The 30th pick

Starting with the 30th pick in the inaugural NSL draft the starting point for Phoenix looked like they'd have a challenge on their hands selecting a competitive squad, but there is no such thing as a bad trade for GM Laddas. Now my memory is pretty poor, and I had to do some digging to confirm that I was right in remembering the Suns were the 30th pick. Most teams it would be easy to check and confirm. 

Step 1: Look at best player on squad;

Step 2: Check draft position and confirm they were drafted by the team they are on.

Step 3: If the team is different, move the to second best player.

Step 4: Rinse and repeat until you find a player that was drafted and you can figure it out.

Phoenix is not most teams. Now I'm going to give this a bit of breathing space to have everyone guess how many players that Phoenix drafted are still on their team. Go on guess. Well I bet you are all a bunch of smarties who watch the league intently. That's right! 0 players in the current Phoenix squad were drafted by the team in the initial draft. Laddas has been working the phones hard since the draft was held, and I could list each and every trade and that would satisfy the 1000 word requirement for this Team by Team, but I wont get stuck in that deep. If you are interested, just jump into the teams transaction page.

So what did he end up with?

All you need to know is that Laddas has the potential MVP of the league and the 7th overall pick as his headline act. Kawhi Leonard is the man who will lead this team to success this season. He will score and defend at the highest level, and indications are that he wont miss as many games as he has in previous leagues/seasons. Kawhi joined the team through a trade for Donovan Mitchell and the PHO 2021 1st and other bits and pieces. Now of course Mitchell wasn't drafted by Phoenix either, he came via a DeAaron Fox and a 1st from the Jakob Poetl deal. So to get their superstar, they needed to make 3 trades to move from 30th the 7th in the initial draft. 

You might think that the team being so trade happy would have traded away all their picks, and any player of value to get there. Well I can tell you, you're wrong. While their second best player Lamarcus Aldridge is an "ancient" 34 years old, he plays the type of game which will see him in the league for about 5 more years, and his skill set should hold. He has had a remarkable run over his whole career to miss only about 10 games per NBA season due to injury or rest, considering he is an NBA Spur currently speaks volumes to his resilience. Plus he is a top 25 player as per ESPN rankings.

Ok, we expect a bit of a drop off from here, but no. You've got Dejounte Murray, who was a third round pick by New Orleans. Big things are expected from him this NBA season, and he already has a steady 2k rating which has the potential to go up. He'll get the nod over Emmanuel Mudiay at the point guard position I'd imagine. But its a close run thing, both young, both have skills to contribute. 

I thought Laddas was a Lakers fan, but maybe he's a closet Spurs fan by the way this team is shaping up.

The drop off starts here though, but its not a big drop off. We will probably see a bit of Will Barton or Josh Hart in the starting shooting guard spot. Both players are fun guys to own who will contribute points, assists, and rebounds to help the team win. Barton will probably have the edge because of the high quality defence he can provide. Alongside Kawhi they will lock down the perimeter.

The real trouble this team will have is their big man rotation after Aldridge. Jahlil Okafor looks like he has the edge to the starting spot, or perhaps we'll see John Henson get the nod. Both players are adequate, but at this stage in their careers they are who they are. Is that enough? Laddas is really hoping that James Jones gets fit enough to add his toughness to the team. Otherwise he has to pull something out of Darius Miller and Khem Birch to complete his rotation. 

Salary

Well the team sits below the luxury cap by only $7M, which is plenty of room for Laddas to keep working his magic and flip the team over another couple of times before the deadline passes. 

Prediction

The only prediction I am willing to make with this team is that it will have at least 8 more trades from the time of writing until the deadline. There are a lot of pieces here that could improve slightly. Laddas has shown that he likes to gradually improve through trades. If he can find a way to move a few other edge pieces for a starting quality big, you know he will.