The situation with Deandre Ayton in Phoenix should have been over this summer as the No. 1 overall pick from the soon-to-be-iconic 2018 Draft Class signed a max contract extension. Crucially, he didn’t sign it with his current team, the Phoenix Suns but chose to sign it with the Indiana Pacers instead. The Suns matched the offer to keep their guy but seem to regret it.
Phoenix Suns insider John Gambadoro has laid out why the Suns chose to match the contract instead of offering it themselves and why they are unsteady with paying a big man like Ayton a big salary.
For a year now we’ve kind of assumed that the best scenario for the Suns was that somebody else would max out DeAndre, the Suns would just match the offer. They’d save a year and they’d save about $45 million. But when sign-and-trade started to become a possibility — Look, the Suns still don’t want to pay a center $30 million (per year). This was not what they wanted to do. They don’t believe in that. They like the Kevon Looney angle: let me pay a center $10-12 million and his backup $5 (million) and I’ll spend that money elsewhere.”
It is interesting that the Suns don’t see the high value in Ayton when other teams are offering him a $144 million contract. They also chose to draft Ayton over perimeter players like Luka Doncic in 2018, so what was the plan here?
Will Ayton Be Traded By The Suns?
Trading Deandre Ayton would guarantee a good haul for the Suns but nobody is going to try and trade for him now that he is scheduled to be in Phoenix for 4 more years. Trading the big man away might be much harder than necessary because nobody will pay the equitable price to acquire a young big like Ayton from a team that needs to trade him away.
It’s unlikely that Ayton will be moved this season based on the no-trade clause in an extended contract that provides a certain period of protection from a subsequent trade for the player and owner. If the Suns and Ayton have a strong season with minimal drama, he most likely stays. If he struggled or even plays the same last year, everybody might start wondering where Ayton goes and who comes next.
