In what seems like an admission of making the wrong choice in last year’s draft, the Phoenix Suns are putting Kendall Marshall on the trading block, hoping to get something out of a player who has fallen to the third spot in their point guard rotation.
There’s no official admission from the Suns they’re dealing the player, but with Eric Bledsoe arriving to the team (probably playing in the starting lineup next to Goran Dragic), his chances of getting meaningful minutes are dropping.
It’s not that any team will make a move for Marshall alone. The Suns are simply trying to attach his name to any potential deal that might come. Marshall was relegated to some D-League action last season (playing 9 games), and averaged 3 points and 3 assists per game in 14.6 minutes a night last season in 48 games for the Suns.
Is Marshall a case of being too high a pick, coming out too early from college? There’s a chance. While he knows how to run a team and the floor, his inability or insecurity when it comes to scoring seems to be too much of a handicap for a team that’s trying to run an uptempo kind of style, and with Marshall coming off the bench and not helping that to happen, the Suns realize they might need someone else to back their point guards up.
However, his summer league performances so far have been positive, and there’s also the positive of Jeff Hornacek seemingly quite pleased with some of the things Marshall can do on the floor. Is it going to be good enough for him to stay on the team? After this season, the Suns have a team option on the next two seasons for the 13th overall pick in the 2012 draft, hoping to keep his place on a team that isn’t likely to win too many games next season, and is trying to get rid of pieces they don’t think will be helpful in the continuous rebuilding process.