We're about to find out what the Cardinals and Suns think about their former No. 1 picks

Ideally, signing No. 1 draft picks to a second contract would require little thought and produce no reluctance.

But not in Arizona. Nothing is ever that easy for our four men’s major professional sports franchises, which have produced one championship in 136 combined seasons here.

So, it’s not surprising we’ve spent a good portion of this year debating the wisdom of the Suns re-signing center Deandre Ayton, the top draft selection in the NBA in 2018, and the Cardinals re-signing Kyler Murray, the NFL's top pick in 2019.

It’s a summer of reckoning for both franchises.

The Cardinals open training camp on July 26. Without a new deal by then, Murray shouldn’t be blamed for being less than a full participant at camp.

The NBA free-agent period starts next week. Ayton, a restricted free agent, could receive an offer from another team, which the Suns have the right to match. Or the Suns could re-sign Ayton to a long-term deal. Or they could sign and then trade Ayton.

The smart move for both franchises would be to re-sign both players with the intent of keeping them around for several more years.*

Yes, that’s an asterisk. Because every positive opinion about Murray and Ayton must come with one.

With Murray, the Cardinals need to be assured he’s committed to improving his leadership skills. Those concerns, first voiced by anonymous sources to ESPN on the day of the Super Bowl, are real, not the imaginings of media-seeking page views and subscribers.

But if I’m the Cardinals, I’d bet on Murray, who turns 25 in August, making them, even if the wager is a contract worth an average of $45 million or so per year.

From the outside, it seems as if the Suns have their former No. 1 overall pick, too. Ayton’s improved every year, and that growth curve should continue since he turns 24 next month.

The alternatives to not paying him aren't attractive, at least the realistic ones. Letting him leave without getting anything in return makes no sense. And it's hard to imagine the Suns receiving equal value back in a trade. With point guard Chris Paul entering his 18th season, the window to compete for a championship won’t be open much longer.

Barring some miraculous off-season maneuvering, the Suns will be better with Ayton than without him.

After the draft Thursday, Suns General Manager James Jones said “DA remains a huge part of what we do and he's a free agent. So we'll talk about free agency when that time comes, but that hasn't changed. I think you hear his teammates. They echo the same sentiment that we have. This team is a really good team and we're going to keep it together."

I’ll take Jones at his word that Ayton is a “huge part” of the Suns and that “this team is a really good team and we're going to keep it together."

What Jones didn’t do, however, was publicly commit himself to negotiating a long-term deal with Ayton, as Cardinals General Manager Steve Keim did several times this off-season. The Suns balked at offering Ayton a max deal last summer, so it's unlikely they will do so this year, unless forced to by a competing offer.

The question now, as it was last year, is why?

That’s one reason arguments in favor of signing Ayton to a max deal start with “unless.”

As in:

Unless coach Monty Williams benching Ayton in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals was the result of accumulated frustration with Ayton and not just one bad moment.

Unless Williams, Jones, and/or Ayton's teammates have serious doubts about Ayton’s commitment to improving.

Unless there are serious problems in the locker room that trading Ayton could solve.

Unless Ayton is the one who is fed up and doesn’t want to remain a Sun.

How much, if any, of the above is true, we don’t know.

What we do know is that over the next month or so we will find out if the Cardinals and Suns are as excited today about their former No. 1 picks as they were on the days they drafted them.

Reach Kent Somers at Kent.Somers@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @kentsomers. 

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Suns, Cardinals will soon show us what they think of ex-No. 1 picks.