Suns trade Marcin Gortat to Wizards for draft pick, sack of potatoes

(Illustration courtesy of Krzysztof Domaradzki/Nike)

In their ongoing effort to make themselves truly dreadful to watch, the already pathetic Phoenix Suns decided to gut some of the little talent they still had on Friday, trading Marcin Gortat, Shannon Brown, Kendall Marshall and Malcolm Lee to the Washington Wizards for Emeka Okafor and a 2014 first round pick.

There are several aspects of this trade worth discussing -- one of which is that it partially invalidates my evaluation of the Yahoo! top 150 rankings. I mean, come on Washington and Phoenix! Couldn't you have waited like four days and then pulled off this move? But anyway...

My assessment of both Gortat and Okafor remains unchanged, actually. I didn't like Gortat before this move, and now that he has to play alongside Nene, I'm especially doubtful that he's going to put up noteworthy numbers. The one bright spot for Gortat is that Nene will inevitably get hurt tripping over a garden rake or something (as he always does), so when that happens, Gortat will get a nice little boost. Until such an injury occurs, he's going to be an inconsistent, though not entirely worthless, fantasy option -- someone who's likely to get added and dropped a few times during the course of the year.

Okafor, who was slated to miss most of the year anyway, remains unworthy of your consideration. Even if he was healthy, he'd never see a second in the Suns' lineup, since this trade was just a salary dump and he doesn't factor into their rebuilding plans. Shannon Brown, Malcolm Lee and Kendall Marshall remain irrelevant, although the one thing Brown's absence does is reconfirm Eric Bledsoe as the runaway option at shooting guard for Phoenix.

Meanwhile, Suns rookie Alex Len gets vaulted into the starting center role thanks to Gortat's departure. Len is worthy of a flier in the late rounds, but I'd caution owners not to over-reach for him. Yes, in the NBA, no matter how bad a team is, SOMEONE has to score and put up stats, if only by default. But this Phoenix team is slated to be so disgustingly awful that Len's value is by no means guaranteed, especially since Channing Frye is still lurking around on their bench.

Overall, not a very exciting trade. If nothing else, as a compassionate human being, I'm happy for Gortat, Marshall and Lee, if only because they're no longer on a team that's as soul-crushing to sit down and watch.

UPDATE (10/26/2013):

Apparently Miles Plumlee will actually begin the year as the Suns starting center, and not Len. Here's how I'd look at this if I were a Len owner. If Len is any good at all, if he actually possess any amount of skill, he should finish the year in the starting lineup because this Suns team is just AWFUL. So if you plucked him in one of the later rounds, I say you might as well hang on to him and see what he does coming off the bench for at least a few games. However, I'd have a very short leash with him, because like I said: if he can't get into the starting lineup on this team, he can't possibly be much of a fantasy option. And as for Plumlee... meh. He's probably not going to do a lot. But hey, you never know.