THURSDAY, 12:32pm: The Suns made Marshall's assignment official today, as Stefan Swiat of Suns.com writes.
“Right now Kendall is our third point guard on the depth chart," Suns GM Lance Blanks said. "We made the judgment that it'd be better to get Kendall some live game repetitions and game-time experience in case coach [Alvin] Gentry wants to play him."
WEDNESDAY, 10:29pm: The Suns will send rookie point guard Kendall Marshall to their D-League affiliate, the Bakersfield Jam, tweets Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic. The 13th overall pick in this year's draft had seen limited playing time behind Goran Dragic and Sebastian Telfair, and the Suns want to get him some time on the court, Coro says.
Marshall's demotion, however temporary, represents the wide chasm between his sitution and the one enjoyed by Damian Lillard, the other point guard taken in the lottery, who's drawing Rookie of the Year consideration with the Blazers. Portland chose Lillard with the sixth overall pick.
Marshall's assignment is the first for the Suns this year, who didn't send anyone down last season. New D-League rules this year allow teams to assign and recall a player as many times as they want, while the previous limit on demotions per season for a single player was three. To keep tabs on all the movement between NBA teams and their affiliate this year, bookmark our list, which we'll be updating throughout the season.
Well there goes a 13th overall draft pick waisted
A little premature don’t you think? He’s a pass-first PG in the Andre Miller mold. He wasn’t a Rose or Wall type coming out of college. Outside of Jason Kidd I can’t think of many pass-first PG that were starters straight out of the draft. Nash barely appeared in 75% of his rookie year and barely got any minutes. Rondo split duties with Telfair and West. Stockton didn’t become a starter until his 4th year.
Frankly, if you’re a Suns fan you should be happy you even still have the guy you drafted rather than “cash considerations” or a player soon to be waived. Stephen Jackson – traded before ever playing, Rajon Rondo – traded on draft night, Luol Deng – traded on draft night, Marcin Gortat – traded on draft night, Nate Robinson – traded on draft night…
While it is premature to count Marshall out it’s not premature to conclude the Suns brass has no clue how a rebuilding team should act. You don’t start a career backup over the 13th overall pick when your not going to make the playoffs. If I were Marshall I’d want out, Sebastian Telfair is not a better player than Marshall and he’s already at his peak. With Marshall’s court vision and passing ability sky’s the limit for how good this kid can be, but sitting him on the bench in favor of Telfair then sending him to the D League to play against inferior competition is ridiculous.
Your right about all those other Suns draft picks and I was screaming for years about how good they’d have been with Nash, Rondo, Deng, Marion, Amare, Hill, Rudy Fernandez and Gortat, but that was an entirely different regime (except the moronic owner Sarver). We’re going to have 3 first rounders next year and the way LA is playing 2 of them could be Lottery picks, but the way there treating Marshall Makes me wonder if they should be trying to get an established star for those picks instead of wasting them on guys they’re going sit on the bench behind guys like Shannon Brown.