Suns president Lon Babby addresses NBA trade deadline
Feb 20, 2013, 11:35 PM | Updated: 11:47 pm
With the NBA trade deadline looming, the Phoenix Suns have been at the center of many a rumor in the past couple weeks.
Some believe that Phoenix could be in the mix for Atlanta forward Josh Smith, while others have refuted that notion.
The fact is, the Suns have some tradeable pieces and own the worst record in the Western Conference, so the rumors will fly whether there’s credence to them or not.
Suns president of basketball operations Lon Babby joined Doug and Wolf on Arizona Sports 620 for his weekly visit and pinpointed what the team would be looking for if they choose to participate in any deals.
“The standard for us has to be that we need to be looking long-term, not short-term, we cannot do anything that will only help us in the short-term,” Babby said. “It has to be long-term and we have to be extremely cautious about giving up picks, especially first round picks — that’s going to be our lifeblood for getting better.
“Any trade we make is going to have be a trade that advances our cause in the long-term either by getting a young asset or getting more picks or something of that nature.”
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports has reported that the Suns are one of three teams with an inside track to acquire Smith from Atlanta, along with the Brooklyn Nets and Milwaukee Bucks.
Other rumors involving Suns players have included the Toronto Raptors having interest in reserve point guard Sebastian Telfair, the Knicks sniffing around center Jermaine O’Neal and reports that the Suns are dangling center Marcin Gortat and swingman Jared Dudley in potential deals.
Babby threw cold water on most of the existing rumors.
“The high likelihood is we don’t do anything,” he said.
The Suns president did say, however, that he’s been involved in the game long enough to realize that things can change quickly.
“Everything can change with one phone call,” he said. “I don’t know whether that phone call is going to come.
“But I would say this: I would not be in the least bit disappointed if our team is exactly the same at this point (Thursday) as it is right now, because it means we have not gotten a deal that meets our very stringent criteria of what we’re trying to do.”
