Suns Rumors: Crowder, Ayton, Draft, Johnson, Batum
The Suns have made calls to rival teams in an effort to gauge Jae Crowder‘s value on the trade market, according to Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report.
Before becoming eligible for unrestricted free agency next summer, Crowder, who will turn 32 in July, will make $10.18MM in 2022–2023. For the past two seasons, the seasoned forward has played his typical three-and-D position for Phoenix, averaging 9.7 PPG, 5.0 RPG, and a.369 3PT percentage in 127 games (27.8 MPG) during that time. Even if he wouldn’t get a high return, he would probably have positive value as a trade chip.
Fischer also claims that despite numerous rumours to the contrary, Suns management have been telling clubs and “other external league employees” that they’re willing to match a maximum-salary offer sheet for Deandre Ayton (including a report from Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN on Wednesday).
Negotiating a sign-and-trade agreement would be the most obvious way to acquire the former No. 1 overall choice from Phoenix for other suitors interested in Ayton if they feel the Suns would match a max offer sheet.
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According to Fischer, Phoenix is thought to be interested in a second-round choice in the current draught.
By stating (via Twitter) that Phoenix has no interest in trading Cameron Johnson in exchange for the No. 8 overall pick and by adding (via Twitter) that he doesn’t anticipate the team to have serious interest in free agent forward Nicolas Batum or Knicks wing Cam Reddish, John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7 puts the lie to some recent rumours surrounding the Suns.
Kevin Arnovitz examines how the Suns handle scouting and the draught in contrast to other NBA clubs in an interesting Insider-only story for ESPN.com. Phoenix, according to Arnovitz, hasn’t even finished ranking candidates on a draught board for the previous three years. According to senior analyst of personnel and club evaluation Zach Amundson of ESPN, “Our draught board would be a joke to other teams.” We barely had five to seven individuals on our draught board when we were through.
As Arnovitz explains, the Suns’ unconventional evaluation method contributed to their selection of Johnson with the 11th overall pick in 2019 after trading down from No. 6. The selection was criticised at the time and viewed as a reach. Our team was ready to