Fresh Trade Ideas for Disgruntled Phoenix Suns Forward Markieff Morris
Don't worry, Markieff Morris. We're here to help get you out of that Phoenix Suns jersey you no longer wish to wear.
According to John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7 FM in Phoenix, Morris is trying to plot his escape from the Suns:
Jordan Schultz of the Huffington Post heard roughly the same thing exactly one month prior to the Gambadoro musings:
Shortly after Gambadoro's report, Morris even provided some inside, albeit cryptic, information on the matter at hand:
From where we're standing, "FOE" can mean only one of two things: "Family Over Everything or "Fried Octopus Eggs." So, um, let's go with the former.
Phoenix traded a member of Morris' family, his brother Marcus, to the Detroit Pistons while attempting to clear cap space and make a run at LaMarcus Aldridge during free agency. There's no way that sat well with Markieff. Not after both Morris brothers signed long-term extensions with the Suns last September, and most definitely not if he was already having issues with head coach Jeff Hornacek.
Working toward a divorce is virtually the only solution at this point. Phoenix parted ways with Goran Dragic and Isaiah Thomas in less-than-ideal fashion last season, and Marcus has already referred to the Suns as "clowns" on Twitter. If Markieff is now employing the silent treatment, he needs to go, so that the Suns can avoid any further distractions.
Actually moving him will be a complicated venture. Morris is a bargain over the next four years against an exploding salary cap. He is owed just $32 million through 2018-19 and will never earn more than $8.6 million during a single season of that pact.
But he, along with Marcus, is also facing aggravated assault charges, and his open displeasure with the Suns organization wouldn't look good on anyone. Ty Lawson's trade value plummeted amid off-court issues, and the Denver Nuggets ended up shipping him to the Houston Rockets at a steep discount. The Suns now find themselves in the same boat.
All of this will factor into negotiations and, thus, our attempt at finding Morris a new home.
Phoenix Gets: PF Taj Gibson and G Kirk Hinrich
Chicago Gets: PF Markieff Morris and 2016 second-round pick
Call this a semi-fresh idea. We're rehashing a gem from ancient times (July), when this Morris drama first bubbled to the surface.
Acquiring Gibson would be a boon for the Suns' already-revamped defense. They signed Tyson Chandler to a four-year deal in free agency, and sophomore T.J. Warren delivered the two-way goods during the NBA's Las Vegas Summer League.
Those two, plus Gibson, would make for a dynamic defensive trio up front should Hornacek decide to slot each of them as starters alongside Eric Bledsoe and Brandon Knight. Though the Suns may not deem Warren ready for such a role, Gibson and Chandler would assuredly start together—which is terrifying.
Opponents converted just 45.5 percent of their shots at the rim when going up against Gibson last season. That's an upgrade over the 50.6 percent clip Chandler allowed, and it ranked 10th among all players to contest at least four such attempts per game. The Suns let up a 52.4 percent success rate at the rim as a team.
Trotting out Gibson next to Chandler or Alex Len will cause some spacing issues Phoenix typically tends to avoid. Len has yet to establish himself as a legitimate threat outside three feet of the basket, and Chandler has always been more of a pick-and-roll and putback finisher who drills the occasional shot between 10 and 16 feet.
Morris doesn't shoot the three-ball particularly well (31.8 percent last season), but he does shoot threes. Gibson has made just one three-pointer his entire career. Still, he can hit baby jumpers and, equally important, knows his limitations; he didn't attempt a single shot outside mid-range in 2014-15.
As long as the Suns toss out three other shooters when they decide to run with a more traditional frontcourt, their 14th-ranked offense will, at the very least, stave off a decline.
Swallowing Hinrich is a necessary financial evil. The Suns need to sweeten the pot beyond Morris, and Hinrich is of little use to the Bulls in head coach Fred Hoiberg's versatility-oriented offense. He's also coming off a season during which he posted the fourth-worst player efficiency rating (6.8) among all qualified guards in league history.
Losing Gibson projects as a defensive risk for the Bulls. They cannot count on Pau Gasol having another career year at the age of 35, and Joakim Noah registered his worst defensive rating since 2008-09 while battling various injuries last season. There's no guarantee he reprises his role as Chicago's resident defensive psychopath, and the Bulls won't get much points-prevention help from Nikola Mirotic or Doug McDermott.
But Gibson is on the wrong side of 30 and recovering from left ankle surgery himself. Grantland's Zach Lowe previously pegged him as the most likely of the Bulls' bigs to be traded, and his departure would open up minutes for rookie Bobby Portis.
Nabbing Morris gives Chicago someone better suited to play at a faster pace. Calculated speed is a staple of Hoiberg's offensive clipboard, and that's something to which the Bulls aren't accustomed, as CBSSports.com's Matt Moore wrote:
"Last year, the Bulls were neither fast nor quick. Only 11.9 percent of their time on the floor was spent in transition, via Synergy Sports. It doesn't take advanced metrics to know that the Bulls pounded the air out of the ball consistently last season, and throughout Thibs' tenure, and that doing so left them with a lot of late-clock contested shots. Over 69 percent of their shots, in fact, came with 15 seconds or less on the shot clock.
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Having done little to revamp the roster, it's unlikely the Bulls can ditch all their old tendencies. They still mustered a top-10 offensive rating last season, but Morris can help them actually improve. He spaces the floor more than Gibson and would be coming from one of the league's three-fastest systems. He is no stranger to speed.
Dumping both Gibson and Hinrich also saves the Bulls roughly $3.5 million in raw salary. They still have $88.1 million in guaranteed commitments on the books as of now, putting them over the $84.7 million luxury-tax line. Pulling the trigger here leaves them on the brink of avoiding the tax altogether.
Phoenix Gets: SF Chase Budinger, SF Solomon Hill and 2016 second-round pick
Indiana Gets: PF Markieff Morris
Pacers team president Larry Bird is building...something.
It's not too clear what he's doing just yet. He obviously wants to go small after bringing in Monta Ellis and ditching Roy Hibbert, and the Pacers invested a lottery pick in Myles Turner, who, at his peak, could be the second- or third-most versatile big of his draft class.
Morris fits into the smallish something that Bird is attempting to assemble. He hasn't drilled 33 percent of his attempts from deep in two seasons, and his catch-and-shoot percentages are equally iffy. But the Pacers have a few guys in Paul George, George Hill, C.J. Miles and Rodney Stuckey who can stroke threes off the catch while Morris works on the ball. Turner, in the long run, could even be added to that list.
Inserting Morris into the rotation also helps ensure George doesn't spend too much time at power forward. He's still technically on the mend after breaking his right leg last August, having appeared in just six games last season.
"I think [the weight differential] is overrated," Bird said of playing George at power forward, per Moore. "You go through all the different teams, it's not as bad as you think it is. LeBron [James] does it all the time."
Slotting George at the 4 will prove more demanding in the sense that it's an adjustment. Less than 1 percent of his career minutes have come at power forward, and even though he may actually stand taller than 6'10" by now, he's built more like Kevin Durant than James. That's on top of his rehabilitation curve. Sticking him at a brand-new position deepens that whole, already-fragile grace period.
Nearly 75 percent of Morris' career minutes have come at the 4, while more than 25 percent have come at the 5. He's more equipped to play power forward in a faster-paced offense if only because he's been doing it his entire career.
Plus, picture a five-man combination of Ellis, George, Hill, Morris and Turner. Talk about your potent nightmares. That quintet boasts just the right amount of shooting, playmaking and defensive chops to ensure the Pacers—assuming health—remain in the Eastern Conference playoff hunt.
For the Suns, they'll just need to accept that this is what Morris can get them. Solomon Hill has never shot 33 percent from beyond the arc or posted a PER north of 11. But he's athletic and cheap.
Budinger can actually help the Suns a great deal. While he's missed more than 46 percent of all possible games since 2012-13, he's a properly sized small forward (6'7") who can shoot, which is a commodity Phoenix doesn't yet possess.
P.J. Tucker is undersized (6'5"), and the Suns made it so Warren hardly ever attempted three-pointers during summer-league play. Budinger can be pushed to the power forward slot when Hornacek decides to play mini-ball, and he put in 38 percent of his spot-up treys last season, making him a great complementary weapon.
At its best, this is a modest package. At its heart, this helps the Suns clear some payroll before next summer, when Budinger comes off the books.
And given all that's happened with Morris to this point, that's a return Phoenix will just have to live with.
Phoenix Gets: PF Patrick Patterson and SG/SF Terrence Ross
Toronto Gets: SG Archie Goodwin, PF Markieff Morris and Cleveland's top-10 protected 2016 first-rounder
The Raptors aren't having a good offseason. They're having a great offseason. And rolling the dice on Morris could make it even better.
Bismack Biyombo promises rim protection, DeMarre Carroll is among the best three-and-D combo forwards in the game, and Cory Joseph is a starting-level point guard Toronto gets to bring off the bench. Even Luis Scola provides power forward depth this team didn't previously have.
But that doesn't mean the Raptors are set at the 4. Statistically, power forward tied with shooting guard for Toronto's weakest position last season, according to 82games.com. And while a healthy DeMar DeRozan who doesn't miss more than 25 percent of the year, as he did in 2014-15, stands to solve the issue at shooting guard, the Raptors are still flimsy at the 4.
Patterson is solid, and he's shooting 37 percent from downtown for his career. He even put in 38.3 percent of his catch-and-shoot treys last season, rendering him a legitimate off-ball threat.
Morris is more of a game-changer, though. He obliterated Patterson's per-100-possession splits in significantly more playing time:
| Markieff Morris | 2581 | 24.3 | 9.8 | 3.7 | 2.0 | 0.8 |
| Patrick Patterson | 2156 | 15.5 | 10.4 | 3.7 | 1.4 | 1.1 |
Five players averaged at least 24 points, 9.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists and two steals per 100 possessions last season: DeMarcus Cousins, Kawhi Leonard, Paul Millsap, Russell Westbrook and Morris. Each of the other four was an All-Star.
Not including players who were traded midseason, Morris finished with the best net rating of any Suns player. His deficient shooting, coupled with his current off-court warts, make him a less attractive option to some extent, but at only 25, he has that mysterious air of fringe stardom about him. Patterson, 26, isn't viewed in the same way.
Coughing up Ross is the difficult part here—or maybe not. He hasn't panned out after being drafted at No. 8 in 2012. He's been shooting the lights out from deep in each of the last two seasons (38.3 percent combined), and his crazy athleticism will forever make you wonder if he can put everything together and become the complete package.
Right now, though, he lacks polish. He has yet to shoot 43 percent from the floor overall, and he appeared to hit a wall last season, with his playing time and, subsequently, numbers taking a marginal hit.
Ross is also up for contract extension. If he doesn't get one, he'll enter restricted free agency next summer, where another team will force Toronto into a tough decision by betting loads of hundy sticks on his upside. The Raptors have DeRozan's free agency to worry about as well, and sophomore Bruno Caboclo is awaiting his turn.
With Goodwin and another first-rounder coming back, and knowing that Ross has, at best, seesawed between adequate and disappointing, the Raptors have just cause to talk turkey with Phoenix. Morris diversifies their rotation in ways Patterson cannot, allowing them to run super-duper small by soaking up time at center when Jonas Valanciunas decides to stop playing defense.
If you're the Suns, you look at this as a low-risk deal. Worst-case scenario has them renting Ross for a year and getting two years of extra floor spacing at the 4 from Patterson, all while shedding Morris' lengthy pact.
Not that the best-case scenario is off the table. The Suns still need a small forward of the future, even after Warren's summer-league dominance. It's uncertain if his performance will carry over into the regular season, and Phoenix still needs to figure out whether he, a wing with limited shooting capacity (31.3 percent outside three feet as a rookie), can play the 3 in today's NBA.
Getting an entire season to evaluate an alternative like Ross is well worth the price of what will be a low-end first-rounder and a player who wants out.
It's worth it to the Suns for the chance to move on from Morris alone.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise cited. Salary information via Basketball Insiders. Draft pick commitments from RealGM.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @danfavale.
