We are three to four weeks away from knowing where Phoenix Suns restricted free agent Deandre Ayton will play next season. He and his agent David Falk are set to start taking free agent calls on June 30 at about 6pm eastern time. Ayton is looking for the maximum possible salary next season for player of his experience, which starts at about $30.5 million next year with raises each season thereafter.
The Phoenix Suns will either sign him to that contract right away, allow him to leave to another team or, more likely, negotiate a trade with the other team to get back some players to replace up to half of Ayton’s new salary slot.
You all know the how of trading Phoenix Suns restricted free agent Deandre Ayton this summer is complicated. He’s got that weird Base Year Compensation rule that basically prohibits the Suns from acquiring equal talent back in a trade of Ayton, but if they’re dead set on trading him the adage ‘something is better than nothing’ holds true.
It’s the why that continues to baffle me. Why would you would trade your youngest core player whose skillset is completely unique to the Suns and fairly unique in the game of basketball — three level defense + two level offense + budding third level of offense + really good playoff performer as a 22 year old.
That why is still a question for each individual to answer unto themselves, but rumors persist that the Phoenix Suns are interested in seeing what they can get for Ayton this summer in trade.
The trade offers will be limited, partly by the rules of the Collective Bargaining Agreement between players and teams and partly because he wants so much money.
Yet, there are a handful of teams who have the cap flexibility and the need for young big man who would fit both a rebuilding timeline (he just turned 24) and a contender timeline.
This past weekend, I had a good discussions with Justin_DS, a blogger who covers the Houston Rockets with SBNation’s TheDreamShake.com.
The Rockets had the worst record in the league last year, so their rebuilding timeline is 2-4 years away from playoff contention. Unless, of course, they can make all the right moves this summer to speed up that effort.
In the exchange we hashed out what the Rockets can and cannot offer, and came to terms on a potential agreement centered around Christian Wood and a pair of prospects in return for Suns center, Deandre Ayton.
At the end, I’ll ask you for your take on the potential deal.
Here’s the email exchange…
Justin_DS, TheDreamShake.com:
It’s a pretty straight forward offer centered around Christian Wood and Eric Gordon for Ayton. Wood being a capable replacement big and Gordon being someone the Suns have tried to acquire in the past.
Dave King, BrightSideoftheSun.com:
So the weird thing about Ayton is his ‘base year compensation’ issue that only allows the Suns to take back roughly half of Ayton’s new salary. Let’s assume the Rockets are giving Ayton a full 4-year max (because he otherwise would not threaten to sign an offer sheet), the Suns can only take back just over $19 million.
Eric Gordon is out of the picture.
A trade could be Christian Wood for Deandre Ayton straight up from the Suns side, but then the Rockets can’t do that. The Rockets are over the cap and cannot send out less than $22.875 million in a trade to acquire $30.5 million. With that $3.6 million difference (Suns can’t take back more than $19.2 million, Rockets can’t send less than $22.875 million, and Wood makes less than $15 million himself), the Rockets would have to spin off the difference in player salaries to a third team who can take the player into cap space or a trade exception with nothing coming back but cash or pick(s).
I personally would not settle for just Wood in an Ayton trade, even if the Rockets figured out the third team thing. However, you could consider including someone like Sengun (which you probably wouldn’t) or Kevin Porter Jr. (which the Suns…
Read More: On constructing an Ayton sign-and-trade with Rockets for Christian Wood