blazers: B+

C- at best. I personally give it a D.

C usually implies that the team has no net gain or loss. We got worse as a team today.

 

[Chris_Sanders]

Reading the Athletic's reasoning, they like the trade

 

[AzCardsfan76]

Yeah, let’s lump one man’s career into a 10 second clip. You’re not thinking with your head if you think this is addition by subtraction.

Ayton completely disappeared over the last 2 years, especially under any type of pressure. Straight up quit on the team in the last postseason series.