Could the Phoenix Suns Get Mitchell Robinson Or Luguentz Dort?

Could the Phoenix Suns Get Mitchell Robinson Or Luguentz Dort?

today on locked on Phoenix Suns two high-profile role players who could be available to the Suns via trade in a best case scenario and will the Suns actually be making a pick we expect at the NBA draft all on a bonus episode of lockdown Suns you are locked on suns your daily Phoenix Suns podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team everyday and we’re back this is locked on Phoenix Suns part of lockon podcast Network your team every day I’m Brendan clean your host a credential media member covering the Suns for the past seven seasons and the host of the just basketball show Welcome in thank you for making lock on suns your first listen to kick off your weekend that’s right it is a bonus episode of the show appreciate you finding us today hit follow or subscribe if if you have not before get a new episode of your of this show in your feed every single Monday through Friday we got all of the news all of the rumors all of the moves on lock here so become an every dayer all offseason long in the next season why not keep it right here get locked onto the Phoenix Suns all off season long all right we got a lot to hit on actually some news in Suns land some news around the NBA and it is that time of year so figured why not let’s do six let’s do six in a week who’s holding us back today’s episode brought to you by prize picks the easiest most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports go to priz picks.com locked on NBA use the code locked on NBA when you do to get a first deposit match up to $100 okay so first order of business trades in the NBA there was a fairly big trade on Thursday Josh giddy going to Chicago um Alex cruso going to Oklahoma City where he began his career in the g- league now we’ll actually Circle back around to that trade to close out the show but from a sun standpoint your antenna might have gone up when you saw that news because Caruso you know I always joke that Thunder are just accumulating clones of the exact same types of players I feel like there’s a lot of nights where Jaylen Williams Jay dub Phoenix native looks heck of a lot like Shay gilders Alexander their MVP candidate I feel like uh Cas Wallace basically is Alex Caruso but just a little younger they got Aaron Wiggins who’s kind of the jdub Clone himself it’s just multiplying what that means though in a player whose name I didn’t say there is ludor and that he could be potentially available now we’ll pause there let’s go to New York this has not happened for sure yet although it legally can Isaiah hartenstein is a free agent out with the Knicks and because we’re in this window where teams are able to agree to contracts with their own players hartenstein technically could agree to a contract a new contract any day now um will he we’ll see but it seems very like very much like the Knicks are interested in it we’ll see what that number comes in at we’ll see doesn’t really matter for this from the Sun standpoint they don’t have the money to sign hartenstein anyway what it matters for from a sun standpoint is the availability the potential availability of Mitchell Robinson who up until you know Midway through this season or so when he got hurt was the starting center for the Knicks he is a player that I said all the way back in April when I first started to go through a list of players around the NBA who might be getable by way of a Yousef nerkach trade for Phoenix all right whether that is pick number 22 this year which looks increasingly likely that the Suns will not actually be trading we’ll talk about that next or more likely the 2031 first round pick that they will have at their disposal starting next Wednesday night in the NBA draft also just side note I’ve said next Thursday like 150 times talking about the draft this past couple of weeks I had no idea that they had moved it to Wednesday Thursday I thought the second round thing that they were going to be televising now day two of the draft which is knew was Friday night it’s not they moved the whole thing up on top of adding that extra day so there we go Wednesday the Suns will have that pick and that’s when I could see them going after Robinson and Dort all right so could the Suns get those players is the question they both appear to be relatively available I don’t think I think the Knicks are probably more like much more likely to trade Robinson you’re already hearing rumors that he could be available the Dort thing is sort of maybe an imaginary a possibility let’s talk about Robinson first he makes sense for the Suns he is exactly he does the things that they needed from a center very badly this past year he is an elite rebounder on I guess I would say especially the offensive end you know which I think you can give or take you know take it or leave it I should say as a great team you don’t need to be awesome at offensive rebounding his total rebounding percentage was only 19.2 which isn’t Elite by any means but his offensive rebounding is great and he’s a pretty good shop blocker and even if he’s maybe not the most elite you know highflying Ben Wallace shot blocker or whatever you want to compare him to that there is in the league he anchors the paint he has good uh footwork and awareness and IQ to kind of be in that drop coverage and take away uh kind of take up space eliminate shots at The Rim so a lot of those things are what we know the Suns need he also makes uh not not insane amount of money of course the issue is he is hurt all the time this past season only played 31 games got injured twice previous season 59 Games season before that 7 2 then before that 31 so you shouldn’t count on him to be playing more than I would say 60 games at this point he had injuries back to college and high school it’s a risk that said he again only makes 14.3 million this year and 12.9 million The Following season so pretty perfect trade candidate for the nick uh for the Suns trade Target for the Suns but the problem here is really not any different than the Thunder which I will jump back to now Lou Dort obviously went to Arizona State University which is I’m sure why Suns fans have kept tabs on him but a player who just like Robinson does a lot of the things that the Suns really needed this past season point of attack defense you’re you’re going to be hard pressed to find anybody in the league more capable at that one skill than Dort it was a great feature on him in the athletic this past year about all the little tricks that he pulls I believe believe it was by Fred Katz just just really impressive strong can guard up had a gave Luca a heck of a of a run and this past year for whatever reason had just the best shooting season of his entire life you know if you watched him at ASU you know that the guy was kind of thought of as like a playmaker a point guard back then Couldn’t Shoot much at all 29% as a rookie bounced around kind of well not really bounced around actually was pretty consistently only making about a third of his threes every season year by year up until this this season where suddenly he made 39% of his threes and a lot of the year that was actually up around 45% or so and it it it settled in at 39 and it stayed at 39 even in the playoffs I just don’t personally feel like the Thunder are going to be in any sort of hurry to trade dork for what the Suns have to offer Oklahoma City is no longer in a situation where it makes sense for them to be taking picks for Worse players the only scenario in which I could possibly see the the the Thunder agreeing to a trade like that is if there’s a third team involved and they are getting something substantially better in return think what happened with DeAndre and going to Portland Lillard being what went to Milwaukee and then the Suns getting some pieces from both of those teams that’s really it I could see this the Thunder trading Dort I do not think that it would be to the Phoenix Suns the same is kind of true of Mitchell Robinson the Knicks are getting expensive they have a little bit of a log Jam at Center given that they saw hartenstein and atua play pretty well they also have Julius Randall to keep in mind here they don’t need Mitchell Robinson I could see them offloading him but in both situations you’re talking about teams that are trying to win a championship next year taking back in the form of Yousef nurkic a more expensive and frankly equivalent player if not worst player at best you know in some like Dort D’s just straight up like twice as valuable in terms of what he does in the modern NBA than nurkic you could tell me that’s not even a good enough trade for the Thunder even in their rebuilding mode when they were just taking picks back in order to get you know take uh help teams solve their own mistakes which is what nurkic kind of is just because he makes so much money even then it might not have made sense it certainly doesn’t feel like it makes sense now when the Thunder are trying to win the Knicks want to dump Mitchell Robinson but I think that to them it would probably be much more of a dump not well if they’re trying to to get rid of nurkic in order to or Robinson in order to clear up a log Jam and alleviate some of their money concerns and everything else it makes no sense to get take back nurkic in place of that I look up up and down the league I still see the Spurs with Zack Collins in the 35th pick I see Charlotte with Grant Williams and I believe the 42nd pick there’s other options I’m sure in your mind that might make sense but I don’t think trading with good Championship contending teams for players who make less than nurkic by that much everybody the Suns trade for has to make less of course with the second apron but by that much good luck I don’t see it happening we got news about the draft from both John gambadoro locally and Kevin o’ Conor at the national level could the Suns really be making a pick that we expect in that range talk about it next first Today’s Show brought to 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LED o n NBA on prize picks for a first deposit match up to $100 prize picks pick more pick less it’s that easy all right let’s keep it rolling so local angle on the NBA draft next Wednesday yes got it right that time so John gadoro all of the next uh Thursday Friday so yesterday and today and then Monday Tuesday and I guess Wednesday he is going to be unveiling his gambo 5 the players as he does with the Cardinals every year that he believes could be in contention for pick number 22 on Wednesday now I also remind you before we get into the players side gambo continues to reiterate that the suns are intrigued by the possibility of trading down so when I say pick 22 it very well might not be pick 22 that’s why when I’m talking about the nerkish trades I’m throwing out the Spurs have the 35th pick the Hornets have the 42nd pick we talked about how the Knicks have 24 and 25 we’ve talked about how the Bucks have uh picked I believe 23 right after the Suns as well as like 33 so keep that in your head but what he went ahead and said playerwise today is that he added Tyler KCK to the gambo 5 so we talked on Friday’s show about Eve Missy the freshman center from Baylor being uh one of the five now he’s adding Kik we talked plenty about Tyler KCK I believe it would be a solid move I believe on a winning team his his ability to make spot up threes his ability to play fast or slow transition or half court orchestrated an offense his size plays bigger than 63 and his experience all make him a very solid a very solid option if the suns were to go that route now what gambo is also doing is sort of crossing a player off assuming guessing um speculating reporting basically saying that that player is very very unlikely for to be this un selection in the draft and so on uh Thursday he eliminated he crossed out Kyle Phil Kyle filipowski the Duke big man and on Friday he crossed off Dron Holmes the Dayton big man now that one’s a little bit more surprising right filipowski made a lot of sense gambo reported he didn’t even work out for the Suns his skill set is very much similar to nerk so even if the suns are keeping nerk it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have two versions of of a similar player given how that bit them last year and if they’re not keeping nerk that probably means they’re saying goodbye to that t type of player altogether so filipowski great talked about that yesterday this one though holes he does sort of seem like what the Suns need you know and so that part I understand less he’s also um experienced right so he played three years at Dayton he also went he grew up in Arizona was born in goodye which wow um and then uh went to high school at Compass prep which is a a big prep school here so with the experience he’s 610 he’s athletic he can actually space it potentially a little bit as he developed a shot as he aged in college he did have a lot of the ingredients that made me I mean I’ve talked about him on the show as a as a possibility so it did surprise me the local ties the skill set the physical profile it all kind of added up here’s the other part of it um well the other part is the national reporting from Kevin oconor and and I’ll say what that was before I uh jump to the big takeaway here Kevin oconor had some reports that the suns are working out a lot of players that I don’t think we would expect okay that’s kind of the we got Tyler Smith trying to find my list I for some unknown reason closed out the tab Ryan Dunn Tyler Smith jir Nelson Jr and of course Tyler Kik who we already knew was working out here who did a sit down interview with Dwayne Rankin so I’m just going to go to Kevin o’conor’s Big Board because he covers this stuff himself jir Nelson does not appear to be on his big board which includes like uh 60 to 100 players 6 62 players jir Nelson is not on that list so the Suns worked out a lot of guys in this mold previously second round type players so let’s just put that one off to the side but Ryan Dunn is a um Wing from Virginia which of course has a very good track record of turning out solid wings from DeAndre Hunter to Trey Murphy on down the line two years so he was a sophomore shot only 20% from three so that’s a little bit of the difference here right he’s much more of an athletic toolsy defensive prospect who Kevin oconor for instance calls the best defender in the class but he’s not a three and D player the way that Murphy or even Hunter who’s been more of an average three-point shooter but still could knock him down was coming out of Virginia Tyler Smith went to g-league he went the g-league ignite route and uh is also fairly young All Things Considered you know again in the grand scheme of what the Suns tend to look at so uh in the G League Tyler Smith shot 36% from the field he had from sorry from three he had a 4% block rate a 2% steel rate he is 61 but more of a forward than you know he’s not a center so much um He’s listed at 611 on real GM listed at 69 in Kevin o Conor’s draft guide which I believe is probably pulled from combine numbers so let’s call him 69 more of a spacing forward but could be you know with that block rate seems to be flashing some athletic ability as well I like it but all of these uh between Missy between dun and Smith that is three players now who we know that the Suns have either worked out or are interested in who do not fit what we associated with the Suns draft Philosophy for the past six years frankly and so what do we do with that I just bring it up again because I did talk about this a little bit with Missy but it continues to be reiterated with now three new names I believe that the suns are very much course correcting from last year and going all out in the name of size we got the formal news you know I didn’t make a segment or really focus on it because it just was a formality after gambo reported it but on Friday whoo kind of made it official that Eubanks has opted out of his contract so he’s gone all of the players the suns are are talking about are you know whether it’s wingspan or height or both are physically big for their position and more athletic and raw than we typically see so size but also um you know betting on upside a little bit I guess the development upside side of it does track with how the Suns have approached filling out their front office this summer with guys in the front office um from college guys in the coaching staff from college and u a little bit of an overhaul of all of that so great I guess where I kind of split the difference here and and try to make sense of all of it is to return to this idea that has been brought up by multiple people now across all of the kind of NBA landscape that the Suns appear to be very much exploring open to trading down I’m not saying that you know Tyler Smith for instance is getting mocked kind of in the sun’s range done uh I guess a little less so given that the shot is such a question mark But Jaylen Tyson we’ve talked about Tyler KCK we’ve talked about those are players who are probably going to be available later in the first round I I think that the Suns uh to me would seem more likely to pick a raw player like Missy like Dunn like Smith if they were getting multiple cracks at it right so the fact that they’re doing this leads me to believe that they it leads me to believe even more that they are considering a trade down that would allow them to maybe have a later first round pick and a second round pick maybe two early seconds I don’t know it ends up looking like but that model feels like where we’re headed if the Suns can get what if it can go in their favor if they can get what they’re looking for and that’s that’s fascinating because we know on one hand they want somebody who is ready to contribute right now that was the whole message behind kic but you know I’ll even throw Brony in here right a lot of the other guys the Suns have been looking at don’t fit that at all so it feels like their hope here is that they could potentially walk out of this whole thing with let’s say dun and kic for instance right or there’s a lot of names we haven’t heard anything about but you know plenty of other bigs and and other options around that range who could step in and NB contributors and bronny right like that’s I feel like my best guess right now of what they’re their hope would be for next Wednesday all right let’s talk through back around to some of the bigger NBA news what to watch for my takeaways from the first few moves that we’ve seen all coming up next first Today’s Show brought to you by LinkedIn jobs the best place to hire the best place to get a job when you’re hiring for your small business you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role which is why you have to check out LinkedIn jobs which has the tools to help find the right Professionals for your team bastor and for free LinkedIn is not just another job board they have a vast network of more than a billion 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don’t forget to check out locked on NBA to catch up on all the news around the league every single day throughout the offseason as well but we’ll get there now on the sun side of things there’s been a lot of news this negotiating window has kind of worked you know a lot of the deals that we would just see tweeted out instantaneously when the clock hit 6: p.m. uh Eastern 300 p.m. here right is that right yeah on June 30th the past few years or if you remember back to the midnight Eastern days those have all just kind of been signed already so you know the Malik monk the Pascal cakam a lot of that stuff is and we’re going to see more would be my guess that stuff’s just done now so if we group those moves in as well as the giddy Caruso deal um the Kings one you just got to keep your guys what I’m really interested in is the SE document and the Caruso deals and it again to me it comes back to size and strength I have felt for a while you know I guess to me I I probably big picture basketball thought analysis philosophy if you want to call it that I started to feel like positional strength functional strength the ability to use your physicality to affect games whether that was a driver to the basket a finisher at the basket some you know a guard who could post up or any of that on the offensive end or more more more specifically more commonly defensive players who could guard up who could really disrupt ball handlers Rhythm who could fight over and through screens to play defense that that skill was one of the most impossible to replicate and most valuable things that you could find in a player especially if they could you know on defense if they could do that well they also have to be offensively talented enough to stay on the floor but if they were you could really be working with fire and I thought about it back then more with the small ball era right when everybody was switching and Draymond Green’s playing Center and PJ Tucker’s playing Center and Tristan Thompson’s playing Center and everything else um now or I guess I should say like Kevin Love or Chris Bosch right but now we’re back to kind of big ball but when you look at se yakum it is the ability to kind of you know guard bigger players take up space as a Team Defender I actually think his defense has has fallen off a bit from his Peak and they need to get it back because Indiana needs that from him but that’s one aspect offensively again it’s just somebody who can get inside and honestly functional strength also is part of what allows to get your shot off right functional strength like I think of Kelsey plum in the WNBA frankly she’s one of the smaller players in the whole league but she has functional strength that allows her to finish through contact that allows her to get her pullup three off through you know tough defense and SE yakum has a little bit of that from the mid-range and in the high post area so they went from Obi toppen and guys like that being there for to se yakum and now they’re paying him a Max contract to keep that identity intact I look at Alex Caruso nobody’s idea of a big man of course but what Alex Caruso can do very similar to Drew holiday and players like that is Caruso can guard up Caruso was basically the Bulls power forward because Demar D rozan not much of a they are hiding him on defense anyway they have a very guard heavy roster so whether it was LaVine and and white uh LaVine and Carter white and Carter they have Vu at Center so Caruso is basically the guy that they would just sick on whoever whatever size player outside of a five Caruso was just going to guard them and they were going to switch a lot and he was going to be a Team Defender guy he was basically playing like a forward on defense and now the Thunder hav him in place of giddy in place of maybe Dort like I talked about in that first segment and they got more functional strength positional and lineup versatility and defensive intensity from that move that’s going to continue to be what we’re going to see and so that’s why I’m I’m as I talked about on Friday’s show Eubanks wasn’t going to make sense in that world maybe there’s a version of his career where he can take another step forward and get another crack on a winning team and and prove us all wrong I I don’t really care at this point he’s not on the Suns and I wish everybody the best but it wasn’t going to make sense this upcoming year on this particular team Gordon that defensive falloff where he’s not what he was on those teams that I just mentioned where PJ Tucker was playing Center for Houston and that became the difference between can he really make a big impact on a winning team or can he not he also didn’t have that functional strength as a downhill driving scorer so does he have a place in the NBA on a winning team at age 36 if those skills aren’t there I’m not so sure and I guess to come back around to the draft I’m glad that the suns are are prioritizing size to that degree you got to get it right it’s not just enough to say well our roster on average is two inches taller than it was last year okay or 15 pounds heavier I don’t care they got to they got to be the right guys but you know whether it’s you know spaced uh bigger Wing ball like Boston and Dallas had or it is straight up big ball like Minnesota had everybody’s bigger at every spot there’s multiple ways to get there there’s multiple ways to maximize that not every roster not every player not every team is going to be the same but overall the suns are need to go and are trending toward going from having three guys that are 6’5 or shorter in their starting lineup a 69 backup center no backup um you know real forward sized players to speak of and you know no backup guards to speak of to having hopefully a backup guard that has some Siz and can actually play a backup big and potentially even a starting big that’s a little bit more physically uh ready and hopefully some depth at forward even just reallocating resources to the right positions on the roster in that way can go a long way toward helping the Suns compete against these teams but if they can really nail it and get guys who have that functional strength that positional versatility that force and intensity and physicality to their game that’s going to be the difference between if they can get back to contention this upcoming season or if they’re going to slot in where they did this year succeed maybe a first round win maybe not and relatively unimpressive we’ll see that’ll wrap us up look if news comes on Saturday if we see some kind of trade up or trade down situation I’ll be here if there’s news I’ll be here if there’s not news you still got me five times so hit follow or subscribe get episodes in your feed constantly let’s just call it constantly I’ll talk to you guys next time

Mitchell Robinson and Lu Dort fill big needs for the Phoenix Suns and could be available after recent NBA offseason moves.

Brendon Kleen of @justbasketballfans explains what it would take for the Suns to get them. Then, a look at recent Suns news around the NBA Draft and a best guess on the Suns’ current plans. To close, what is this NBA offseason telling us so far?

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