After seeing KG's effect on Boston the Suns' management has to feel real dumb about not making a move for him.
Did you see Shaq flop trying to take a charge? When Tyson tried to back him in, Shaq literally threw himself to the floor like Manu Flopinni You can see Tyson's face was like "WTF???". This, plus his ass kissing talks about Nash and Stoudemare, is so unlike "the diesel". How sad to see the once invincible man going down by the day like this
The problem was that Boston wouldn't take any deals with Marion or Diaw. Amare isn't the Suns problem. One of the things killing them is their perimeter shooting has really fallen off. And Marion chucking 3 balls is part of that problem. The Suns absolutely need another player for depth and in particular a shooter. Barry, Giricek, somebody. They have got to bring down Nash, Bell and Hill's minutes to peak levels or those guys will be further grinded down before the playoff starts. They probably also need to up Barbosa and hope he returns to pre-Spurs playoff series form for which he hasn't seem to recover.
I am confused! The rumored KG trade that he mentioned was Amare + pick for KG. Boston had nothing to do with the Amare rumors. The Boston rumors were Paul Pierce for Shawn Marion I believe. Over the summer, the Suns tried to offer a package around Marion for KG, but the T-Wolves were having any part of that. They insisted on a package around Amare and the Suns refused! Then they go and try to salvage that by trading for Shaq! Bad move! What is so special about Amare anyways? All he does is dunk and occasionally hit that 15-foot jumper! And I mean occasionally! But what he gives up on defense isn't worth it. His only defense presence is coming from behind on double teams to swat the ball! No interior defense whatsoever!
what's wierd is we are only like 2-3 games behind all these "elite" teams..even after people called us a dissapointment after losing so many games. i didnt expect us to be within 1.5 games of phoenix/NO etc 2/3 itno the season.
What the hell did KG do in the west. He got to one finals and has been out in the first round every other year.
Desert Scar is right about the perimeter shooting. The Suns went to the Western Conference Finals 2 years in a row and then took the Spurs to 6 games in the 2nd round last year (including the suspensions), which is better than how the Jazz and Cavs fared. It is arguable, perhaps easily said that over the last 3 years plus this current season, the Suns have been the 2nd most successful team in the NBA behind the Spurs in terms of consistency. Yes, they definitely have had deficiencies, especially on the defensive end, but their abilities outweighed their flaws. But as I said earlier, they started to shed quality players years ago because the owner is relatively cheap. This cumulative effect has really hurt them. They used to be deep, and able to spread you out at ALL times, but things have changed. As a Phoenix sportswriter recently said, they only have three 3pt shooters now in Nash, Barbosa, and Bell, and they cannot all play at once. In the past, they would usually have three 3pt shooters, sometimes four on the floor at once (Marion is half of a 3pt shooter). And then their bench players would not miss a beat when it came to shooting (Barbosa, James Jones, Tim Thomas, Eddie House, and Kurt Thomas can hit a jumper). Even though Marion isn't a good 3pt shooter, he still can score from the perimeter (shooting, cutting, driving). Shaq absolutely is useless on the perimeter on offense. Point is they are not as great a shooting team as they were the last 3 years...and they are not as deep as they have been. They used to be 8 or 9 deep, but now are only 7 deep. Trading Marion for Shaq didn't help their depth...it just meant Grant Hill and Boris Diaw would play more minutes.
The Suns said that they brought Shaq in to be a defensive stopper. When in Shaq's career has he been a defensive stopper? Shaq has always been an offensive player. In his prime years he was a good but not great defnder, and now he's a below-average defnder becuase he has lost so much quickness in the last couple of years. Now Shaq can no longer guard people without fouling. Also, as someone said, Nash and Shaq just dont work together. They play completely different styles of basketball. Nash's game is all about penetration, and Shaq is only effective when he's in the low post which prevents Nash from penetrating. Nash looks quite uncomfortable now with Shaq in the game, and we all know how important Nash is to the Suns.
Getting KG for Amare + pick (say the Atl one) would have been a bad move. They would gain defense but lose offense and probably a little overall effect. Amare is a very effective and efficient offensive player who pretty much nobody can match-up with--have you seen what he has been doing now in the PF spot? Now if they could have gotten KG for Diaw + Marion + any combination of picks (or maybe would have had to put in Barbosa), great move--obviously Minny thought they could do better. Not exactly. They brought him in to get key rebounds (they were the worst in O and R rebounding team in the league) and to improve defensive match-ups in the low post versus some teams. It obviously doesn't help their defense against quick teams, but might against the teams with power front line players--Duncan, Boozer, Gasol, etc. They desperately need another shooter and guard. Adding Barry or Giricek will help, maybe not enough though. Now adding both would be really smart since Giricek can play some D. Also, someone brought up Bell and Barbosa as the only other 3 point shooters. Part of their problem is those guys are not shooting the 3 ball like they are capable. I believe the best Suns team for closing games some playoff time (for sure offensively) might be Nash, Barbosa, Bell, Amare and Shaq. But they can't possibly turn to that line-up much because they have no depth at guard. Bell seems to be overextended as it is (isn't playing D or spotting up like he is capable) and Barbosa hasn't returned to last season form.
I think the Mavs and the Suns are significantly weaker after their trades, the only team that got significantly better was the Lakers...the rest of the team's swinging for the fences struck out. I do think a lot of people doing the minor trades made out, like Houston, and Minnesota etc....but the rest.... Nah. DD
Which makes Yao's injury even more heartbreaking. Two of the worst matchups for the Rockets in recent years have been the Suns and Mavs. And just when they made themselves into inferior ballclubs, we lose our best player.
Stop giving credit to Shaq for Kobe's hard work, Kobe has always been a gym rat while FAT SHAQ was the opposite, Kobe wasn't mentored at all by Shaq, where the hell did you come up with that?
Correct. This reminds me of the ridiculous idea that Shaq was partly responsible for Wade's greatness (which was debated here a couple of years ago). It should be obvious to everyone that both Kobe and Wade are extremely self-motivated and a lazy Shaq couldn't dream of mentoring players like them. Kobe was ticked off by Shaq's lack of conditioning and even Wade called him out some earlier this season. Shaq is a good guy and I like him, but his leadership ability isn't what some people think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTmF0_7T7Yw lol. Can somebody embed this? Watch around the 58 second mark. BTW, this clip has some offensive language, so if anyone is offended by profanity, don't watch it.
Well, that would be a mistake - he peaked on the boards 8 years ago. These days, his footwork and quickness is so bad he only gets rebounds that come to him. Maybe it helps in the sense that he eats space and inadvertently blocks guys out to free Amare to get more boards...but I don't know that trading Marion for Shaq is how I'd try to improve my team rebounding. All the guys that force their defender to come 17 to 20 feet out to check them? Shaq helps with that? How? Shaq does punish power guys on the block on both ends, but look at the teams in the West playoff hunt. Down the line, especially with Yao gone, the bigs are high post guys with range. Shaq is ABYSMAL when asked to come out high to help on P&Rs - and that's going to be what they see no matter who they meet in April/May. Shaq-Amare are going to be a liability facing these matchups, when Amare-Marion were a much better fit. Evan
I honestly think the people that keep repeating that the Mavs are weaker are smoking crack. The Mavs offense has been a complete joke this season and it is one of the reasons they've had such a poor road record this season. They have given up Devin Harriss and DeSagana Diop and replaced them with Jason Kidd and Jamal Magliore. It remains to be seen how effective Magliore will be as a backup, but they upgraded one of their weaker positions with a hall of fame pointguard. Devin Harris could get to the rim, but he doesn't create scoring oppurtunities for his teamates and he doesn't make his teamates better. His basketball IQ is not very high either. Jason Kidd's strengths are Devin Harriss weak spots.
