Report: Suns Received Criticism During Deandre Ayton Situation

Bleacher Report's Jake Fischer says people around the league believed the Suns botched the Deandre Ayton situation.

After the Phoenix Suns matched an offer sheet from the Indiana Pacers to keep Deandre Ayton in the Valley, many (including yours truly) viewed it as a win-win.

The Suns got to keep their only No. 1 pick in franchise history on a deal similar to what they wanted to offer last season, and Ayton received the financial security he was looking for all along. 

However, not everybody viewed Phoenix's situation (and their handling of it) in bright terms, especially when the Suns are in pursuit of Kevin Durant. 

On the "Please Don't Aggregate This" podcast (again, sorry Jake, we had no choice) Bleacher Report's Jake Fischer said Phoenix received a lot of criticism in how they went about retaining Ayton if they're truly interested in Durant.

"I'll say this: The Suns got a lot of criticism from people from different perspectives all over the league. Just being that the way they handled the Ayton thing on the whole, and the fact that if they were really going to match this deal all along, then from cap experts I know to what have you, agents, team people, the consensus seems to be 'Well then why didn't Phoenix just give him that offer upfront and then they could have had much more flexibility to trade him to Detroit before the draft started. And then the whole Jalen Duren happened and knocked out the trade as a potential spot for you," said Fischer.

"You could have had far greater agency to use Deandre Ayton in trade talk to try and find other pieces to go get Kevin Durant rather than be where you are now, where he can't get moved until Jan. 15 … The no-trade clause that he (Ayton) got is a full year to the day from my understanding. So if that happened at the beginning of free agency during the moratorium period, now, next year, if the Suns want to trade Deandre Ayton, he's gonna have some power over them.

"That's a really fascinating wrinkle to that whole thing. That is awesome in terms of just like a sheer agent of potential chaos on the chess board of the NBA ecosystem. And it's something the Suns could have very easily avoided just like Dallas could have avoided losing Jalen Brunson if they had given him a extension."

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