Yesterday on ESPN’s daily NBA show, NBA Today, there was a segment where Kendrick Perkins and Richard Jefferson talked about the Denver Nuggets, Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers, and Phoenix Suns. They picked which team had the best off-season, best offensive weapon, best pure scorer, and highest ceiling out of the four. Kendrick Perkins picked the Suns or a Suns player for every category. Let’s compare the Lakers and Suns’ off-seasons.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!@KendrickPerkins finally!!! He’s on that wagon and it’s about damn time!!! #phoenix #Suns pic.twitter.com/HYfewFioTI
— J13 (@thatguyfromaz13) October 17, 2023
Lakers Off-Season
Richard Jefferson picked the Los Angeles Lakers as the team with who had the best off-season. The Lakers had a very good off-season. They were able to re-sign Austin Reaves, D’Angelo Russell, and Rui Hachimura. Those three players were all big parts of the rotation for them last season. The Lakers also signed Gabe Vincent, Christian Wood, and Taurean Prince among others in free agency.
The Lakers were very busy around the trade deadline last season. They were able to improve their team in a major way. Los Angeles moved up from outside of the play-in tournament to the seven seed after the trade deadline. This off-season they were able to keep the most important pieces from their trade deadline moves along with improving the roster even more.
There is a strong argument to be made for the Lakers to have had the best off-season but most of their improvement happened during the trade deadline of last season. They did a good job of maintaining the momentum from last season but the Suns had a better off-season.
Suns Off-Season
The first move that the Suns made in the off-season was the dismissing of Monty Williams as their head coach. They replaced Williams with Frank Vogel. Vogel has experience winning a championship with big time stars like LeBron James and Anthony Davis. So, going into a “championship or bust” situation isn’t new for Vogel.
The Phoenix Suns also made a huge move during the trade deadline period last season. They picked up Kevin Durant via trade. This off-season was about going all in on a championship run for Phoenix.
The Suns were involved in the two biggest trades of the off-season. They traded Chris Paul for Bradley Beal. They were other players and a plethora of picks moved as well but Paul for Beal was the main part of this trade.
The other big time trade that went down this off-season was the deal that moved Damian Lillard from the Portland Trailblazers to the Milwaukee Bucks. The Suns were the third team in this deal where they moved Deandre Ayton and Toumani Camara to get back Jusuf Nurkic, Grayson Allen, Nassir Little and Keon Johnson in return.
The Suns signed several players in free agency who seem to be perfect fits around the “big 3”. Eric Gordon, Yuta Watanabe, and Drew Eubanks were some of the players signed by Phoenix who will be a big part of the rotation.
Taking a step back and looking at everything that the Suns were able to accomplish this off-season, it’s very hard to say any other team had a better off-season than Phoenix. Now of course the off-season maneuvers don’t mean anything if it doesn’t lead to a ring. Suns general manager James Jones and owner Matt Ishbia have put this team is the best position possible to win.
