With the Top 7 in place, the Suns were rolling high with a 29-14 record and good health when the trade deadline came. acquired Torrey Craig - 7.2 points in 15 mpg backup forward.When the league resumed play in The Bubble, they added Cameron Payne and went 8-0 with 5 of today’s top 7 players already in tow (Booker, Ayton, Bridges and the Cams). They still underperformed for a while (6-9 after trade deadline) until the pandemic hit. When he sat down with Bright Siders for an exclusive interview on Bright Side Night in January that year, he talked about continuity and patience being really important for this team. Sound familiar? But Jones liked what he saw in the core of the team and declined to make any trades at all to improve the present or the future. The team was reeling at the trade deadline (20-31), dealing with tons of injuries up and down the lineup and generally underperforming. Those were the last in-season trades James Jones made for ‘impact’ players, and neither Johnson nor Oubre became building blocks of the future. These moves helped stabilize the team until injuries scuttled the rest of the season. In his first season as GM, Jones made a couple of trades to clear out veterans who were badly underperforming for the league’s worst team, sending Trevor Ariza to Washington for Oubre and then Ryan Anderson to Miami for Johnson. acquired Tyler Johnson - immediate starter.Problem is, making in-season moves is not something he likes to do. Now James Jones has two weeks to break the cycle and make a move. And without Jae Crowder in the fold, they’re only going backwards. That’s on top of leading the league in regular season wins over two years.īut if you’re always 1-2 pieces short of a championship team, guess what? You’re short of a championship team. They made the 2021 Finals and have won the second-most playoff games (21) of any NBA team the past two years. If you’re only 1-2 pieces short of a championship you’re in really elite company. For James Jones, that’s ‘holding serve’ because he believes in these guys. ![]() Sometimes your greatest strength is also your greatest weakness. The closest we can come to is Damion Lee, who was signed to a minimum-salary deal last offseason and ranks as probably the 9th most important player this year. ![]() There’s not a single major rotation player on today’s team that wasn’t a major player in the 2021 playoffs, almost two years ago. Would you believe the Suns still have nine players on their roster today who were on the 2021 Finals roster? The top seven, plus Torrey Craig and Dario Saric. ![]() *Jae may be always missing due to his holdout this season, but he’s never forgotten because he still occupies an expensive spot on the roster ($10.1M) and still represents their, at worst, 7th-best player.Īnd we’re not just talking the top seven. He didn’t get it done the first two times, and they came up short of a championship because of it. Which means every year, he’s got the same basic needs. If this were a documentary, they’d cast Bill Murray to narrate.Įvery year, he’s got the same top seven guys. For the third trade deadline in a row, Phoenix Suns General Manager James Jones is tasked with making improvements to a roster that’s 1-2 pieces short of winning a championship.
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