Inside the Suns – Topics: Shopping draft picks, Iso ball, Frank Vogel, James Jones

Welcome to ‘Inside the Suns’, your weekly deep down analysis of the current Phoenix Suns team.

Each week the Fantable – a round table of Bright Siders – give their takes on the Suns’ latest issues and news.

Fantable Questions of the Week

Q1 – What are your thoughts about the Suns shopping with their first round draft picks in 2024 and 2031?

OldAz: I am still very unclear on all of the CBA rules for teams over the 2nd tax threshold and how this impacts trades this offseason for the Suns. Probably need Rod to do an entire article on it, to be honest. If the Suns can’t aggregate salaries and can’t take back a single dollar more than they send out, then I am not sure how trading a pick works in their favor. Can they even trade a pick straight up for a player? And if so, how much salary would that player be allowed to make? Would they be allowed to trade Little plus the FRP as a package? And if they do that, are they limited to getting back a player for just Little’s salary or less? Outside of Little, I only think there are minimum salary players they could even include in such a trade. Like I said, I probably need a whole article on what CBA rules are regarding the Suns trade draft possibilities this summer. Depending on these specific rules, it might be better to select an upper classman with a high floor who can contribute than simply getting back a low level player.

Brrrberry: Super slippery slope at this point ridding themselves of potentially 1 or 2 more FRP but there’s some nuance here. IF they get a guy who is a proven NBA player somewhere in the 24-27 year old range then it probably makes a lot of sense to shop those picks. Especially because it’s not out of the realm of possibility that they end up drafting a 22-23 year old with their pick this year and let’s be real here, there is not a lot of difference in shelf life between a 22-23 year old who hasn’t proven a lick in the league and a 24-27 year old that has.

I mentioned NAW as the type of two way role player that it’d behoove them to target, he’d be a ONE FRP type of target. I’d have to do some more research to come up with some names to target just trading the 2024 because NAW is undoubtedly not available for the 22nd pick in what’s considered a fairly weak class. He’s just the type of player I think they’d target. Caruso is the guy I’d probably trade both for. Nas Little for salary matching purposes + both 24/31. He’s the one guy I feel confident could come in and make an outsized impact with the skillsets he provides. If we’re all in, Caruso is the ideal all in move with what assets we realistically have to toy around with. PG abilities, elite defender, excellent spot up shooter and plays with the type of intensity we’re lacking. You’d have to hope that intensity would become contagious.

Rod: To me it makes good sense to shop them if only to get an idea of what they might be able to get in return. Shopping them doesn’t mean that they’re dead set on trading them. As they can’t get a player or players back for them alone (CBA rules), they would have to send someone out with them to make any trade work, unless they wind up trading for other or more draft picks.

Personally, I hope they use their 2024 first to draft a useful player for the roster but if they can find a good trade that cost them the 2031 pick I’d be for it. The one thing I’d be against is using either pick to trade for another player on the wrong side of his prime years. An infusion of youth would be good for this team and I don’t care whether they get it through the draft or by trading draft picks for it. And while I have my doubts that it will happen, trading the 2031 pick for more picks in earlier years would be a very good return for it.

Q2 – At the moment it seems as though the Suns are going to retain both Frank Vogel and James Jones. What are your thoughts on this and how long a leash should each of them have moving forward?

OldAz: I personally think it is the right call in both cases. While Jones made a massive error in drafting Smith over Haliburton, that is a singular issue from a fears back. Outside of that, his moves have been reasonable considering the limitations placed on him. It is clear the Ishbia the KD trade was made because Ishbia wanted it, and the Beal trade was basically a choice between having that player or having no player as the only other option was just to waive CP3. I still think he needs to target more length and athleticism in his signings and trades, but the limits on what he can do are so severs, it is hard to fault him for the current state of the Suns.

As for Vogel, I continue to maintain that continuity is a good thing and the effort and energy of the players is a bigger factor than the coach. Starting over with a new coach only makes sense at this point if it is clear that the Suns “Big 3” will not put forth the required consistent energy , passion and effort for Vogel. If that is the case, you have to move on, but you also also have to consider trading away those players at Pennie’s on the dollar because of all it says about those players. Improvement needs to start on the defensive end, and Vogel’s system worked well in the rare instances where the players decided to play with the effort and intensity that the TWolves and Knicks play with for every minute of every game. That will also fix a lot of the offense as the Suns have some elite finishers and better defense will lead to faster offense in a lot of cases. However, someone still needs to develop a better, more cohesive half court offense that maximizes all the players on the floor, instead of just one superstar at a time.

Brrrberry: Vogel and his team are working full time spin selling the entire organization and he probably makes a good point. Aside from whatever roster construction issues were at play, our biggest flaw was lack of continuity. Look at the difference a year of continuity has made for the Wolves. They ran back basically the same squad that lost in the first round and now they’re legitimately the dark horse contenders I said they’d be before the season which quite a few scoffed at. And it’s not that Ant played any better in the first round this year than he did last year. He actually averaged more points in the first round last year than he did against the Suns.

This is a team game and continuity all the way around is vitally important. It’s a mess because I do not think that Vogel and his staff are the right guys for the job. The two names I’d be targeting if I was the Suns would be Dawn Staley or Jared Dudley. Not Bud, not Lue because he’s not going anywhere. Staley would be at the top of the list though and I’d give her full control to implement her system. It’s just a terrible place for us to be in and what we do with the coaching staff is going to have a huge effect on how next season plays out. I’m worried. Phil Jackson and Tex Winter anyone?

Rod: If they’re not tearing the team down or doing any major roster moves during the offseason, holding on to Frank might make more sense than firing him, at least from a continuity standpoint. Was the Suns’ offense Frank’s idea or Kevin Young’s? With Young leaving for BYU, we’ll find out this fall. Frank’s leash might be short though and if the Suns get off to another underwhelming start in 2024-25 he could be gone before the All-Star break.

Whether we feel James Jones is doing a good job or not doesn’t really matter. If he’s just following Ishbia’s orders, Ishbia is likely going to keep him around even if he’s giving him bad orders to follow. Conversely, if Ishbia is mostly rubber stamping “APPROVED” on Jones’ decisions then finding someone else to run the show might be a good idea. Either way, they need to make some moves to at least attempt to fix some of the team’s most obvious shortcomings this season. Obtaining a reasonably good point guard to add too the rotation – either as a starter or off the bench – would go a long way in regaining some of my faith in their abilities to build a good roster.

Q3 – Former seven time All-Star and All-NBA player Tracy McGrady recently said that he believes the Suns were a huge disappointment this season because, “The offense is just really tailored for them to go one-on-one.” Do you believe the Suns’ 3 stars can adapt to effectively play any other way?

OldAz: I think they better. I am hoping that this season was a bit humbling for Booker as one of my concerns with Book in past years was that he would not share the spotlight with players like DA or Mikal. He treated them like his “supporting cast”. This last year, they went out and got the Big 3 and hopefully it has proven to all of them that team ball simply works better. If they can develop an offense that highlights all of them at the same time, they can still be dangerous. However, if the whole offense is still designed to set up 1:1 matchups, then the Suns will continue to struggle as we saw this year. This is even more true with the leagues new preference for less fouls being called and a more physical game.

Brrrberry: I do and he’s right. It seems like a near certainty they’re going to need to bring in someone from the outside to get things right offensively. Can they hired next years version of KY and it actually work out? I’m dubious an assistant coach whose yet to be employed by the team is going to be able to come in from the outside and fix the altogether flawed offensive system we employed last year. We’ve definitely got a coaching issue and it needs to be fixed. I think our 3 best players are willing to do what it takes, they just need the right staff to put it all together and coach them at an elite level.

Rod: I think they can but the real question is will they do it? I’m also not 100% certain that McGrady is right. No matter how the offense often looks to be tailored to play iso ball, I have seen stretches where the ball movement was very good and the Suns actually played good team ball. Is the offense really structured that way or are Book, KD and Beal just continually falling back on what they consider to be their “bread and butter” to score way too often during games?

I saw Beal adapting his play to the PG role and focusing more on playing good defense near the end of the season but that alone isn’t going to get it done. Book and KD need to follow suit and Vogel (or whoever is the HC next season) needs to put his foot down if/when they stray too far off the offensive plan and try to do too much by themselves.

As always, many thanks to our Fantable members for all their extra effort this week!

Last Week’s poll results

Last week’s question was, “Do you believe the Suns should trade Devin Booker?”

11% – Yes.

89% – No.

A total of 270 votes were cast.

Suns Trivia

In the early years of the NBA draft, there was no limit to how many rounds were allowed and teams would continue selecting players until they ran out of prospects. In the 1969 draft, after selecting Neal Walk with the 2nd pick of the 1st round, the Suns proceeded to draft a total of 22 players over 20 rounds, the most players ever selected by the Suns in a single draft. Of the 21 selected after Walk, only 1 wound up actually playing for the Suns (Lamar Green from 1969/70 through 1963/74), and one’s NBA “career” spanned only 6 minutes divided between two games… after being waived by the Suns and later picked up by Baltimore.

This week’s poll is…