Grayson Allen, Royce O’Neale both surprised by Suns trade

PHOENIX — Former Phoenix Suns wings Grayson Allen and Royce O’Neale visited on Thursday for the first time since they were acquired by the Charlotte Hornets in the Miles Bridges trade, and both were surprised by the trade.

“Very, yeah,” Allen said. “I was just kind of going off what I felt like the message to the team was. There wasn’t that much. It was just two guys. It wasn’t a huge change I guess.”

“Yeah. For sure,” O’Neale added. “But hey, if that’s what they feel makes them better, it’s a business at the end of the day. It is what it is. Basketball gonna keep bouncing, grateful for the time and thankful for the time that I was here. Coach put me in positions to do a little bit of everything, and (I) was always giving my 100%.”

Both guys were expectedly busy on the floor before the game got underway. Allen and O’Neale are both revered teammates, serving as great personalities to have in the locker room who have all the respect from their teammates and coaches for how they go about their play as professionals.

“It was really just the guys here, the team here and the amount of time I’ve spent here,” Allen said of the connection. “We kind of had a pretty good year, so I kind of felt like we were building something, so that’s where the connection comes from for me.”

As O’Neale said, head coach Jordan Ott did his best to maximize the veteran’s skillset, and Ott did the same with Allen. The pair fit in well with what the Suns do on both ends. As Allen said, it was Year 1 of a new process it felt like the two clicked into place on as part of the veterans amongst the group.

This is the fourth time Allen has been traded, and it’s the third for O’Neale. Both had two years left on their contracts, and while there was some trade speculation about either guy given how crowded the non-big room was for the rotation, the Suns made it work quite well last season to the tune of 45 wins.

Allen was specifically a guy that talked about wanting to finish his career here.

“It’s cool. It feels a little weird just because it feels like the time since the trade to now, it’s kind of flown by,” Allen said. “It’s cool to be back. This is, three years here was the longest I’ve been in one place, so I feel like I have a lot of connection here.”

At the same time, both players understand the league. They’ve been around long enough to know the drill by now. They know that even if the Suns agreed and then some with everything that was just said about how this made sense as a long-term stay for both players, Phoenix saw an opportunity for a trade they believe will take them to the next level as a team.

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