Well, that's simple. Doing everything possible to avoid the luxury tax. To be fair, while it looks bad to give away picks left and right, it is a better alternative than selling Shawn Marion for 50 cents on the dollar. In a basketball forum I frequent, I've seen proposals for Marion that you would hate much more than the draft pick fire sale.
At any rate, let's go through the Suns major transactions since the decision to maximize cap space in 03/04 as well as picks in the next few years.
2004 salary cap trades (Marbury, Gugliotta, Jahidi White). Suns got 2 1's from the Knicks, which were both sent to the Jazz in the Gugliotta trade. Suns give 2005 1st that was part of the 1997 McDyess trade (pick was Sean May) to make White disappear.
2004 draft: agreed to trade #7 overall Luol Deng for worthless crap thinking Andre Igoudala would not be available. He was. The Suns received a 2005 1 (nate robinson). I don't understand why they couldn't back out since their guy was available.
2004 FA's: Nash (good), Q-Rich (ehh)
2005 Draft: Nate & q-rich for Kurt Thomas
2005 FA's: Raja Bell (good), Brian Grant (bad)
2005 trades: Joe Johnson for Boris & 2 1's (the first); acquired James Jones for a 2
2006 draft: used an Atlanta 1 (#21 Rajon Rondo) to make Grant disappear and get 2007 #1 from Boston; sold #27 (own pick) Sergio Rodriguez
2006 FA: Marcus Banks (ugh), Barbosa and Diaw extensions (good, ?)
2007 Draft: drafted Tucker, Strawberry; used Boston 1 to make James Jones disappear.
2007 FA: Grant Hill (should be positive)
2007 Trade: Thomas plus 2 1's for a conditional second in 2009 (most likely the condition specifies which of Seattle's two seconds Phoenix gets). I think (but am not positive) that Seattle used the Lewis trade exception to get Thomas. I don't think there's any value to the Suns--as I posted elsewhere, it is not a village bicycle. not that the suns would use it anyway.
2008: have Hawks #1 and Cleveland's #2; traded own 1 to Sea and own 2 to Indiana (James Jones)
2009: have their #1 and #2, and have 2's coming from Sea (Sea or Orl) and Golden State
2010: traded their #1 to Sea; still have #2
2011: have both picks.
So for Rodney Rogers and Tony Delk, the Suns have Diaw, Atlanta's 2008 #1, Cleveland's '08 #2 and $6 million (est) . Pretty good.
Conversely, the decision to create cap room to sign QRich has amounted to only a 2009 2nd to show for Luol Deng/Andre Igoudala and 2008/2010 #1s
And then there's Marcus Banks.
Anyway, I think the frustrating thing about the sale of the picks is that there are other options to get rid of the slotted salary, such as this year, drafting Tiago Splitter. But then james jones is still around, and who wants that?
So if the Suns can scrape up a decent big, they'll be fine, even if lacking in depth a bit. In hindsight, the machinations of the last two years are entirely the result of trading the #7 pick in 2005. If they draft Igoudala, there's no QRich (most likely--offer may not have been big enough, or the Clips would have matched), which means no Thomas trade (either of them), and probably no James Jones. Igoudala's contract is also smaller, so no need to get rid of Grant. In keeping picks in either 05 or 06, Suns draft a jarret jack or marcus williams (or keep rondo) type, so need for Banks.
Not that this is supposed to make Suns fans feel better.
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Not drafting Iguadala pissed me off! Being a UofA grad I naturally want all of them to play for the Suns. Ivan Radenovic would have fit seamlessly into the Suns' system. Anyways, I'm not sure what to think about always trading away first round draft picks. First round draft picks are a risky investment most of the time. We do have three extremely talented core players that are pretty expensive. I think that they're weighing the benefits/costs and deciding to keep the core and hope that veterans will keep falling in love with Nash. If we don't win this year then I think the allure of Phoenix will be gone and they'll have to go back to the draft for new talent.
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