The Suns project to be our worst team in the Western Conference and after the trade of Marcin Gortat, possibly the worst team in the entire league. In the bid to capture the top odds for the 2014 draft’s first overall selection, the dumping of Marcin Gortat for Emeka Okafor’s contract and an additional 2014 first round pick represents a bit of a coup for the Suns. They were not going to be good this year, no matter what, but Gortat is an above average NBA center who figured to play a starter’s load of minutes for Phoenix. Instead, the Suns have traded him away for a player unlikely to play at all this year due to a scary neck injury and a possible second lottery pick in the best draft in ages. Great work by Phoenix GM Ryan McDonough. So how bad should the Suns be?
The Suns, with their old roster when I first ran these numbers, looked to be a 29 win club, adjusted for league average to a 26 win team. That projection, though, was with Marcin Gortat, Caron Butler, Kendall Marshall, and Malcolm Lee on the team. All of those players have been sent away with nary an NBA player brought in to replace a one of them. That’s roughly 4 to 4.5 wins lost, by our estimation here. So look for the Suns to hover right around 21–22 wins- unless, of course, they go even more totally all-in on the tank and dump Goran Dragic in a deal for further future assets. Such a trade seems at least a 50/50 proposition and probably more likely than that to occur. McDonough has shown no interest in winning too many games this year and damaging his odds at maximum ping-pong balls in May’s draft lottery. It’s a strategy that seems fairly sound given the talent that is available in the top 5 picks of this year’s draft. Of course, there’s no way of knowing whether it will work out, but the logic is sound and the plan has been well executed and that’s really all you can ask for from your team’s executives.
NBA Couchside 