After last night's loss, the Phoenix Suns once again have their plans derailed by the defending champs. The Suns have been eliminated by the Spurs in four of the last six seasons. This loss comes with a grain of salt, however.
Steve Nash, now 34 has a small window of how much longer his body will hold up. The whole "he gets better with age" logic will only last for so long. The Suns need to find a way to win a championship with their core of guys very soon or it may never happen.
Shaquille O'Neal looks to be right in the "washed up" stage of his career. At 36, he hasn't played over 60 regular season games since his first year in Miami. His free throw shooting is even more of an Achilles heel because he's not a dominant force in the paint anymore. There were numerous instances throughout not only this series, but the entire season, when Shaq would be fouled on a shot from the paint but not convert. He used to convert every "and one" possibility he was given.
I didn't understand the trade when it was made and after the 4-1 loss to San Antonio, it's clearer than ever it was the wrong move.
Steve Kerr won't have to worry about keeping Mike D'Antoni around after the news this morning. According to an article from the Sports Illustrated webstie, D'Antoni is not returning to the Suns bench next season. He didn't feel that upper management was behind him. You can read about it here.
So the Suns now have three starters in Nash, Hill, and O'Neal in their mid-late 30's and no head coach. Hill and Shaq will be big question marks for how much they can play and I have a feeling Steve Nash is going to have a slight drop-off next season.
They still have three young guns in Amare, Barbosa, and Diaw to work around. They need to sign a free agent, make a sensible trade or even look to the NBA draft to give them a shot of adrenaline.
In the past four NBA seasons they have a combined record of 232-96 (.710). In this span they won their division three times and reached the conference finals twice.
It's definitely a successful four year stretch, but Suns fans have been waiting for a championship since "the greatest game ever played" back in 1976. They deserve a championship banner in Phoenix. Many great players have suited up for them over the years with nothing to show for it in the form of titles.
So my question to you Suns fans is this: What do you want to see upper management do this off-season to give you a shot next year at the title?
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3 months ago
We need to deal Barbosa for either a draft pick or a serviceable veteran PG or SG. We need to send Hill and Bell to the bench and sign a SG in the offseason to start. Diaw can also be used as a trading piece but I'm not sure their is much interest in him and his performance the last two games was enough for me to want to keep him. I think a starting role equates to him playing excellent basketball.
The team needs to give Mike D'Antoni one more season.
Your 2009 Suns:
Steve Nash
Free Agent SG
Boris Diaw
Amare Stoudemire
Shaquille O'Neal
Bench: Raja Bell, Grant Hill, Brian Skinner, Gordon Giricek, DJ Strawberry, Free Agent PG, 1st Round Draft Pick (Spark Plug), 1st Round Draft Pick (Defensive Specialist)
from 3 months ago
That idea won't work. The Suns have hardly any cap space due to the large contracts of Shaq, Amare, Diaw and Barbosa so if we get any free agents they are going to have to be players that will take the veteran minimum like Hill did. As far as the draft goes we dont have two first round picks, our 24th pick this year goes to Seattle because we sent them Kurt Thomas and a 2008 and 2010 first round pick to get rid of cap space. We only have the 15th pick (Atlanta's) we can find a nice player because this draft is a deep one though. As far as Bell goes, he was arguably the Suns 2nd best player this series, he just doesn't demand for the ball when he is on fire like he should. He had 14 points in game 5 without taking many shots at all. Plus he is now the best defensive player on the Suns now that Shawn is gone. With Diaw, if he can do what he did in games four and five on a consistent basis he will be an all star, problem is sometimes he lays very lethargic on the court as if he doesn't care.
from 3 months ago
Yeah if the Suns don't win it all next year this Shaq trade is really going to weigh down their franchises finances. (Quite similar to Jason Kidd in Dallas might I add) Phoenix should've kept things the way they were, told Marion to quit pouting and get along with Amare because they had the Spurs beat last year before 'the incident'. They also should've kept Kurt Thomas on the roster as well. He provides what they wanted in Shaq with post defense and a rebounding presence. The Suns went from a great fast-breaking 'we're gonna run you off the floor' team to a half great fastbreak team and a half half-court-offense-cause-we-have-to-wait-for-shaq's-bionic-knee-to-get-here team.
3 months ago
We need to deal Barbosa for either a draft pick or a serviceable veteran PG or SG. We need to send Hill and Bell to the bench and sign a SG in the offseason to start. Diaw can also be used as a trading piece but I'm not sure there is much interest in him and his performance the last two games was enough for me to want to keep him. I think a starting role equates to him playing excellent basketball.
The team needs to give Mike D'Antoni one more season.
Your 2009 Suns:
Steve Nash
Free Agent SG
Boris Diaw
Amare Stoudemire
Shaquille O'Neal
Bench: Raja Bell, Grant Hill, Brian Skinner, Gordon Giricek, DJ Strawberry, Free Agent PG, 1st Round Draft Pick (Spark Plug), 1st Round Draft Pick (Defensive Specialist)
3 months ago
According to the Arizona Republic, Mike D'Antoni's not going anywhere yet. I was on the "Fire D'Antoni" bandwagon, especially after last night, but he's not the problem. Nash made a lot of stupid mistakes last night in the fourth quarter, and Shaq needs to spend his summer imprisoned at a secret basketball court somewhere at the Suns practice facility until he learns how to successfuly shoot free throws instead of acting as a volunteer police officer in Tempe.
If anyone needs to go, I say get rid of Boris Diaw, if they can get anything worthy in return.
from 3 months ago
I would want to hold on to Diaw as long as they can. Even though Game 4 was a blowout, he's the main reason they won that game. He's the main reason they had a chance to win last night, and I really think he's a rising star in this league. Give him a chance to start the whole year and he'll be on the all-star team. He's only 26 so he's just about to hit his prime in the NBA. They've already got rid of one of the most complete players in the NBA, no need going down that road again.
3 months ago
Gilbert Arenas has is an unrestriced free agent with an (ETO). They could even look at signing Antawn Jamison from the Wizards as well, another unrestricted free agents. The list of free agents is here...
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?page=2008freeagents
The class isn't too strong this year, but Phoenix needs to figure something out.
from 3 months ago
Again without the cap space how is Phoenix going to sign anybody? They are handcuffed with these large contracts, and having Shaq's $20 million contract now doesn't make it any better.
from 3 months ago
They need to pony up and pay the Luxury Tax - point blank. If they're willing to pay a worthless pile like Shaq $21 million a year then they should bite the bullet and pay a starter-caliber SG. They owe it to the fans.
They've got about $5 million coming off the books this season and can free up another $6 million or so by dealing Barbosa. They've also got about $15 million in trade exeptions they could use somehow.
In truth, the Shaq deal may hae set this franchise back years. $21 million for a guy who can't shoot better than 35% from the FT line and is a straight liability on the defensive side of the ball.
That's the equivalent of your employer allowing you to come to work without wearing pants.
Sarver and Kerr have single handedly DESTROYED what the Colangelo family spent years building.
from 3 months ago
Thats what I have said about them and the Luxury Tax. They have the money to pay for it, why not take advantage of that then. They would owe less then $10 million I believe if they made any moves, why not do it then. $10 Million I don't think is a lot for the Suns to pay off in Luxury Tax. They traded a guy who they say cried all the time about not being the star yet he gave 110% every game and in return got a guy who at this point in his career is all talk. Shaq couldn't jump at all this series and couldn't finish an and 1 basket when he got fouled under the basket. What bites me the most is the Suns made the trade when they were 34-14 and 1st place by themselves in the West. It just didn't make any sense.
3 months ago
Yeah I'm just saying I think they need some new faces on that team and should try to dump one or two of the large contracts to make some space.
3 months ago
yeah, they might have to, but who is going to accept a trade that involves getting aging players which the Suns now have
from 3 months ago
The Knicks, haha.
from 3 months ago
haha I don't even know if they would accept any of those contracts. Especially with Walsh now in charge their.
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