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Writer's pictureMatt Elvy

How the James Harden Trade Could Impact the Suns


In the aftermath of a crazy NBA night, that saw games being postponed, specifically Suns vs Hawks, but one of the top 5 players in the league, James Harden being traded from Houston to the Brooklyn Nets in a four team deal.


One of the teams involved in this blockbuster was the Cleveland Cavaliers. They acquired 22 year old Center Jarrett Allen, for basically nothing. This means that the Cavs now have the following players manning their PF and C positions:


Andre Drummond

Kevin Love

Larry Nance Jr

JaVale McGee

Jarrett Allen


And we all thought the Pistons had big man heavy rotation.


With this backlog of players in mind I tweeted the following:

Behind Ayton and Saric we don't have any true, reliable bigs. Frank Kaminsky is fine in small stretches, but isn't stopping anyone on the defensive end. Damion Jones should be in the G League and Jalen Smith is a rookie, who's only appeared in two games thanks to a sprained ankle and the NBA's health and safety protocols. We need someone better.


JaVale McGee is the most likely buy out candidate, that was pretty much everyone's reaction upon hearing that he'd been traded to the Cavs in November.

JaVale has pretty much been a full time bench player, but has the ability to start, as shown over the last 2 seasons with the Lakers. No longer the Shaqtin a Fool one man show, McGee is all energy, hustling for rebounds and blocking shots, exactly what we need when Ayton sits (and when he's on the court a lot of the time).


Kevin Love is an interesting one, as he's in the 2nd year of a massive multi-year contract. There were rumours and talk of him joining the Suns before re-signing with Cleveland, luckily we avoided that albatross contract. However, what if the Cavs decide the don't want to pay $31 million for a guy to sit in the trainer's room for games on end or Love wants out, but Clevelend can't find a trade partner? He could be bought out and that's when James Jones can pounce.

Imagine Love coming off the bench on a veteran's minimum deal. Kevin is not the same player he was 5 years ago and is extremely injury prone at this point, but he could slide in along side Ayton when needed to help with our rebounding, while also contributing to all the 3's we like to take. I can mainly see him off the bench alongside Dario, sharing the PF & C position, chewing up the opposing team's benches.


Andre Drummond is on an expiring deal, like the newly acquired Jarrett Allen, but it's safe to assume that Allen is who they'll be chasing thanks to his age and defensive ability. The problem I see is that the Cavs won't be buying out Andre's contract. They will try and use Drummond's $28 million contract at the trade deadline, to further build their team for the future. We definitely won't give up the amount of talent needed to match that contract and ultimately he won't be coming to the Suns.


There is of course the 4th option. The Cavs for some reason decide they don't want Allen and we somehow end up trading for him at the deadline. I personally don't see that happening though.


Not 1 hour after the huge James Harden trade news, we Suns fans were treated to this tweet from Kelly Iko and it's the kind of tweet I've been wanting to see, basically since we traded PJ Tucker to Toronto in 2017.

Obviously this tweet doesn't say that the Rockets are shopping him, but if multiple teams are asking, it's fair to assume that it he's on his way out of Houston. It was also documented in the off season that PJ was frustrated with the Rockets as they had been unable to come to terms on a contact extension.


I think it'd only take a pick or a couple of 2nd rounders to make this happen, but we are over the cap, so one of our guys would need to leave in any trade for him.


To the trade machine!


1. Abdel Nader is not getting in to the rotation, so this was an easy one to come up with. Do the Rockets take this though or could they get a better offer for Tucker elsewhere?


2. If we don't want to give up picks or the Rockets don't want them, maybe we trade our future for a chance to win big now.


Anyway thanks for reading through my ramblings. I hope it's got the cogs going round in your head.


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