duncan228
02-09-2008, 11:18 PM
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA021008.NBABeat.en.a82a26ff.html
Mike Monroe's NBA Beat: Shaq trade wasn't response to Gasol deal
Mike Monroe
San Antonio Express-News
Suns coach Mike D’Antoni thinks Shaquille O’Neal will be ready to make his Suns debut this week, either Wednesday at Golden State, or Thursday at home against the Mavericks.
Don’t doubt for a second O’Neal relishes the chance to begin the next phase of his career against another one of the Western Conference’s elite teams, so figure Thursday will be the unveiling of the player already dubbed The Big SaguaroÖ by some Arizonans.
It’s the late TNT game on the final night of play before All-Star Weekend. You don’t think Charles Barkley and Friends will be hyping the Shaq trade, do you?
I can already hear Sir Charles: “See, I told y’all the Suns weren’t going to win a championship playing that fast break game. They had to get a big guy to guard Tim Duncan, and now they need a big guy to guard Pau Gasol.”
Barkley, of course, is the king of the knee jerk.
Forget the notion the Suns made the trade because the Lakers added Gasol.
“It wasn’t a knee jerk,” D’Antoni said Saturday afternoon. “We would have done this deal anyway, Pau (in L.A.) or not.”
D’Antoni wasn’t blowing smoke when he said, post-trade, he believed his team was capable of winning the title as it was constituted before the deal came down. He always has been an optimist.
He also is serious when he says his team is better now that it has O’Neal.
“We think we’re getting the most dominant player of the last 15 years,” he said.
That O’Neal has been in the league for 15 years is reason to question the sanity of the deal for the Suns.
The suggestion he is not capable of playing the Suns’ style is not.
“Shaq’s always been a good athlete, always able to run,” D’Antoni said. “He doesn’t have to go at breakneck speed. He just has to go. We’re still going to be quick and run. He’s going to fit in our system. He’s going to make what we do even better.”
While the Gasol deal didn’t spur the Suns to make the O’Neal trade, their loss to the Spurs on Jan. 31 nudged them closer to wanting to get rid of Shawn Marion. Any knowledgeable basketball observer could see that the Suns’ best lineup that night didn’t include Marion. The Suns were most effective with Steve Nash and Raja Bell in the backcourt and Amare Stoudemire, Grant Hill and Boris Diaw up front.
They’ve still got those five, and they can still score “in seven seconds or less.”
And now the Suns have O’Neal, giving D’Antoni as much flexibility as any coach in the league to determine the pace of a game.
Raptors coach Sam Mitchell, the straightest-talking coach in the league, put it best:
“Let me see,” Mitchell said when Toronto reporters asked him why the Suns would make the deal. “They couldn't beat San Antonio with San Antonio's size; they couldn't beat New Orleans this year; they struggle with Dallas and they couldn't beat the Lakers with Bynum and now (the Lakers have) Bynum and Gasol.”
O’Neal addresses all of the Suns’ biggest matchup problems.
O’Neal was expendable in Miami because the Heat need to give Dwyane Wade reason to be so happy there he won’t want to opt out of his contract in two more years. It was no accident that when he announced the trade, Pat Riley stressed Wade’s importance to his team’s future.
“Everything we do now, moving forward,” Riley said, “is building around Dwyane.”
The Suns will be built around Nash and Stoudemire for as long as Nash’s back remains flexible enough to run D’Antoni’s fast-paced offense. O’Neal knows this. He promised Nash, the two-time MVP point guard, he would not let his new teammates down.
Figure that means he will work hard enough on his conditioning to keep pace with them to the extent it is possible; not going at breakneck speed, but going.
Fave Five
Taking a look at the worst deals in NBA history.
The Grizzlies are being hammered hard for trading Pau Gasol to the Lakers and getting back, well, not much but Kwame Brown's expiring contract.
It is too early, though, to call it one of the five worst trades in NBA history.
It will have to prove truly awful to replace one of these five on my list of all-time terrible deals.
St. Louis Hawks trade Russell's rights: Days after making Bill Russell the third pick in the 1956 draft, the Hawks traded his draft rights to the Celtics for veteran forward-center Ed Macauley and the draft rights to muscular forward Cliff Hagan. At first, this deal worked out well for the Hawks. Macauley and Hagan helped Bob Pettit bring the 1958 NBA title to St. Louis. But before he was finished playing for the Celtics, Russell would win 11 championship rings and be acknowledged as the greatest defensive center in league history. Macauley played only three seasons for the Hawks, whose fortunes in St. Louis took such a downward turn that they moved to Atlanta in 1968.
Milwaukee Bucks trade Kareem: Teaming with Hall of Fame guard Oscar Robertson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar already had brought an NBA title to Milwaukee in just his second season, 1970-71. That didn't stop the Bucks from trading him to the Lakers on June 1, 1975. The Bucks got some decent talent from L.A. for Abdul-Jabbar and fellow center Walt Wesley. Forward Brian Winters, center Elmore Smith, forward Junior Bridgeman and forward Dave Meyers all had nice careers in Milwaukee. Winters' and Bridgeman's numbers have been retired by the Bucks. Abdul-Jabbar, of course, became merely the NBA's all-time leading scorer, with 38,387 points. He also was the centerpiece of the Showtime Lakers who won five title in the 1980s, a Hall of Famer regarded as one of the greatest centers in the history of the game.
Atlanta Hawks get, then give away, Rasheed: A couple of weeks before the 2004 trade deadline, the Hawks traded Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Dan Dickau and Theo Ratliff to the Trail Blazers for Rasheed Wallace. Ten days later, they were part of a three-team trade in which Wallace went to the Pistons and the Hawks got center Zeljko Rebraca, guard Bob Sura, Celtics forward Chris Mills and a future first-round pick. Wallace helped the Pistons win an NBA title and make a return trip to the NBA Finals.
Portland Trail Blazers overpay for Kiki: Kiki Vandeweghe had averaged 29.4 points per game for the 1983-84 Nuggets, so the Blazers thought they had the best of the deal when they traded forward Calvin Natt, guard Fat Lever, center Wayne Cooper and a future first-round pick for Vandeweghe in the summer of 1984. At the end of the next season, Natt and Lever had become All-Stars and the Nuggets had gone to the Western Conference finals. Vandeweghe's 1984-85 scoring average: 22.4 points.
Philadelphia 76ers give away Sir Charles: Charles Barkley's scoring average dipped from 27.6 to 23.1 in the 1991-92 season, so when the Phoenix Suns offered the Sixers guard Jeff Hornacek, center Andrew Lang and forward Tim Perry for Barkley during the offseason, the Sixers bit. The following June, Barkley led the Suns to a memorable NBA Finals against the Bulls, averaging 25.6 points during the regular season.
Mike Monroe's NBA Beat: Shaq trade wasn't response to Gasol deal
Mike Monroe
San Antonio Express-News
Suns coach Mike D’Antoni thinks Shaquille O’Neal will be ready to make his Suns debut this week, either Wednesday at Golden State, or Thursday at home against the Mavericks.
Don’t doubt for a second O’Neal relishes the chance to begin the next phase of his career against another one of the Western Conference’s elite teams, so figure Thursday will be the unveiling of the player already dubbed The Big SaguaroÖ by some Arizonans.
It’s the late TNT game on the final night of play before All-Star Weekend. You don’t think Charles Barkley and Friends will be hyping the Shaq trade, do you?
I can already hear Sir Charles: “See, I told y’all the Suns weren’t going to win a championship playing that fast break game. They had to get a big guy to guard Tim Duncan, and now they need a big guy to guard Pau Gasol.”
Barkley, of course, is the king of the knee jerk.
Forget the notion the Suns made the trade because the Lakers added Gasol.
“It wasn’t a knee jerk,” D’Antoni said Saturday afternoon. “We would have done this deal anyway, Pau (in L.A.) or not.”
D’Antoni wasn’t blowing smoke when he said, post-trade, he believed his team was capable of winning the title as it was constituted before the deal came down. He always has been an optimist.
He also is serious when he says his team is better now that it has O’Neal.
“We think we’re getting the most dominant player of the last 15 years,” he said.
That O’Neal has been in the league for 15 years is reason to question the sanity of the deal for the Suns.
The suggestion he is not capable of playing the Suns’ style is not.
“Shaq’s always been a good athlete, always able to run,” D’Antoni said. “He doesn’t have to go at breakneck speed. He just has to go. We’re still going to be quick and run. He’s going to fit in our system. He’s going to make what we do even better.”
While the Gasol deal didn’t spur the Suns to make the O’Neal trade, their loss to the Spurs on Jan. 31 nudged them closer to wanting to get rid of Shawn Marion. Any knowledgeable basketball observer could see that the Suns’ best lineup that night didn’t include Marion. The Suns were most effective with Steve Nash and Raja Bell in the backcourt and Amare Stoudemire, Grant Hill and Boris Diaw up front.
They’ve still got those five, and they can still score “in seven seconds or less.”
And now the Suns have O’Neal, giving D’Antoni as much flexibility as any coach in the league to determine the pace of a game.
Raptors coach Sam Mitchell, the straightest-talking coach in the league, put it best:
“Let me see,” Mitchell said when Toronto reporters asked him why the Suns would make the deal. “They couldn't beat San Antonio with San Antonio's size; they couldn't beat New Orleans this year; they struggle with Dallas and they couldn't beat the Lakers with Bynum and now (the Lakers have) Bynum and Gasol.”
O’Neal addresses all of the Suns’ biggest matchup problems.
O’Neal was expendable in Miami because the Heat need to give Dwyane Wade reason to be so happy there he won’t want to opt out of his contract in two more years. It was no accident that when he announced the trade, Pat Riley stressed Wade’s importance to his team’s future.
“Everything we do now, moving forward,” Riley said, “is building around Dwyane.”
The Suns will be built around Nash and Stoudemire for as long as Nash’s back remains flexible enough to run D’Antoni’s fast-paced offense. O’Neal knows this. He promised Nash, the two-time MVP point guard, he would not let his new teammates down.
Figure that means he will work hard enough on his conditioning to keep pace with them to the extent it is possible; not going at breakneck speed, but going.
Fave Five
Taking a look at the worst deals in NBA history.
The Grizzlies are being hammered hard for trading Pau Gasol to the Lakers and getting back, well, not much but Kwame Brown's expiring contract.
It is too early, though, to call it one of the five worst trades in NBA history.
It will have to prove truly awful to replace one of these five on my list of all-time terrible deals.
St. Louis Hawks trade Russell's rights: Days after making Bill Russell the third pick in the 1956 draft, the Hawks traded his draft rights to the Celtics for veteran forward-center Ed Macauley and the draft rights to muscular forward Cliff Hagan. At first, this deal worked out well for the Hawks. Macauley and Hagan helped Bob Pettit bring the 1958 NBA title to St. Louis. But before he was finished playing for the Celtics, Russell would win 11 championship rings and be acknowledged as the greatest defensive center in league history. Macauley played only three seasons for the Hawks, whose fortunes in St. Louis took such a downward turn that they moved to Atlanta in 1968.
Milwaukee Bucks trade Kareem: Teaming with Hall of Fame guard Oscar Robertson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar already had brought an NBA title to Milwaukee in just his second season, 1970-71. That didn't stop the Bucks from trading him to the Lakers on June 1, 1975. The Bucks got some decent talent from L.A. for Abdul-Jabbar and fellow center Walt Wesley. Forward Brian Winters, center Elmore Smith, forward Junior Bridgeman and forward Dave Meyers all had nice careers in Milwaukee. Winters' and Bridgeman's numbers have been retired by the Bucks. Abdul-Jabbar, of course, became merely the NBA's all-time leading scorer, with 38,387 points. He also was the centerpiece of the Showtime Lakers who won five title in the 1980s, a Hall of Famer regarded as one of the greatest centers in the history of the game.
Atlanta Hawks get, then give away, Rasheed: A couple of weeks before the 2004 trade deadline, the Hawks traded Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Dan Dickau and Theo Ratliff to the Trail Blazers for Rasheed Wallace. Ten days later, they were part of a three-team trade in which Wallace went to the Pistons and the Hawks got center Zeljko Rebraca, guard Bob Sura, Celtics forward Chris Mills and a future first-round pick. Wallace helped the Pistons win an NBA title and make a return trip to the NBA Finals.
Portland Trail Blazers overpay for Kiki: Kiki Vandeweghe had averaged 29.4 points per game for the 1983-84 Nuggets, so the Blazers thought they had the best of the deal when they traded forward Calvin Natt, guard Fat Lever, center Wayne Cooper and a future first-round pick for Vandeweghe in the summer of 1984. At the end of the next season, Natt and Lever had become All-Stars and the Nuggets had gone to the Western Conference finals. Vandeweghe's 1984-85 scoring average: 22.4 points.
Philadelphia 76ers give away Sir Charles: Charles Barkley's scoring average dipped from 27.6 to 23.1 in the 1991-92 season, so when the Phoenix Suns offered the Sixers guard Jeff Hornacek, center Andrew Lang and forward Tim Perry for Barkley during the offseason, the Sixers bit. The following June, Barkley led the Suns to a memorable NBA Finals against the Bulls, averaging 25.6 points during the regular season.