It's Time for the Phoenix Suns to Trade Robin Lopez

Unneeded young backup for Unneeded young backup. Classic “your problem for mine” trade, where both teams need the other’s player more.

Or maybe we can convince Atlanta to take JChill back, and give us Hinrich? His expiring contract and position (1/2 combo guard) would suit us perfectly.

Hinrich is due back in the next 7 days and he’d solve our backup 1/2 issues, and give us another solid defender. http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=7l4mant works, but I’m not sure ANYONE wants JChill at this point. Still, Atlanta needs another big, so it’s worth a shot.

Lopez is the least of this teams problems. Since former player agent Lon Babby took over as head of ‘basketball operations’ in July, 2010, a job which apparently means dishing out the contracts and doing trades, the SUNS have been destroyed. The logic in letting Amare go and then spending over $33 million on Childress has been a disaster, like some other roster moves. Childress will be getting raises through 2015 to over $7 million, why was the guy was given a 5 year contract? Dudley and Frye can be counted on for 6-12 points on a good night for them, they are weak bench material at best. Dudley, to be valuable, must at least be a high ranked NBA 3 point shooter as his athleticism is near zero. Ronnie Price knees were around Dudley’s chest on the Price rebound put back last night. The SUNS need better players and perhaps a new coach, and they most of all need an organization that knows what they are doing and will fork over the money and get the coaching and back office leadership to remake the team.

no team would give up a draft pick for him.

And even if we were able to trade him, we don’t have another center. I don’t want gortat wasting too much energy on this season, and he would be carrying an awful heavy load if we trade Lopez.

I have no doubt Nash will figure out a way to get this team winning more. Might even be in the long shot conversation for that 8th playoff spot again near the end of the season.

Is it worth it though? This team really needs a fresh start. Young talent and picks in the draft.

Totally agree with trading Lopez but it may be time to go farther than that. Picks and young talent.

Well, we always want to play to win and compete, but this team just isn’t doing that now for whatever reason. It doesn’t make much sense to me for us to exhaust nash and hill even more(if that’s possible)just to grab the eighth playoff spot.

If we by some miracle do get it, will there realistically be enough left in the tanks of our players to pull off upset after upset in each series in order to make the finals? Let alone win it all? The odds certainly aren’t in our favor right now, especially with this team’s current weaknesses.

We should still try to make the playoffs so we don’t compromise this franchise’s integrity(tanking). With our big free agency plans starting to fall apart with the big names accepting extensions, it would be very wise to throw our best effort into the draft.

Maybe we can offer rolo and some cash considerations or some other player in a trade that lands us another lottery pick or first rounder. Anybody have any ideas on how we get that done?

I think trading Nash is a poor decision if we can help it. We won’t get anything near dollar for dollar with him, and to be completely honest he is not slowing down at all this season. His numbers are great, he’s pushing the tempo, finding the open man, and would have a ton more assists if people could hit their shots. I’d like it If he signed 2 more years of course if he was up to it. If we get a top 5 pick, we have enough room for a decent to big star. 2013 line up will look pretty beast. Nash, Gortat, top 5 pick, BAMF (ehh), and what Keef? With the slight chance he can turn into a beast after he gets this year under his belt. BTW if we somehow managed to get Redick for Rolo, I would throw a party.

but it’s hard to get back value when your team is playing bad. There’s a reason why most losing teams can only get value for expirings and picks. It’s hard.

Robin is a young 7’1 at least, if we were winning and he was playing good 10/15 mpg, there’d be a chance we would end up with someone as good as OJ Mayo (and Mayo has amazing potential) while only giving up a 2nd rounder or something.
Right now, however, we probably would get back a late 2nd rounder from a contender where he’s needed to give 5/10 mpg.

My suggestion would be to give these guys until the trade deadline. Let them play their game. We, just like Nash said, don’t have that much talent. But most guys are also going through some bad times. Frye isn’t this bad. Most people here have said good things about his improved rebounding and D. Guess what, it isn’t his rebounding and D that make him valuable. It’s his ability to stretch the floor. With the right guy besides him, he’s an awesome guy.
JYD is much better than he’s been looking. While still making an effort, he’s been bad. He hasn’t been shooting well, he looks a little stiff on the defensive end.
Grant, Robin, pretty much everyone on this roster can play better bball.

So we need to give them time to play their game, find their flow. It’s both hard to change something in your game (and I’m thinking in this new deffensive effort from Frye or the lost of weight and improved driving from Dudley) and keep up your strenghts, specially on a season like this.
Given this, we should trade RoLo at the deadline, mainly because the reason he’s most needed is now gone (Bynum+Pau+Odom). I’d look at the ‘Cats (they’re starting Byron Mullens…), maybe we can take a future 1st or a pair of 2nd rounders, which would be acceptable for both ends as I see it. I’d settle with a 3-man rotation at the frontcourt, I like extended minutes for Frye at the 4 and 5 with Gortat/Morris besides him. And I like giving the rookie opportunities to miss and learn. If needed, Warrick can play some minutes at the 4 in case of foul trouble. He’s a good locker guy, can lift the crowd with a few dunks and he’s at a reasonable contract. For a few SF/PF minutes a game I think he’s ok and we won’t get anything back for him.
The backcourt is my main concern. And honestly, it isn’t even the Nash situation. I think we’ll be ok if we resign Brooks, he’s a contender backup at worse, if he’s at his best. The issue with him last year is the same with Goran and pretty much everyone that has backed up Steve. They’re backing him up. How can anyone forget who’s the starter? So I really think Aaron can be a great back up for us.
The SG position is what really scares me. Shannon is nice off the bench with us, if we think of our lack of athleticism and need for someone who can create for themselves (even though he isn’t great at it and he’s awful at decision making, but i’ll take it for now). Redd is obviously a project, he’s probably the best scorer on the team, but he’s in horrible condition. I’d say this season is to regain some in-court action, I admit there’s a slight chance he gets back to the court as something more than a garbage player and locker room experienced vet, but that won’t happen this year. Maybe next season. Dudley is not an SG. He’s a great guy, hustles, shoots, defends, makes all the little things. But he’s an SF. He doesn’t have the quickness, no matter how much weight he loses. And Childress, while a good player (yes, boo me, I think he’s nice and could even adress some of our needs) is over at this team and will probably be amnestied.
So we urgently need a guy at the two. I hope we can make a move for OJ in the summer. Make a good pick in this good, deep draft and expect one more season of mediocrity. Maybe in a season or two we can do it. But let’s not rush it and ruin everything trading our picks and youngs to give it one last shot.

Sorry everybody for the huge post, but I just kept on writing…

Which I don’t think will happen until closer to the all star game, I would like to see us either try and pick up OJ Mayo or somehow make a package for tyrus thomas/ boris diaw.
Tyrus gives an athletic defender in the paint and Diaw could give us another playmaker potentially by playing the high post like he did when Amar’e was out.
Imagine high low Gortat-Diaw. Both can shoot the ball too. Would let Chill and Brown slash as well. And it least those trades are at least an actual possibility, not just plan rosterbation/hope.

Wow, that was a really well thought out post that makes alot of sense in alot of areas pereplyotkin, nice job man.

I agree 100% with everything you said in your post, and it needed to be said. We should definitely wait until the deadline to explore trades for lopez, we need time to see if he can play much better than he has so far this season. Upgrading our backcourt will be a very important step to continually making the playoffs and trying to advance from there.

I’ve said this so many times already, but everybody knows by now that the upcoming draft is considered to be the strongest in some time. We can either choose to add a very talented big man or a starting caliber pointman in this draft. Not to mention all the wings that have all-star upside.

We shouldn’t get down about this season because it’s eventually going to be a win/win scenario for our suns. We"ll either find a way to make the playoffs and surprise some people or we"ll be awarded a potentially high lottery pick ensuring a chance to add an exceptional young talent for next season.

We also can’t rule out the slim possibility of adding an oj mayo or eric gordon in free agency either. It may seem like a very slim possibility but we can still make some offers to some young,talented overlooked guys.

What about trading for diaw,then trading him at the deadline to a team in need(other than us of course) to try and get another first rounder or maybe even another lottery pick(lower lottery most likely)?

I wouldn’t mind adding boris for just this season in order to use his expiring contract to net us something really good.

Maybe there’s a young team out there that would consider relinquishing their pick for diaw’s expiring contract either to use the money to add a player they like(we’d still have plenty of cash to spend regardless) or to pay a star they don’t want to potentially lose to free agency.

Does anybody have some scenarios where this might work?

Rick Robey.