NBA Rumors: Suns "Have Picked Up Jae Crowder Trade Conversations"

Jae Crowder is still sitting at home, collecting his $10M salary, and waiting... Waiting for the Phoenix Suns to finally enact a trade to send him, as he has stated, somewhere he's wanted. 

A strange thing has happened along the way, however, as the player whose new starting status forced Crowder to stomp off in a snit in the first place, Cam Johnson, is now out for up to a couple of months. Crowder could have been racking up the minutes and notoriety right now to speed up trade talks. 

But apparently, the urgency of the Johnson injury has forced the Suns to pick up the talks anyway, according to ESPN's Brian Windhorst on his Hoop Collective podcast today. 

In the last few days, from what I understand, the Suns have picked up their Jae Crowder conversations. And tried to re-engage on some old talks, so I am told.

 

Now, does that mean they will find a deal? Obviously they’ve had some impetus to do that. It was bad news when Cam Johnson got hurt, but good news he was able to have a surgery where it was a partial removal as opposed to a repair, which would have meant him being out for the year.

As it is, Johnson is expected to be out for one to two months. 

As far as whether the Suns would be prepared to change course and try to convince Crowder to return for now, Windhorst says "the last time I checked in on it, I was basically told 'there is no change.' There's no effort by the Suns to bring Crowder in."

In his two years with the Suns, Crowder has averaged 9.7 points and 5 rebounds, while shooting 37% from downtown. While his preferred landing spot is South Beach, the most recent rumor has another team with interest. 

 Photo: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports