When the draft goes live in just a few hours, some teams will have no picks and others will have more than they know what to do with. The Phoenix Suns are more likely to fall into the latter category as owners of three first-round picks and too many options.
The current roster situation for Phoenix isn’t too bad, but it isn’t too good either. The Suns are stuck in the hyper-stacked Western Conference where a past-his-prime Tyson Chandler is fighting for minutes with young center Alex Len and an intriguing back court of Eric Bledsoe and Brandon Knight struggles to co-exist.
The best place to start is the sure things in Phoenix. Devin Booker might be the only untouchable piece on the roster. Meanwhile, Tyson Chandler isn’t going anywhere unless he is traded. If he is traded, it is because Brooklyn Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov found out he has draft picks again and exiled new general manager, Sean Marks, to Siberia. The Chandler contract keeps him in Phoenix at $13 million per year through 2018-19. That is going to be a while.
Imagine, several years from now we might have fully electric cars driven by themselves. And Chandler will still be collecting more money per year over the age of 35 than I will earn in my lifetime several times over. I might be wrong, but I don’t see how that contract doesn’t come back to bite them somehow.
Then again, a rising salary cap and the new market efficiency of tanking teams needing to take on some dead salary to go with a bevvy second-round draft picks makes no contract completely untouchable for the right team.
That’s a really long way of saying that Phoenix is all set at the center position. Barring injury, Chandler is going to be taking up an ever-shrinking amount of their cap space and playing time until 2019.
Similarly, Bledsoe and Knight are going to be around for quite a while on deals that are slightly more lucrative than Chandler’s. And that is fair because they are much better than Chandler at this point in all their respective careers.
The obvious problem with Bledsoe is going to be injury concerns. He and Tyson will expire at the same time, after the 2018-19 season. It doesn’t look like Bledsoe will be able to stay healthy, sadly. If he can put together a clean run of health, and that’s a big if, the Suns are also set at this position for the next few years. The difference between Bledsoe and Chandler is that Bledsoe might still be a starting caliber guard when his current deal ends.
Next up is that Knight deal. He was just signed to a new deal which will keep him playing guard for the Suns, barring trade of course, until after the 2019-20 season. Of the three, he will be earning the most money when his contract ends, reaching $16 million.
This means that the Suns have two guards and a center locked up for at least three more years and they are all at different points of the spectrum. Chandler could still be a starter for another year, but might need to be reduced significantly in role over the following two seasons. Bledsoe needs to stay healthy, and if he does, he could be somewhere between an impactful and serviceable starting guard. Knight is riding the wave upward and hasn’t quite hit his ceiling yet, though that is coming very soon if he isn’t already there. He should be able to maintain this level of play for a majority of his contract and his deal is worth it given the rising salary cap and long-term team control.
The holes that the team can look to address right away are going to be at the wing where the team employed P.J. Tucker and Chase Budinger. Tucker is entering the final year of his deal and Bud is done, barring a new free agent deal. That makes for a very shallow depth chart at the three in Phoenix. The other spot that could use a bump is going to be at the four position.
This is where the Suns embarrassment of draft pick riches comes in to play. By the time Phoenix gets on the board at No. 13, the two “sure thing” players will be off the board and most of the high-ceiling, promising prospects will also be taken. That isn’t to say that there isn’t value in the rest of the draft or that some player will become that next Kawhi or Draymond, lurking in the late stages of draft in second-round territory. It just isn’t likely and probably isn’t where you want to go hunting for a starter or important contributor that you rely on heavily.
Assuming Phoenix looks to add more scoring ability on the perimeter with a wing or guard, they can get that with the No. 4 pick. At No. 13, they probably start looking to some bigs in an effort to get depth at the four-spot.
2016 isn’t a mega-class of draft prospects. You’ve got a very thin top-tier group of two, then you’ve got about five or six players who appear to be the real deal at a starter level, and then you’ve got guys who could be picked in the range of the second Phoenix pick or still be on the board with the third Suns pick at No. 28.
It’s completely wide-open right now. Depending on who you consult the following players would be available: Henry Ellenson, Deyonte Davis, Jakob Poeltl, Thon Maker and Cheick Diallo. All of these players are projected between the No. 8 and No. 25 spot. Again, it just depends on which mock you are working with.
Zach Reynolds, draft expect for The Lottery Mafia, has Dragan Bender falling past Boston at No. 3 so Phoenix gets to snag him at the No. 4, leaving them open to grab a wing at No. 13. This makes perfect sense for them if Bender is available. Presuming he is off the board, four-man or wing is the best option for the Suns up top and then they would be in the free-for-all grab bag of middle-round prospects that will be available at No. 13.
Joshua Cornelissen, of Hoops Habit and The Lottery Mafia, also has Phoenix going power forward high with Marquese Chriss and going big (and maybe going home) with Timothe Luwawu at the No. 13. Again, if no Bender is available and they are dead set on taking a guy who plays the four with the No. 4 pick, Chriss seems like a reasonable gamble.
Ultimately, if Phoenix does elect to keep this selection and not package the No. 13 and No. 28 picks in some type of trade, they will definitely be looking for a wing and power forward. The need at wing is probably harder to fill further down the board, so I have them taking a wing up top. Likely, they would be best suited going Jamal Murray at that position and opting for Ellenson, Poeltl or Davis at the No. 13 pick.
If Bender falls to Phoenix at the No. 4, they would be wise to grab him. In that scenario where they take the best available power forward, they could look at a player like Luwawu, but I like Denzel Valentine as a high-percentage 3-point and free throw shooter.
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