The last successful rebuild was when the Suns traded away Marbury and Penny to create cap room to sign Nash. I don't believe that team finished last in the standings but they did only win 20 some odd games, I think it was 29, but the wins weren't important. We used the cap space to sign Nash and traded off the lottery pick we got for being terrible in that last year without Nash. Then we went on to be the talk of the league and win 62 games before finally succumbing to the Spurs in the Western Conference Finals. Before that season though most thought we could be a playoff team, maybe, but no one predicted we would finish with a franchise best record, tying the franchise best, making the western conference finals, finishing with the best record in the west, and have an MVP on the roster. Since then we've failed to rebuild with and without Nash. We couldn't successfully retool after Amare left and we struggled to bottom out without Nash.
We finally hit bottom last year and added a player who was worth the #1 over all pick in a draft with lots of talented prospects. We didn't get a Kwame Brown or Anthony Bennett, at least it doesn't appear that happened. We already have some quality young prospects to pair with that potential franchise altering player in Ayton but no matter if we had a good PG or not, we're not a playoff team this year and that's ok. We should be better than last year simply because we aren't playing for pingpong balls. It will be a long season but now is not the time to lose any trade assets we may possess to win 38 games instead of 32. Getting to 32 wins should be a good thing that shows improvement. I think the goal for the team should be putting 50+ loss seasons behind us and that's possible. It may not be that high but it is realistic, with or without a move for a PG.
Lets see what our guys can do before selling low on our players to bring in someone who may not make much of a difference. No one on our team has much trade value because we were the worst team in the league last year and a lot of our players were part of that. Those that weren't either can't be traded or shouldn't be traded. Ayton, Bridges, Okobo, and Melton shouldn't and Ariza, Anderson, and Holmes can't be dealt yet. You can't trade a player acquired in a trade for 60 days unless they are traded by themselves and off season signings can't be dealt until December 15th.
Chandler isn't bringing anything of value back and neither is Daniels. Warren shouldn't be dealt simply to deal him. The rest are our core, Booker, Jackson, Bender (maybe), or have no value Harrison, Reed, Bender (again). Trading our own pick would be foolish and the Bucks pick may be good, it seems all of our picks gain value the second they leave our hands. There isn't a Steve Nash to be had so we need to be patient. A lot of us fans dealt with tanking better than the growing pains of progress on the way up. We are headed up now also, so long as we keep our young talent and assets so we can spend some money next off-season to fill the holes that this team shows this season. We should noy sacrifice our future flexibility for a stop gap that will get us 5 more wins this year so we can pick around #12 or #13 instead of #8. We will need to sacrifice that flexibility to do something like that also. Is a PG this year not worth having a draft pick next year? That's basically our choice if we hope to add anyone reportedly available.
