All I have heard was that the Suns HAD to do something, I vehemently disagree. 2007: Losing to the Spurs in 6 games is no shame (a series considered by most the real NBA finals). 3 factors played into this. Game 1, Steve Nash bloodies his nose on Tony Parker's melon and misses several key possessions down the stretch, when he was on the floor he came up big even with the bloody sniffer. Game 3, Tim Donaghy officiated, enough said. Game 5, David Stern decided not to allow Boris Diaw & Amare Stoudemire to play and the Suns almost won anyway. Both Kurt Thomas and Steve Nash were running on fumes in the final minute. Most likely we would have watched a game 7. I'm not saying the Suns would be guaranteed a win, but @ least it would have been played out on the hardwood, not inside the hard heads @ the league office. 2008: The Suns were in 1st place 34-14 (.708) at the time of the trade. Is that really a team that HAD to do something? The best move, was to simply make one small move.
The reality is, if a Championship is the #1 goal, they should have added Grant Hill & trotted out the same squad they did last year. Yes they would have paid the luxury tax, but its pretty much an automatic trip to the Finals. In fact, who could possibly beat this
team (except our good friend to the right):Marion 16.4m
Stoudemire 13.8m
Nash 11.8m
Diaw 9.0m
Thomas 8.1m
Barbosa 5.6m
Bell 4.8m
Banks 3.9m
Jones 2.9m
Hill 1.8m
Tucker 0.9m
Strawberry 0.4m
Total 79.4m (Currently 71.5m)
That squad would be unbeatable. Simply would have no weakness (even with Banks on the rsoter). They could defend any team, outscore any team, pose mismatches at will, play big, play small, run & score in the half court! Kurt Thomas contract expires @ end of the season. One year of the luxury tax, just one. Win a championship, dump salary, change uniforms and sell a bunch of new jerseys. Even with all the prior mistakes in the draft & such. If only Mark Cuban owned the Suns and let me run operations! As it is, The Suns are in big trouble. Can they really expect Hill to play another season? Can they expect Shaq @ age 36 to play an 82 game season? Will Nash last 82 games running a half court team? Does that not defeat the purpose of having him as your point guard? They have no means to get better defensively and they traded away their competitive advantage. I am very confident Nash would not own an MVP without Marion, In fact maybe Marion deserved his own trophy in 06. After all Marion defended ALL 5 positions that season, scored 22 points, cleaned the glass 12 times, swatted 2 shots, and even swiped 2 wallets per game. Did I mention he checked ALL 5 positions? Anyway, let me move on before I shoot myself.
Shaq was simply not a good fit (19-15 since his arrival). Don’t be fooled by those who say Amare blossomed alongside Shaq. Amare was emerging just before the trade and erupted the day of the trade. He started putting up ridiculous numbers when Marion left the lineup, not when Shaq arrived. His scoring binge however did not equate to wins because all Amare offers is scoring. Shawn Marion was sorely missed in this series. Tony Parker killed the suns (29/7). Shaq did not stop Tim Duncan (24/13). The Suns record before Shaq 37-16, after Shaq 19-15. It’s not a complicated story. Check out the Lenovo Stats from NBA.com. All show a huge upside when Marion is on the floor (primarily because he can actually defend people) & quite the opposite when Shaq was on the floor.
But let's get to the real reason Robert Sarver made this deal, financial reasons as always. Shawn Marion doesn't sell jerseys and they could dump a prior mistake in Marcus Banks. The trade caused hype, they probably sold a lot of "32" jerseys. They just didn't count on only getting two home games in the post season. Through 2009 they break even on contracts, since they unloaded Banks 9.3m over the final 2 years they save money from 2010-11 assuming they trade Shaq and his expiring contract sometime in 2009. If not they can still dump Nash's corpse on the railroad tracks as the final year of his contract is a team option. I've been a Suns fan ever since I saw Kevin Johnson dunk over the Dream, good riddance Robert Sarvar.
No comments:
Post a Comment