How the emergence of Toumani Camara is allowing Suns fans to channel their pain

Phoenix Suns fans are coping hard as Toumani Camara shines in Portland.

Is the trade deadline here yet? Is it over?

The last month of the Phoenix Suns’ season has felt like Groundhog Day. It’s been an endless loop of Jimmy Butler rumors, Bradley Beal rumors, fake trade creation, discouraging losses, and angst that feels like it will never end.

But the stagnation of the last month has had one consistent outlet that I have seen on Twitter over and over again. The deep regret and frustration about the emergence of one Toumani Camara and the revisionist history of Deandre Ayton.

It feels like this 2nd-year starter on a tanking team has become the tip of the spear in channeling our frustration about how our current roster looks, feels, and operates, with no clear way out of it other than the doomsday cries of “Blow it up.”

All of this culminated in losing two games back-to-back against the Blazers, with the two players shipped out for Nurk and Grayson, leading them to victory against us.

It hurts, doesn’t it? You can tell it stings because of posts like this:

This:

This:

And this one:

Yes, it’s fair to say we Suns fans are coping hard. And while I understand why there’s so much frustration around the Suns right now, I try to be nothing if I am not a realist.

I know many of us are the Wolverine meme holding a picture of Toumani in a Summer Suns uniform right now, but I’m going to try my best to give a fair Suns Reality Check around some big statements I’ve seen reverberating around how the trade has aged:

• James Jones got fleeced
• We could have had Dunn & Camara
• Camara is way better than Dunn

James Jones Got Fleeced in the Ayton Trade

The amount of digital ink that has been spilled about Deandre Ayton could take up entire servers in Silicon Valley, so I won’t dive into whether or not we should have kept Ayton or if we missed on earlier opportunities to trade him.

I never wanted to trade Ayton, because I always felt a half-assed DA was still better than 90% of starting centers. Once he wanted out, I resigned myself to the fact that we were getting worse at the Center position, and we did.

But I’m old enough to remember how much Suns fans trolled the Blazers for taking him and how much vitriol was out there about Ayton.

When Nurk had a season that was surprising to most the takes looked like this:

Fast forward to this year and Little was cut, Grayson is playing more or less the same, and Nurk is on the bench. Meanwhile, DA is still doing DA things, but will always be able to get 20/20 games with just a hint of give a shit. The fact that he did it against the Suns is not enjoyable but it does make me feel a little self-righteous in all my warnings of being careful what you wish for in a DA trade.

But all of this is to say, that it just compounds the Toumani issue worse. If Toumani was doing what he was doing, DA was lazy, but Nurk wasn’t burning bridges, and Little was contributing, it would be a little easier to swallow. But alas.

But here is the hard truth about the Ayton trade for anyone who says James Jones should have never thrown Toumani in as a throw-in.

That’s not how trades for underperforming players on bad contracts work. Jones didn’t want to do it. He had to.

The Suns were backed into a corner because everyone knew DA was unhappy, overpaid, and at the lowest value of his career. The whole league watched him phone in it in a competitive playoff series.

In any trade where you’re trying to get off an overpaid player you have to give something up for the team to take that contract. Toumani was the price and there was no way we were getting a better center than Nurk. The offers were so bad they had decided to keep him until the Lillard situation provided a last-ditch opportunity to end the DA saga.

The Suns were all in on competing, and it made sense to include the second round pick who was not going to get any playing time as a late second rounder. Keep in mind this was before any of us knew the pain that would be: Keita Bates Diop, Yuta Watanabe, or Nassir Little. All three of those guys were expected to contribute and we missed on literally ALL THREE!!!

So we can cry that James Jones shouldn’t have “thrown in” Camara, but that is not the reality of how that trade went down. He wasn’t a throw-in. He was the tax on taking Ayton. It sucks, but it’s 100% true.

We could have had Toumani Camara AND Ryan Dunn

One of the most interesting aspects of sports fandom are sliding doors moments and the Suns are a team that is in no short supply of them.

What if Joe Johnson had been resigned?

What if we hadn’t traded Shawn Marion for Shaq?

What if we’d taken Haliburton instead of Jalen Smith?

And now: What if we’d kept Camara and then drafted Ryan Dunn?

There’s no way around it, the idea of Camara and Dunn on the floor together terrorizing players on the perimeter would be a sight to see. Their athleticism and length would be a major problem for offenses and take a huge burden off of the Big 3.

But let’s game out what would have likely happened if we’d kept Camara:

It would have been apparent fairly soon that KBD, Yuta, and Nassir were not going to cut it in any meaningful way. Camara likely would have gotten some minutes as the season went on, and the only player he would have had to outplay for minutes after the deadline would have been David Roddy and Josh Okogie.

It probably would have allowed him to showcase enough that James Jones and the coaching staff realized they had their stopper on the perimeter waiting to bust loose.

So maybe with Camara getting time, he and JO make life a little harder on Ant,, and they manage to lose that series in five games instead of four. Nurk still gets played off the court, and Eubanks is a total bust.

The Suns would have likely gone into last seasons draft feeling like their biggest need was at center, especially if they had Toumani in the wings for the 24-25 season. Dozens of mock drafts had the Suns drafting a center in the first round because the need was obvious, even though Nurk played well in the regular season, and perimeter defense was often our Achilles heel.

So in all likelihood in a “win now” situation, the Suns pivot and look to acquire a center like DaRon Holmes (drafted by the Nuggets when we traded back with them). That likely means they don’t draft Oso and miss out on Dunn.

Imagining alternate realities is fun, but real reality often looks very different, given what we know and what we see. A Dunn x Camara Duo was likely never in the cards, even if we had kept the bouncy Belgian.

Camara is just better than Dunn and we’d be better off with him

This is the take that grinds my gears more than anything. Be mad at James Jones. Lament what might have been. But damn it, you leave Ryan Dunn alone.

Here are the per 36 stat lines for two rookies:

Player 1: 10.9 Points, 7.1 Rebounds, 1.8 Assists, 1.4 Steals, .7 Blocks, 45% FG, 55% TS, 1.7 TO

Player 2: 12.7 Points, 6.4 Rebounds, 1.8 Assists, .9 Steals, 1.1 Blocks, 45% FG, 53% TS, .8 TO

Pretty comparable players, huh? Now one of them got to be starter on a bad team where they could take risks and play without fear of failing because the team wasn’t trying to win. One of them plays 5 more minutes a game because they’re in that situation.

Player 1 is Camara and Player 2 is Dunn.

Now what would Dunn’s numbers look like on a bad team putting him in positions to grow because they’re not trying to contend? I’d argue better.

It’s easy to compare Year 2 Camara to Year 1 Dunn and declare Toumani is superior, but as rookies, they’re nearly identical.

Dunn is a better scorer, turns it over less, and gets more blocks. Toumani has the edge in rebounds and steals.

Toumani is playing great this year but the ceiling for Dunn as a defensive player in this league is sky high. Let’s all take a deep breath and remember that Dunn was the highest-rated defensive prospect in a generation, and despite being on a KD Book heliocentric team, he’s still managing to put up more points than Toumani did his rookie year.

It will be very interesting to see what Ryan Dunn does in Year 2 and if I had to bet, we will see him surpass Toumani and begin to reach his ceiling as more opportunity and NBA conditioning comes his way.

Cheer for the team you have, not the one you wish for

In the age of social media, it is easier than ever to navel gaze, lust after other players, and triple-guess every single choice a team makes. Every bad play or missed opportunity gets as much attention, if not more than the good ones.

But as a Suns fan, I’ve never understood obsessing about players on other teams. I can’t stand Ant Edwards. I hope Luka fails every time he steps on the court. I just don’t have the energy to search out Toumani Camara highlights and obsess about what might have been. I wish Mikal and Cam well, but I’m not crying because Mikal is hitting 50% on mid-range jumpers for the season.

I only care about the Suns players on the current roster. I want them to be successful, and I try to keep my expectations for what they can contribute to the realm of reality. When they fall below that threshold, they are worthy of criticism.

As we head into the final stretch of the trade deadline, we tend to obsess about all the things we don’t have: cap space, Jimmy Butler, Toumani Camara, freedom from Beal’s no-trade clause, a motivated and locked-in Deandre Ayton, Jusuf Nurkic’s professionalism, the Twins, CP3’s leadership, and Phoenix Suns championships above all.

But it is important to remember that as Suns fans, we only get the opportunity to cheer for the team we have, and we have to make the choice whether or not we do or actively root against it.

I try to remain grateful that every day Devin Booker and Kevin Durant lace them up for the Suns, and it is a basketball blessing.

I appreciate that Book’s loyalty is affirmed by passing Walter Davis on the Suns’ all-time scoring list just days after Luka was shipped to the Lakers. I respect that Bradley Beal, despite his contract, is a professional and a stand-up guy who puts family first and has been nothing but patient with the Suns with everything they’ve asked of him.

I’m proud that we have a GM who is so good at finding diamonds in the rough on a team with little draft capital because hitting on Cam Johnson, Toumani Camara, Ty Jerome, Ryan Dunn, and Oso Ighodhoro is no easy feat.

I’m relieved to have a governor in Mat Ishbia who is all in, willing to try, not willing to quit because it’s hard, and committed to making basketball in the Valley one of the premier destinations in professional sports.

I’m impressed that Book’s prediction that the super team would come to him has come true and that players want to be here: Chris Paul, Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal, and now burn it all down for Phoenix Jimmy Butler.

I can’t wait until the deadline passes to see what this team looks like, but until then, I will root for the team we have and not spite them in hopes of a roster that doesn’t exist.

Phoenix Suns for Life. Phoenix Suns above all others.

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