Suns president: Making picks worked out better than making a trade would have

In the weeks and months leading up to the 2014 NBA Draft much of the conversation surrounding the Phoenix Suns involved the possibility of packaging their draft picks in some sort of trade.

Holding the 14th, 18th and 27th selections in the first round, it was believed they could swing a deal to either move up in the draft or possibly acquire a veteran from a different team.

That didn’t happen, as the Suns stood pat and selected T.J. Warren, Tyler Ennis and Bogdan Bogdanovic. While solid picks, the fact that the Suns didn’t make a big move may have some fans a little disappointed.

“We certainly explored all those possibilities and made the judgment that this was the best course of action,” Suns president of basketball operations Lon Babby told Bickley and Marotta on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM Friday. “I would say to fans please have some confidence, trust in our judgment and the folks making those decisions.

“We’re all looking for the same thing, whether it’s us or the fans, and that’s to build a championship team.”

The belief is that by adding Warren, the ACC Player of the Year who averaged nearly 25 points per game as a sophomore and Ennis, a freshman who led a very good Syracuse team, the Suns are set up to be better both this season and beyond.

So even though a big trade was not consummated Thursday evening, that doesn’t mean the team’s future is any less bright.

“We still have a lot of cap room, we still have a lot of work to do with our own free agents,” he said. “There are still going to be lots of trade conversations going forward, whether we end up doing something or not.”

Babby added that part of his responsibility is to make sure the team does not make moves just for the sake of making moves, which perhaps making a trade Thursday night would have been.

So they stood pat, made their picks and are happy with what they came out of the night with.

“Our judgment unequivocally and unanimously was that these two players — really, all four of the players we picked, but particularly the first two we picked in the first round — T.J. and Tyler, they were the very best we could have hoped for in the draft under the circumstances,” Babby said. “And if we had moved up it would have meant maybe picking one of them earlier, but as it turned out we got both of them where we were picking.

“So I think what I say to the fans is just help us, let us stay the course, keep working and judge us, as I’ve always said, judge us by the results. They’re not uniformly successful, but I think our track record has been pretty good over the last year or so.”

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