Free agency preview: Aaron Gordon’s RFA status makes him tough Suns sell

After what the Phoenix Suns pulled off in the 2018 NBA Draft, there are ramifications to #TheTimeline and the standing of the team leaders’ future state of mind.

The need for another legitimate young piece to go alongside Devin Booker and Josh Jackson was there, even after the selection of Deandre Ayton.

Perhaps that could become Dragan Bender, Marquese Chriss or who they picked at No. 16, but by trading up for Mikal Bridges, the need is gone with how Bridges immediately fills in the team’s two most pressing needs of defense and shooting.

The young core is now one of the three best in the NBA, and while the Suns want to win right away, they should do their best to avoid deals that could ruin their flexibility around those four.

That is where we arrive at Orlando Magic forward and restricted free agent Aaron Gordon.

Gordon, 22, is one of the most difficult young players to peg in this league. Is he more of a future star, a good stats-bad team player or more miscast in Orlando and would serve better as a super-duper role player?

At a springy yet bulky 6-foot-9 with a 7-foot wingspan, Gordon is an overwhelming athlete for NBA power forwards to deal with. He’s too fast for most, making him a terrific offensive and defensive option.

Last season, Gordon averaged 17.6 points, 7.9 rebounds and 2.3 assists while shooting 43.4 percent from the field and 33.6 percent from 3-point range.

Those are solid numbers, but at the start of the season, Gordon appeared to have taken a huge step forward toward being an All-Star. Watch Gordon here show a little bit of everything. He was shooting threes with confidence, hitting pull-up jumpers, working mismatches in the post and finishing around the rim when he had to attack.

In the first 21 games of the season, Gordon was shooting 51.1 percent from the field and an absurd 44.0 percent from 3-point range, a 16-point percentage bump from his career average.

As a legitimate shooter from deep, Gordon could become a dynamic scoring option, as well as a better floor spacer.

Instead, he regressed, shooting 29.1 percent on three-pointers from that point in the season on.

Taking a look at Gordon’s shot chart, though, and you see the reasons to be concerned but also reasons to buy into his improvement.

The big question with Gordon is how he looks in, well, a better situation than Orlando that will have other ball-handlers for him to work with.

Despite that 3-point percentage, Gordon shot 39.0 percent on catch-and-shoot opportunities from deep. The drop comes on the 1.8 three-point attempts per game he took off the dribble, which he shot at a disastrous 21.7 percent.

A look at the short chart also shows only 71 total attempts from the corners. Even a player like Bender took 12 more attempts from those two spots than Gordon.

Also, take a peek at those 81 combined attempts from the deep midrange area that he only converted 27.1 percent of, where the league average is right around 40 percent.

The number at the rim, as well, can be attributed some to sharing the floor with plodding centers like Nikola Vucevic and Bismack Biyombo. Even when creating space, Gordon would often have to deal with a second defender at the rim.

Those are the types of off-the-ball creation opportunities he was forced into doing for a bad Magic team. One would think sharing the floor with Booker and Ayton would help him.

Asking Gordon to do less on offense and focus more on defense and rebounding could change his trajectory considerably, having him take the form of a positive two-way force instead of an inefficient scorer. Remember, Gordon is only 22 years old.

The could in that equation is why making a run at Gordon is tricky.

On top of that, Gordon is restricted. Yahoo Sports’ Shams Charania said on the Chris Mannix show that the expectation around the league is for the Magic to match any offer.

Gordon’s max offer sheet would be at just under $25 million, a price tag the Suns can’t match. There’s no reporting at this time as to what Gordon wants to be paid, but the Suns’ max cap space for this summer, if they were to get rid of every non-guaranteed deal, is around $17 million.

It’s impossible to grade how likely that is given how few teams have free agent space, which could clamp down the price for free agents, but we know it’s unlikely.

A more realistic (and still unlikely) scenario is the Suns moving on from either Tyson Chandler or Jared Dudley’s expiring contract to open up that max spot and sign Gordon to that offer sheet. With that offer sheet, though, also comes waiting on the Magic to potentially match unless it was a sign-and-trade.

Signing Gordon on that deal, though, would be a risk and an unnecessary one to add to what is a promising future. Sure, it could work out and he could really help the Suns, but this could also be Brandon Knight all over again and we know how the worst-case scenario of that move unfolded.

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