Strongly disagree with all those saying Marion is a product of a system or his teammates.... Marbury... really? People seem to have a misconception that he is slow. Shawn is a caveman and his brutish, hit-you-lower-first defensive approach causes him to get his arms and shoulders tangled up with other players through literally the entire game, so he isn't seen in the open court, or as an athletic, movable defender. This is partially true. He is no gazelle. He does not have break away speed. He is not going to play point. He is not going to take you off the dribble. But he can stay in front of tier 1 and 2 wings/guards 80-95% of the time, and I'm confident wherever he goes he will get it done with, at the very least, his personal defensive match-up. That might be worth the mid-level exception by itself. If we stop there we might have Shane. Marion distinguishes himself from Battier though with the wings of a 747 and say, twice the ability to create his own shot. And talk about bringing it to play every night: 04/05 81 games (PHO) 05/06 81 games (PHO) 06/07 80 games (PHO) 07/08 62 games (PHO/MIA) 08/09 69 games (MIA/TOR) Marion on a team like Blazers/Magic/Cavs/Jazz/Grizz/Hornets with established talent at other positions is not something we are prepared to deal with right now.
I have let it be known many times on this site, that i'm a huge supporter of a Sign and Trade swap of Marion and Battier. It makes us bigger, and more athletic. I dont wanna hear how we have the PF spot locked up. I dont think Houston is done dealing.
Marbury used to average 8 apg in Phoenix. He was one of the quickest guards in the NBA and he would get into the lane when he wanted to. My point is Jason Kidd, Penny Hardaway, Stephon Marbury, and Steve Nash were all instrumental in Marion getting that many points and making him look better. That is not a bad set of point guards to play with...you saw how Marion was affected when he played with Chris Quin/ Dwade(not a pg) and Jose Calderon (gets assists, but doesn't penetrate the way the phx pgs used to)
Marion is good at what he does....the problem is what he does isn't worth max level money. Kirilenko was a similar player who got paid close to what marion is getting paid and look what happened to him. We don't need that here...unless he takes MLE. That is the absolute max i would pay for a wing player who can't create his own shot.
So what if he had point guards assist him for baskets in transition? So did James Worthy. That doesn't mean you could plug in just anybody and the same thing would happen - Karl Malone got a lot of assists from John Stockton, but you couldn't put Maurice Taylor in his spot and expect the same result. In his prime, Marion was an incredibly effective player on both ends of the floor, since he was a superior athlete with good skills. He's out of it now, but whatever - the whole "system" thing is overplayed a bit. People used to say the same thing about Richard Jefferson in his early days but he's still going strong.
Say what you want about Marion, but he was FANTASY GOLD in his Pho days: .500+ FG% .800+ FT% 20+ PPG 10+ RPG 2+ SPG 2+ BPG 1.5+ 3PTS I always made it priority #1 to acquire his services.
James Worthy and Karl Malone could also create their own shots when they needed to. Theres a reason why James Worthy has a Finals MVP, been a multiple time all star. He definitely benefited from having Magic around, but that didn't mean he couldn't create. Anybody who watches Marion's game can clearly see that he cannot handle the ball or create for himself. Karl Malone definitely was helped out by Stockton. However, he could post up, and his jumper out to 20 ft was almost automatic at times. He would also drive to the basket and just bulldoze his way in he had to. Comparing Marion to Worthy and Malone is not even right...he has much less skills than those 2.
I didn't say they were the same players - I said that they both ended up with a large percentage of their points created for them, which appears to be the primary knock on Marion. (who was a disruptive defensive presence as well, a fact a lot are conveniently omitting). PS - anybody who doubts that Marion would have been an absolute terror on the Showtime lakers is kidding themselves. He might have made the HOF. He's a 5 time all star now, get that up to 8+? Hello Springfield... the fact of the matter is that EVERY player benefits from the system they are in to some extent - Michael Jordan's longevity for example was preserved by the slow-down, grinding, post oriented triangle offense the Bulls played at the end of his career. So what? He was the right player at the right time, and he was a badass at it.
He may be out of his prime, but for exactly that reason he will be a real bargain. If you could only find out how to get this dude excited about playing, and this is a reasonably relevant if because I honestly don't know how you would even begin going about that. Surround him with talent, I suppose. I pray he stays in the Eastern Conference obscurity he's been mired in. Please do not sign with the Blazers, Shawn Marion.
If the money were equal, I have a feeling that Marion can be wooed by a team that showed it's commitment to him. Say the Rockets were after him, we'd go to Shawn and say: Yao and Tracy aren't playing, you're going to be the man, you are the biggest star on the team next year, you can shoot whenever you want, we'll build our marketing campaign around you, you'll be on all the commercials and your face will be on billboards. Houston is Shawn Marion. Now sign here for 1 year and 5 mil...... That would probably work better than Cleveland coming in with the same offer: Hey Shawn, why don't you come and be the 3rd or 4th banana and do all the dirty work to win a championship.
don't look now, but... 1 - Kidd / Terry / JJ Barea 2 - Howard / Wright 3 - Marion 4 - Nowitzki 5 - Gortat / Dampier / Hollins / Bass http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4310011
I remember this guy being the most "underrated" player in the league some years back and now no one wants him. There must have been like an ego contest down in phoenix because i dont understand how a team with perhaps the 2 most selfish players in the league got 60+ wins. Well that just shows the greatness of Steve Nash.
You make a good point about Marion's defense...he's a good athlete and very long. I'll give you all that. The problem is, he himself feels like he should "BE THE MAN" on whatever team he's on and get paid accordingly, when he's nothing more than a good role player. He's good at rebounding, finishing alley hoops, and playing the passing lanes and getting the occasional block. But with the kind of $ he wants, he's definetily underskilled to be paid like that. He is not one that can create on his own, and he's not a good shooter, so what does he have left to offer in a half court set? Just hustle points, which are nice, but that aint worth the kind of $ Marion wants...
Oh - he's way overpaid now, there's no question of that. to the extent Phoenix was going to lock him down to a huge contract, they should have committed to D'Antoni/Nash as well for concurrent periods - useless to have one or two pieces without the others....now he's just salary filler.
