FanPost

My thoughts on the draft, potential trades, and Summer League.

My thoughts on the draft:

First of all, let me begin by stating that I love the Alex Len pick. I love the pick from a player standpoint, a future development standpoint, and a personnel standpoint. Len can easily develop into the best big man from this draft. I see him as a Pau/Valanciunas fusion. He can pass from the post, hit the mid-range jumpshot, and has a great right hook.

Obviously, he still has work to do though. He needs to work on using his left hand and his aggressiveness with and without the ball. DX does a great job breaking down his game (and everyone else's for that matter) and he had many opportunities where he should have just jumped and dunked but overthought his way out of an easy bucket. Fortunately, his weaknesses can be taught/developed over time. He is skilled, no doubt about that. Our dynamic passing PGs will love him in the P&R and P&P. Loving the pick more and more.

I like Goodwin too. His slashing, penetration, and athleticism will be a much needed boost. His shot shouldn't take too long to fix either, he just has a problem of releasing the ball too low. If he had a higher release point, his shot would improve dramatically. But Jeff will teach him in time.

As for Oriakhi, I am a bit befuddled with the pick, but I don't hate it. He was a good energy/hustle player on a decent Mizzou squad. I would have liked a more defensive presence if we chose to go the big man route, such as Mbakwe, or a more polished offensive player, like Carmichael or Leslie. All in all, you can't really complain about the 57th pick though. If Horny saw something in him that he liked, I trust his judgement.

Now regarding potential trades:

I doubt Gortat will be traded right away, in fact I'm in favor of keeping him for now. I believe that throwing Len to the wolves will harm his development. We should use him as Tat's backup, at least until the trade deadline. Some contending team could use him for a playoff push (OKC, DEN, LAL, HOU, DAL, ATL, POR, NOH) or a team could use him due to an unfortunate injury to one of their big men. Hell, a team like Indy could need him if they don't sign West. Bottom line, he will still have trade value at the deadline, and teams will probably be much more willing to part with a 2014 draft pick for a solid veteran big man.

I also am willing to part with Dudley, again at the trade deadline, for future draft picks and young players, after Goodwin has some time to develop. I like WJ as our starting SG for this year. I think we should resign him. He showed promise last year, but not enough to trade Dudley yet. Plus Dudley offers a veteran presence that could vastly help Goodwin, WJ, and the rest of our young players.

Other than that, I would openly shop Brown, Beasley, and Scola. These players have no future with the Suns and are very cap friendly for a team. We could package Brown and Scola to a team looking to generate cap space, like Houston, Dallas, Cleveland, etc. and could get a nice draft pick or young asset to pair with our growing team. Beasley, on the other hand, will be harder to get rid of. He has 2 more years on his contract for 6 million each. I can't think of an teams that would truly want him, except for maybe the Lakers, Bucks, Celtics, or Magic. We might be able to unload him by taking on salary, but that seems counterproductive to our youth movement. Our best shot is either packaging him with Gortat or Dudley, or simply riding out the remainder of his contract. I would go with the latter, simply because it will be more harmful to take on more money. Plus he can lead us to more losses for Wiggins...

My idea for potential Summer League players:

PG: Kendall Marshall/ Diante Garrett/ Zabian Dowdell/ Myck Kabongo (Texas)/ BJ Young (Arkansas)

SG: Archie Goodwin/ Khalif Wyatt (Temple)/ Brandon Triche (Syracuse)/ Seth Curry (Duke)/ Doug Anderson (Detroit)/ Ramon Galloway (La Salle)/ Troy Daniels (VCU)

SF: Travis Releford (Kansas)/ E.J. Singler (Oregon)/ Kevin Parrom (Arizona)/ DJ Stephens (Memphis)/ CJ Leslie (NC State)/ James Southerland (Syracuse)

PF: Alex Oriachi (Mizzou)/ Kenny Kadji (Miami)/ Luke Zeller/ Trevor Mbakwe (Minnesota)/ Jackie Carmichael (Illinois)/ Brandon Davies (BYU)

C: DeWayne Dedmon (USC)/ Aziz N'Diaye (Washington)/ Zeke Marshall (Akron)

Obviously we cannot get all of these players, but even if we could grab 3-5 of these players, it would vastly improve the competition for the last few spots on our bench. It might now seem like a big deal, but competition breeds excellence and many of these players can at least be serviceable bench players in the league. Grabbing some of these players would greatly increase our youth movement plan and make summer league that much more interesting to watch for us.

Please comment with your thoughts below. Hopefully we can build a solid foundation for the future years with this draft. I'm excited about the potential of our draft picks and cannot wait to see them in action.