What is the plan?

[Mainstreet]

No, I'd bet my soul the final straw for McD was not that Sarver, an owner who has shown no patience and little value for draft picks, was fighting to keep one against his draft loving GM.

I can think of a lot of scenarios that are more likely to have been the last straw:

A stupid fight on the phone over the team's preseason play...

Sarver's constant meddling...

The lack of a point guard (possibly due to Sarver's meddling)...

McD not thinking the goat poop thing was funny...

These are all good guesses. It's so hard to know until McDonough opens up about the matter.

One of my earlier guesses leading to the McDonough firing is he wanted to use Josh Jackson in a trade for a point guard.

Missing on Bender, Chriss and Jackson would be a bit too much.

 

[Mainstreet]

I would have given them an unprotected pick... like say, our 2045 pick.

It would be the Suns luck that pick would be the number 1 pick 2045. LOL

I'm not a fan of trading unprotected first round picks.

If the Suns want Rozier maybe they can make an offer this summer when he is a restricted free agent.

 

[Mainstreet]

I'm not sure if James Jones is the right choice for the Suns GM position but trading Ariza for Oubre and Anderson for Tyler Johnson deserves some serious accolades. And these moves were all done without giving up draft picks.

 

[JCSunsfan]

These are all good guesses. It's so hard to know until McDonough opens up about the matter.

One of my earlier guesses leading to the McDonough firing is he wanted to use Josh Jackson in a trade for a point guard.

Missing on Bender, Chriss and Jackson would be a bit too much.

We can all guess what got McD fired. It was probably a number of things.

1. No starting pg on the roster to begin this season.
2. Everyone coming to the realization that Bender's option would not be picked up. Major fail.
3. No ability to draw a significant free agent.
4. Ariza immediately unhappy on arrival. That was pretty clear to everyone they say.

 

[High Stakes]

I'm not sure if James Jones is the right choice for the Suns GM position but trading Ariza for Oubre and Anderson for Tyler Johnson deserves some serious accolades. And these moves were all done without giving up draft picks.

Are you forgetting this trade accidentally happened? James Jones did not target oubre, he got stuck with oubre, and then got lucky with the results

 

[AzStevenCal]

Are you forgetting this trade accidentally happened? James Jones did not target oubre, he got stuck with oubre, and then got lucky with the results

 

[BC867]

You are cool, Steve. Responding by bolding five words in the post.

I guess that takes "like" to a new level.

 

[JCSunsfan]

Are you forgetting this trade accidentally happened? James Jones did not target oubre, he got stuck with oubre, and then got lucky with the results

Again. Open to interpretation. They may have valued Oubre higher, but were only able to get him because the first trade fell apart. There is no indication that they just got stuck with Oubre as in they did not want him.

Honestly, I am not trying to defend James Jones here. This statement just seems like a jaded conjecture thrown out there as fact.

 

[Chaplin]

Are you forgetting this trade accidentally happened? James Jones did not target oubre, he got stuck with oubre, and then got lucky with the results

No proof of that.

 

[GatorAZ]

The Suns wanted Dillon Brooks but that doesn’t mean Oubre wasn’t on their radar. As I remember they weren’t in communication with Washington but just assumed everything would work out. Have I mentioned that we need a new GM?

 

[Mainstreet]

Are you forgetting this trade accidentally happened? James Jones did not target oubre, he got stuck with oubre, and then got lucky with the results

The trade was not an accident. I don't know how you can say this.

I give GMs credit for the trades they make. Jones still pulled the trigger on the Oubre trade even though the details changed.

Another thing, how many GMs out there are kicking themselves for not trading for Oubre?

Oubre would have been a huge help to a contender.

 

[JCSunsfan]

As far as the plan for this summer, the Suns potential cap space stands at about $26 million right now.

That is with no Oubre, no Holmes, and renouncing rights to Daniels and Crawford. It also does not include a cap hold for our first round pick.

We could waive and stretch Tyler. That would gain us about $11 million. We could ask him to tear up his final year and sign a 4 year $48 million deal, and that would save us $7 instead of $11 million.

We could trade Warren for future picks. That would get us $11 million.
We could cut or trade Jackson, that could get us $7 million (not sure when the deadline is for this).

So, here are my thoughts.

1. If it means waiving and stretching Tyler to keep Oubre, I would do that. Some are predicting Oubre will get a $20 mill offer. That will be a tough one to deal with.
2. Trading some combination of Warren, Jackson, Okobo, Melton, and or picks for a pg is a very positive way to adjust this roster.
3. If Holmes is game, we can renounce him, sign who we need, and then resign him to a vet minimum deal after we are done. He might get more than that on the market though.
4. Daniels is gone, and Bender is gone no matter what.

 

[taz02]

The Oubre trade is one of only a few moves, in fact the most significant move we can use to evaluate our rookie, interim, co-GM who was just blasted in the media.

Even though we ended up with a great player, the trade itself was a debacle and had the feeling that there was more luck than skill involved.

We will likely never know the whole story but it would have been more helpful for Jones if the trade went through without a hitch and Oubre was the intended target from the get go.

 

[JCSunsfan]

The Oubre trade is one of only a few moves, in fact the most significant move we can use to evaluate our rookie, interim, co-GM who was just blasted in the media.

Even though we ended up with a great player, the trade itself was a debacle and had the feeling that there was more luck than skill involved.

We will likely never know the whole story but it would have been more helpful for Jones if the trade went through without a hitch and Oubre was the intended target from the get go.

The only way to be fair is to grade the trades actually made.

 

[Hoop Head]

Memphis was going to acquire Oubre but they were also sending a pair of 2nd round picks to Washington for him. The Suns didn't want to include picks in that so we were getting Dillon Brooks. We ended up in situation where Washington needed to send Oubre and Rivers out because of how far things went and were able to get him without picks involved. That made it work for us. Everyone knew Ariza was getting dealt somewhere and I'd bet we had other offers on the table that could have been done had everything fallen part with Washington but it didn't.

 

[taz02]

Ummmm..I didn't know we had to be fair....haha

None of us are in a position to know enough to grade him on this trade. Without knowing Jones' position or feelings on Oubre' before the trade makes it difficult to judge. Had Obre been the initial target there would be no question...

Anyway, Oubre is here lets hope we can keep him.

 

[1Sun]

The only way to be fair is to grade the trades actually made.

So...if McDonough first tried to trade the #1 pick, Jackson and Booker for Goran Dragic, failed in doing so, and settled for drafting Ayton and making the trade for Bridges, we are supposed to ignore his asinine Plan A just because Plan B somehow worked out?

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Again. Open to interpretation. They may have valued Oubre higher, but were only able to get him because the first trade fell apart. There is no indication that they just got stuck with Oubre as in they did not want him.

Honestly, I am not trying to defend James Jones here. This statement just seems like a jaded conjecture thrown out there as fact.

You’re right. But it’s just as much conjecture to assume they valued oubre higher. Remember oubre is about to be a free agent. Dillon was cost controlled.

But what isn’t conjecture is actually landing oubre was luck due to the original deal crumbling.

 

[AzStevenCal]

Ummmm..I didn't know we had to be fair....haha

None of us are in a position to know enough to grade him on this trade. Without knowing Jones' position or feelings on Oubre' before the trade makes it difficult to judge. Had Obre been the initial target there would be no question...

Anyway, Oubre is here lets hope we can keep him.

None of us are in a position to know enough to grade him on this trade or any trade. But if we're going to judge him for the things under his control, this has to be a positive IMO. Even if you acknowledge that there was luck involved in that the first deal didn't go through, it still boils down to making the move he made. Jones could have said no, could have moved on to other trading partners. So this is on him.

 

[JCSunsfan]

You’re right. But it’s just as much conjecture to assume they valued oubre higher. Remember oubre is about to be a free agent. Dillon was cost controlled.

But what isn’t conjecture is actually landing oubre was luck due to the original deal crumbling.

True. The second deal could not have happened if the first did not fall apart. Serendipity there.

 

[Hoop Head]

We gave up less for Oubre than Washington was originally receiving in the first deal that included Memphis. There's no debating that. Since we managed to pay less than they were charging Memphis I think we can give Jones some credit for that. Had he paid the same, including those 2nd round picks, then it would be easier to fault him in a way. He took advantage of a bad situation and wasn't taken advantage of. That's a positive in my book.

 

[BC867]

The only way to be fair is to grade the trades actually made.

The only way to be complete is to assess the trades and how they were made, once it became public that confusion was involved.

Why would we want only part of the truth?

 

[taz02]

The trade worked out great. I just think that it was such a debacle initially that its not exactly how you want your best move to look.

The issues with that trade seem to fit with the recent articles about the disfunction in the GM's office and teams not even knowing who to deal with.

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

The trade worked out great. I just think that it was such a debacle initially that its not exactly how you want your best move to look.

The issues with that trade seem to fit with the recent articles about the disfunction in the GM's office and teams not even knowing who to deal with.

The trade going down the way it did was not JJ's fault. Originally Memphis was to be part of that trade and they were going to send picks to WAS to receive Oubre while we got Brooks. Memphis then decided they no longer wanted anything to do with that trade and that left WAS desperate to make it happen so we were able to then be the one to get Oubre without having to give up anything extra. If we had gone straight up with WAS from the beginning it likely would have been Ariza and picks to make it happen. That would have seemed like a lot at the time because Oubre did not look this good with WAS.

 

[Hoop Head]

Add in how that trade was reported early by Woj trying to be the first one to break the news and that trade looked worse to the public than it should have. It was reported like 2 hours before it could have been made official since Ariza wasn't eligible to be dealt until midnight eastern time when it actually became December 15th. Woj reported it at like 9 or 10pm Eastern on the 14th and things were straightened out by the time it could be made official. I don't fault Jones for what happened. I don't even know which GM or franchise would be to blame either but one thing that is certain is it should not have been made public when it was and that falls on Woj, ESPN, and other sports writers. That's today's news cycle though, everyone cares more about being first with something rather than having all of the information correct. You see similar things happen in politics. Had that trade happened 5 years ago I don't think fans would of learned of the mess it became at first.