If the Suns pick #1, who should they select?

[pokerface]

Ok, if Fultz can elevate the play of the players around him so much why didn't he lead his team to the NCAA tournament? How many of his teammates will be drafted this year? He could be a good pro but he's a lot like Bledsoe in his style of play. Do we want to draft someone who is at that level to play alongside our young core for the next 3-4 years and expect him to someone lead the team to better results than Bledsoe has been doing the last few years?

Also we have Booker taking a lot of shots...and Booker will get better and want even more shots.

Like you said, I don't see significant improvement with the Suns by inserting Fultz over Bledsoe. Again, I'm stressing the word 'significant'. If we have to trade Bled to make room for Fultz I hope we score a really good deal otherwise it's going to be another tanked season.

 

[DevonCardsFan]

Fultz is a future all star who ls game will Translate to the Suns great. Hes not a combo guard, him and Booker in the back court, would be sick and would get the Suns back in the playoff in no time. Bledsoe and Fultz game isnt Similar at all. Hopefully they can move Bledsoe for size. Get a real distrubitor paired with all these weapons and the Suns would make a big leap

 

[pokerface]

Fultz is a future all star who ls game will Translate to the Suns great. Hes not a combo guard, him and Booker in the back court, would be sick and would get the Suns back in the playoff in no time. Bledsoe and Fultz game isnt Similar at all. Hopefully they can move Bledsoe for size. Get a real distrubitor paired with all these weapons and the Suns would make a big leap

I hope you're right... Especially about trading Bledsoe for front court help.

 

[TJ]

Fultz is a future all star who ls game will Translate to the Suns great. Hes not a combo guard, him and Booker in the back court, would be sick and would get the Suns back in the playoff in no time. Bledsoe and Fultz game isnt Similar at all. Hopefully they can move Bledsoe for size. Get a real distrubitor paired with all these weapons and the Suns would make a big leap

You almost can't get rid of Bledsoe if you take Fultz. There are not enough basketballs in the gym for Booker and Fultz. Bledsoe is a solid enough distributor that you can keep him and his reasonable contract. By trading Bledsoe for a big, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul.

I don't doubt Fultz will be a good player in the NBA, but putting him on this team pretty much solves nothing.

 

[pokerface]

You almost can't get rid of Bledsoe if you take Fultz. There are not enough basketballs in the gym for Booker and Fultz. Bledsoe is a solid enough distributor that you can keep him and his reasonable contract. By trading Bledsoe for a big, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul.

I don't doubt Fultz will be a good player in the NBA, but putting him on this team pretty much solves nothing.

That's what I think. Like I keep saying getting Fultz and dumping Bled is pretty much a lateral move..It just buys us time and a cheaper contract. It's tough because this is such a PG dominated draft. Definitely no matter what we should be able to draft Jackson or Tatum so if we want to draft based on need we have options.

Plus I want to add if we got Jackson it would help the ball distribution more.

 

[Covert Rain]

Ball over Fultz.

 

[pokerface]

Ball over Fultz.

I think Ball would fit better with the suns than Fultz

 

[SirStefan32]

You almost can't get rid of Bledsoe if you take Fultz. There are not enough basketballs in the gym for Booker and Fultz. Bledsoe is a solid enough distributor that you can keep him and his reasonable contract. By trading Bledsoe for a big, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul.

I don't doubt Fultz will be a good player in the NBA, but putting him on this team pretty much solves nothing.

I may agree with the second part of your post to some degree, but your first paragraph doesn't make any sense. If there aren't enough basketballs in the gym for Fultz and Booker, there sure as hell aren't gonna be enough for Fults, Booker, AND Bledsoe.

 

[Krangodnzr]

Fultz.

When I looked at the top players, I think Fultz is most likely to be a superstar.

 

[Krangodnzr]

I think Ball would fit better with the suns than Fultz

When you are picking #1, you pick the better player, not better fit.

 

[sunsfan88]

You almost can't get rid of Bledsoe if you take Fultz. There are not enough basketballs in the gym for Booker and Fultz. Bledsoe is a solid enough distributor that you can keep him and his reasonable contract. By trading Bledsoe for a big, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul.

I don't doubt Fultz will be a good player in the NBA, but putting him on this team pretty much solves nothing.

I'm not understanding this. If there aren't enough basketballs for Booker and Fultz then how does adding Bledsoe solve that?

And if your talking about distributing the ball, we would still have Tyler Ulis who is like 10x better than Bledsoe at distributing the ball.

 

[Hoop Head]

Fultz is a future all star who ls game will Translate to the Suns great. Hes not a combo guard, him and Booker in the back court, would be sick and would get the Suns back in the playoff in no time. Bledsoe and Fultz game isnt Similar at all. Hopefully they can move Bledsoe for size. Get a real distrubitor paired with all these weapons and the Suns would make a big leap

If he's not a combo guard why trade Bledsoe for a real distributor? I thought you said Fultz was one? Fultz is a PG right, so you want to use the #1 pick to take a player who is a PG but not a distributor?

 

[pokerface]

When you are picking #1, you pick the better player, not better fit.

Yeah... Supposedly that's how the theory goes...Unless say you got a DeMarcus Cousins who is probably the best center in the NBA who is also a headcase that got traded for peanuts.

There is no one all encompassing rule. You take the better player "in general"... whatever that means. A lot of the time you are comparing apples to oranges and being asked which is better. Depends on your taste!

 

[Hoop Head]

I think Philly is a good case for not taking the BPA, even when they haven't picked #1 overall. They ended up with 3 good Centers and their value plummeted because every other team in the league knew they had to move at least one of them.

The whole "Pick the BPA" argument only applies when there is a shot at a generational star in the draft or there is a measurable gap in talent. If you look at the top 3-4 prospects in this draft I don't think there is a clear cut best player, whoever goes #1 depends on who holds that pick. If you have a player that is in their 1st or 2nd year who plays the same position as someone coming out of the draft then you need to ask yourself if the prospect will be better than who you have already.

 

[pokerface]

I think Philly is a good case for not taking the BPA, even when they haven't picked #1 overall. They ended up with 3 good Centers and their value plummeted because every other team in the league knew they had to move at least one of them.

The whole "Pick the BPA" argument only applies when there is a shot at a generational star in the draft or there is a measurable gap in talent. If you look at the top 3-4 prospects in this draft I don't think there is a clear cut best player, whoever goes #1 depends on who holds that pick. If you have a player that is in their 1st or 2nd year who plays the same position as someone coming out of the draft then you need to ask yourself if the prospect will be better than who you have already.

Good points. Like you said, there needs to be a "measurable gap in talent".. not just getting a player that is slightly better and duplicating a position we are already strong at. Then we end up in a situation like before when we had three quality point guards and we had to practically give Isiah Thomas away for nothing...then we complain about it later. So why repeat that with Bledsoe??

 

[pokerface]

Thinking about it... If we got the #1 pick and we didn't get Jackson I'd rather we trade the pick. Either trade down to a lower pick or package the pick and maybe go for a quality center...and maybe dump Brandon off too.

We don't need Fultz! We have a backcourt of two VERY good scorers in Bled and Book. WTF are we even thinking here??

 

[slinslin]

Does this really require an answer?

Bledsoe is a borderline allstar. Fultz is a franchise player, his potential is far more than Bledsoe and he is 10 years younger. He is going to be a better scorer than Bledsoe, a better passer than Bledsoe, 4 inches or more taller than Bledsoe.

 

[pokerface]

Does this really require an answer?

Bledsoe is a borderline allstar. Fultz is a franchise player, his potential is far more than Bledsoe and he is 10 years younger. He is going to be a better scorer than Bledsoe, a better passer than Bledsoe, 4 inches or more taller than Bledsoe.

So what we supposed to do...Give Bledsoe away like we did Thomas? Arnt we supposed to be gaining something instead of doing lateral moves?

All this scoring talk... I think we have that covered. Bled scores... Book scores.. Warren scores.. I'm sure Chriss and Bender will be decent scorers. How about some defense someday? Isn't that what we're needing more of?

 

[ColdPickleNachos]

So what we supposed to do...Give Bledsoe away like we did Thomas? Arnt we supposed to be gaining something instead of doing lateral moves?

All this scoring talk... I think we have that covered. Bled scores... Book scores.. Warren scores.. I'm sure Chriss and Bender will be decent scorers. How about some defense someday? Isn't that what we're needing more of?

If you get the #1 pick, you still have leverage in a Bledsoe deal. Jackson is good enough that he gives a plausible backup plan to other teams if they think we HAVE to trade Bledsoe. So if you win the lottery on May 16th, you shop Bledsoe for the next five weeks, hopefully trading him for a defensive player(s).

Once you actually draft Fultz, you lose more leverage. You drove the car off the lot. But even then, it just takes two teams who want Bledsoe to recreate a market.

 

[slinslin]

Fultz can play SG too, he has decent size for a shooting guard. Booker can play minutes at SF, also has acceptable size for the position at least for spurts.

If we draft Fultz we don't HAVE TO trade Bledsoe at all. We probably should for the sake of rebuilding purposes but we don't have to.

Bledsoe-Fultz-Booker-Warren-Chriss would probably be our best lineup. If we draft Jackson our best lineup would still probably be a small ball lineup with Warren at the 4 and Chriss at the 5.

 

[slinslin]

All this scoring talk... I think we have that covered. Bled scores... Book scores.. Warren scores.. I'm sure Chriss and Bender will be decent scorers. How about some defense someday? Isn't that what we're needing more of?

Bender had one of the worst scoring seasons ever. 35% from the field, 27% from 3, 36% from FT and really no offensive moves at all.

You want all your players to be capable scorers. Fultz has 2 way potential anyway, he has great defensive tools. It is not like you could just plug in Jackson and he would transform us into a suddenly good defensive team.

 

[overseascardfan]

I think this is all best debatable after the lottery. With PHX's draft luck they'll defy odds and drop as far as they possibly can and then this thread becomes moot.

 

[elindholm]

I think Philly is a good case for not taking the BPA, even when they haven't picked #1 overall. They ended up with 3 good Centers and their value plummeted because every other team in the league knew they had to move at least one of them.

I think the bigger reason that their value plummeted is that their time with the Sixers proved they couldn't stay healthy.

 

[pokerface]

Bender had one of the worst scoring seasons ever. 35% from the field, 27% from 3, 36% from FT and really no offensive moves at all.

You want all your players to be capable scorers. Fultz has 2 way potential anyway, he has great defensive tools. It is not like you could just plug in Jackson and he would transform us into a suddenly good defensive team.

I said Bender will be a decent scorer...Not that he is now. Cripe he's a rookie dude..and already cast as a project. Plus why zero in on that and ignore all the scores we have?? You lose credibility ignoring the facts about this team and what our needs are. This isn't a video game where you trade and delete players without thinking about consequences. Every bad trade can potentially set this team back YEARS. We don't just flush Bledsoe because Fultz is a little better unless everything is thought out.

Plugging Jackson in doesn't make the whole team better defensively....but he's a down payment on it. Plus I suspect he brings more to the table in defense than Fultz being more of a front court player.

 

[pokerface]

I think the bigger reason that their value plummeted is that their time with the Sixers proved they couldn't stay healthy.

Yeah but if you have too many guys playing the same position that has to cut down on a players value. Someone isn't getting enough playing time...Someone isn't being developed.