I just saw on the Twatter that the Suns are fielding calls on Kelly Oubre with less than a day to go before the trade deadline. I haven’t seen anybody say that a deal is imminent (other than perhaps the plebs on Twatter who don’t even have a blue checkmark), but it’s interesting that the Suns are open to the possibility of trading a 24-year-old who is the second leading scorer on the team.
Lately I’ve had the feeling that a bunch of players are being showcased by their teams to pump up their value for trades, but I don’t get that feeling with this thirty-point outburst from Oubre. A coach wouldn’t need to make a conscious effort to showcase Oubre. Oubre showcases himself just fine without any outside motivation guiding him. The shots he was taking this game are just normal Oubre shots. He wasn’t forcing anything. Okay, he wasn’t forcing anything more than he usually forces things.
I can sort of see why the Suns might not want Oubre anymore. He’s kind of like T.J. Warren in that he’s a scoring force who doesn’t fit as neatly into a team concept as people would want. The Suns dumped Warren for less than nothing, and I think they learned their lesson after that widely-mocked transaction, so you would hope that they would get fair value for a young, fringe-20 PPG scorer. I’d say the Suns should attach no more than five second-round picks to Oubre’s outgoing contract, and they should aim to get at least $20 in cash back for him. AT LEAST.