If the value the Suns got in the T.J. Warren trade on draft night wasn’t questionable enough, ESPN’s Amin Elhassan painted the circumstances as even more damning for the Suns in a radio spot on 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station on Tuesday afternoon.

Elhassan certainly is not one to hold back in criticizing the Suns’ organization, but this information appeared to come from the Pacers’ side or from a third party who heard about the Suns’ negotiations to trade Warren.

“What I heard was when Indiana got the call, ‘Hey we’ll give you T.J. and the 32nd pick,’ the Pacers thought it was a joke, they didn’t think this was a serious offer,” Elhassan said on The Burns & Gambo Show. “And when they realized it was, (Indiana said) ‘OK it has to get done now, because we’re not going to wait for you to figure out the mistake that you’re making here.’”

A joke. Not a serious offer. The Pacers were just as surprised at the Suns’ eagerness to get off Warren’s salary as bystanders following along on Twitter. Warren is a fine player on a decent contract. Those guys don’t get dumped. Washed up veterans making two or three times Warren’s salary are the ones we see picks thrown in to dump.

On draft night, it felt as if the Suns were desperate to either clear cap space or rid themselves of Warren for a reason not immediately obvious.

Elhassan elaborated on those previous negotiations as well, indicating the Suns may have waited too long, perhaps believing Warren was on his way back from an ankle sprain.

“A deal for T.J. Warren was available to them at an earlier date that did not include them giving a pick, but may have included them getting a pick for him,” Elhassan said, later mentioning that deal was there near the 2019 trade deadline.

The circumstances surrounding Warren’s ankle sprain are where we have to fall back when considering what went wrong in this relationship. If Warren indeed was ready to come back sooner, as Jamal Crawford indicated during his end-of-season press conference, that’s a problem. If the Suns’ lack of clarity on Warren’s return hurt their ability to get a good return on him in a trade, that’s even worse.

While it looks bad that the Pacers were so surprised by Phoenix’s offer, there’s reason to believe the negativity surrounding his relationship with the Suns may have impacted his trade value. The Suns did clear enough cap space to bring in Dario Saric and Aron Baynes later that night, who seem to fit their new identity better than Warren.

Nevertheless, the most questionable move of the Suns’ offseason thus far appears even more suspect now.