Ryan McDonough Rumors
Ryan McDonough: Kemba Walker will sign a 2 year contract with the Knicks in the $8-9 million range, per league sources. New York also has Team Options for the final seasons on the Alec Burks, Nerlens Noel and Derrick Rose contracts (in addition to Evan Fournier’s, as was previously reported)
Ryan McDonough: Stat of the night The Suns were +12 in Booker’s 42 minutes -16 in the 6 minutes Booker was on the bench
The Suns, however, hoped to still make a deal for him. They had made calls earlier to teams in the second half of the lottery to gauge their interest in trading down. The Cavaliers at eight said no, so did the Knicks at nine. The 76ers did too but their denial was softer, which gave Ryan McDonough, the Suns general manager at the time, the thought that there might still be a door open.
Not only had Bridges ended up high on the Suns’ draft board, but also McDonough recognized that he would be among the last of the players available who the front office had assessed with a high-to-mid lottery grade. The gap between Bridges and the players who would be available to Phoenix at No. 16 made the general manager push to try to swing a trade for him. “A number of things about him stood out,” McDonough said. “He’s really intelligent. He’s got off-the-chart character, work ethic. Everybody at Villanova raves about him. He’s a winner as a human being and as a player. He had a tremendous amount of success at Villanova. We saw how much he improved playing at Villanova for Jay Wright… We were looking for —I don’t want to pigeonhole Mikal — with a 3-and-D wing but somebody who could do that plus other things.”
Ryan McDonough: Ime Udoka has been seen as a future NBA head coach for quite some time Those who have worked with Udoka say he’s: a great person, a tough competitor, good at developing strong relationships with players, a solid tactician, a worker, well respected leaguewide. Strong hire for the ☘️s
The man who put Devin Booker in a Suns uniform, who drafted Deandre Ayton, acquired Mikal Bridges and put a woebegone franchise on the path to redemption—only to be jettisoned just before reaching the summit—is feeling all kinds of emotions amid their dazzling, magical run to the Western Conference finals. But maybe not the emotions you’d expect. Not bitterness, not frustration, not anger, not regret. A pang of wistfulness? Sure. A little FOMO? Yes. But mostly, Ryan McDonough feels pride. “A lot of people have asked if it’s bittersweet to watch those guys play,” the former Suns general manager, who was fired in October 2018, said in a telephone interview last week. “And I say, really, it’s just sweet. There’s no bitterness about it. I’d say it’s exciting.”
