Brad Cesmat
It’s fascinating to me to see what’s happening in the NBA right now. I’m not talking about Deandre Ayton going through the paces of Summer League, i’m talking about the business of basketball. Look, the Suns have been off the radar in the Arizona sports scene for the last seven years. With the addition of Ayton and the benefit of time, there’s some light at the end of the tunnel. Devin Booker has played on the worst team in the League, yet he’s grown up enough on the court to earn a max contract close to 160-million dollars. The Suns weren’t going to screw up Booker, and Booker wasn’t going to walk away from big bank. So they keep a max player. That’s progress…If the Suns can be accountable to themselves and not act out of impulse, then next summer they should be primed to make a run at some of the bigger names in free agency. I am not going to be one that laments how tough the West is when it comes to making the top 8. The Lakers are ascending with Lebron(though the parts they’ve added are head scratching), Jerry West is not going to screw up the Clippers, Oklahoma City did a terrific job in recruiting Paul George for a season and then convinced him to stay in a small market. But franchises in the West like Portland and San Antonio are going through uncertain times. Can the Blazers convince a max free-agent to come to the Pacific Northwest? Doubtful. Will Damian Lilliard remain content with being on a mid-level squad? The Spurs have been a model of consistency, but now have their first major public player issue with Kawhi Leonard. Tony Parker is off to Charlotte, and will Greg Popovich at age 70 want to continue? Amazing to see the dollars flying around the League in free agency. Look at what Utah spent in the last week on Derrick Favors(2 years, 36 million) and Dante Exum(3 years, 33 million) or what Memphis offered Kyle Anderson is a sheet this week(4 years, 37.s million). Sacramento put down a 4 year 78-million dollar deal for Zach Levine and Chicago matched it within a couple of hours. Not everyone was a fan of the amount of money that the Suns spent on Trevor Ariza( 1 year, 15-million) but if you look at the crazy dollars and contracts being given out this summer, it’s really a precursor to a year from now when as many as twenty teams could be looking at 25-million each in cap space. A one year deal for Ariza as the Suns attempt to climb out of the cellar, is a pretty wise play in my opinion.
Look, the Suns need some luck to get out of the mess they’ve put themselves in. I can see light at the end of the tunnel, but I don’t know if it’s a train speeding down the tracks to run over the franchise. It just takes a bad contract (Brandon Knight) or two and your stuck. Being so bad, has afforded Suns fans to have optimism about perhaps being a fringe playoff team next season. It should never be that way, but here we are. Stay the course…
