Suns decline third-year option on Jalen Smith, making former top-10 pick a free agent in 2022
6 games into his 2nd season and PHX isn't willing to commit $4.7M to last year's #10 pick.
Taken two picks after ObiT and two picks ahead of TyHallibut.
I thought it was a terrible pick by PHX, though kiid assured me I was wrong.
Smith and Kilian Hyaes were the most likely Top 10 busts from the 2020 draft.
Said to be a deep draft.
But picks 5-9 are all coming off the bench, while #10 Smith is a DNP even though Saric is out for the year. Interesting too that 2, 4, 5, 6 were all defensive players (Wiseman, Pat Williams, Okoro, Okongwu).
As for Pat Williams, he was coming along somewhat slowly. Bulls could sure use Markkanan about now. But they also could have simply traded Markk for Nance. Instead they 3-teamed it and got Derrick Jones Jr. and gave up a 1st rounder. Er ... DJ Jr was out of the rotation until the Williams injury. Unimpressive. But an opportunity for Jones to get back on track.