Although there were some unpleasantness with Ayton, the Suns kept him and officially signed him today. The general manager said the Suns need Ayton badly.

The Suns didn’t want to give Ayton a max salary. He became a free agent. The Pacers offered him a four-year, $133 million offer, and the Suns matched the contract.

After the official signing, general manager James Jones said that they have been paying attention to Ayton and have always regarded him as part of the team’s future plans.

“I’m a direct person, I know what I want to do, and I’ll do it right away. If anyone had doubts, we wouldn’t have matched the contract,” Jones said. “It’s very important to us. We need Ayton. Stay here. He’s very relevant to us, a core component.”

Jones believes that they are willing to wait for Ayton, and they can continue to wait until an agreement is reached.

It can be said that this is the post-event PR of the sun. They didn’t give a max contract, and they had a bad time with Ayton. But Ayton stayed in the end and got a big contract, and he was not dissatisfied.

The next time we discuss the contract, it should be four years from now.