Exactly. Shaq's had the same weakness his entire career. Don't blame him the team traded for him and pretended that those weaknesses didn't exist.
And the difference is Shaq didn't constantly about Nash the entire season. Shaq was the one mentoring the young players and putting on a smile for every game and giving his best. Nash was the one whining about not having fun and talking about how "emotionally draining" it was (exact words) to play with his teammates.
DoK is right...before Shaq the Suns were doing horrible. They never got out of the first round before he came. With Shaq, the suns got into the Finals.
Sorry that I'm capable of thinking beyond black and white re edness unlike you. If you watched a decent number of their first 50 games during the 2007-2008 season and thought you were watching a championship caliber team, then you're re ed.
Of course the re ed band wagon Laker fan Machine isn't gonna respond to my post since he knows it's true.
Dok,
I'm curious to know how Dragic is coming along?
Is he making any strides this summer?
Do you think he'll be the Suns PG of the future?
I ask this because I know how much they were salivating over the "slim" prospect of obtaining Steph Curry in the proposed Amare trade with GSW.
The point is that they went after the wrong piece in Shaq.
My point is that they had to go all in with a bang or bust trade at that point.
They took a swing and missed. So what? It did not hamper them in any way. Could they have done better? Yes. They had to do something and it was a bold move that could have worked out better had the players bought in.
The mistake was not the trade imo, it is the moves being made in the draft and in FA and with extensions.
Findog, here's why the Shaq trade made sense. Yes, I know they had a good record 50+ games into the season at the time of the Shaq trade, I know their record after that was worse and they lost to the Spurs in 5 games, the team Shaq was supposed to help them against.
I also know all of the following games were put up against the Suns by big men over that 50 game stretch:
Ilgauskas: 22 points, 13 rebounds.......7 offensive
Shaq: 25 points, 10 rebounds........6 offensive
Howard: 33 points, 18 rebounds......7 offensive
Ming: 31 points, 13 rebounds........3 offensive
Howard: 30 points, 23 rebounds.......5 offensive
Jefferson: 32 points, 20 rebounds.........6 offensive
Bosh: 42 points, 13 rebounds........6 offensive
Bynum: 28 points, 12 rebounds........8 offensive
Jefferson: 39 points, 15 rebounds.......8 offensive
Duncan: 36 points, 17 rebounds.......6 offensive
Bogut: 29 points, 11 rebounds........3 offensive
Bogut: 19 points, 13 rebounds........5 offensive
Jermain O'neal: 30 points, 11 rebounds......2 offensive
Ilgauskas: 21 points, 10 rebounds.......5 offensive
Chandler: 19 points, 10 rebounds......6 offensive
Kaman:22 points, 20 rebounds........6 offensive
Eddy Curry: 21 points, 8 rebounds......5 offensive
If a team gives up all of those nights over a 50 game stretch, they aren't a contender and have no shot. Yes, the Shaq trade didn't work out, but they were already in a ty spot at the time of the trade.
Spot on. Everything here is right. They rolled the dice with that trade. Maybe it only had a 10% chance of clicking perfectly and winning a le, but the team prior to the Shaq trade had a 0% chance of winning a le. As a fan of the oldest team w/o a championship, I really don't give a about anything other than winning a ring.
Dragic is working his ass off to rebuild his shot after putting on 25 pounds of muscle, not an easy task at all. He's having an inconsistent summer league because of it.
The team doesn't have the faith in Dragic that I do. I unfortunately don't think he's going to last long with the team. The Steph Curry thing is an indicator that Kerr doesn't see Dragic as the future PG, even though Steph Curry isn't a PG.
That is crazy if the Suns, after being so high on Dragic, would already be off of his potential.
It fits the mold perfectly of starting to tear the team down and rebuild but once you're beyond the point of no return and you've turned the team into a lottery team you decide you want to stop rebuilding and go for it all.
Umm...hiccup is a nicer word than I would have used.
The Suns called it "rolling the dice", but it was really flushing any chance of getting something for Marion down the toilet.
I remember a buddy of mine called me the night before the trade all worried and I said "I heard all about it...it CANT be true. The Suns' front office isnt THAT stupid. Shaq has two more years left on that ridiculous contract. He's BURIED in Miami until that final year".
But they were that stupid.
Shaq decided to show up on some games, but most nights he's just cared about his touches and didnt give any effort on defense OR offense unless he had the ball. He ruined team chemistry and the team's iden y.
Letting Shaq run the show got the Suns no-where. Kudos to Kerr and Sarver for admitting they made a terrible mistake.
I'm not gonna argue about whether or not blindly bashing Shaq is right, but the Suns were headed nowhere before the trade.
How was it a terrible mistake? It did not cap them out or ruin their chances. You were not going to get much for Marion and the Suns were going no where with Marion. It did nothing to hurt the Suns and I do not know what you expected the Suns to do? What could they have realistically gotten in return for Marion that would have catapulted them to a legit shot at a le?
Shaq knows what a championship team feels like. He probably wanted to make himself look better so he could get onto a contender like he is now.
The team's chemistry was horrible before the Shaq trade, and it's not like Marion was some hard working team player who played his heart out. Amare and Marion were ready to kill each other and Nash was getting really tired of having to be the mediator in that drama, which btw I don't blame him for AT ALL. It's extremely annoying to listen to Gambo and Ash but what they say usually has legitimacy. They've said multiple times Nash went to D'antoni and Kerr flat out saying I'm tired of playing with Marion, pull the trigger on that Shaq trade.
Also, it's been made clear by D'antoni himself multiple times that HE was the one who went to Kerr with the Shaq trade, and that Kerr was the hesitant party. I know that's not a very convenient story for you to believe, but it's what happened. D'antoni himself said it.
One of the most annoying things ever was going to school the day of the Shaq trade and hearing bandwagon fans who knew nothing about basketball and thought Marion was an A-list player whine about how the Suns should have traded Marion for Lebron or Kobe instead of Shaq.
Yikes.
Then why the were they so "gung-ho" about acquiring him - even going so far as to orchestrate that trade with the Spurs last summer? How could the guy have fallen out of favor so quickly? He just there and he's not even fully developed. If Dragic isn't the future, then who?
hindsight is always 20/20. If someone asked me if I could do the Shaq trade all over again, I'd say no. In retrospect trading Marion for the best available package of young players and draft picks was the best idea, but be realistic, almost all the fans still thought that team was a contender. They would have thrown a temper tantrum if Marion was traded for future assets signaling the beginning of a rebuilding stage.
Heck, Kerr finally tapped out and gave Nash an extension giving in to the Nash D'antoni lovers whining because enough of them still think this team is a contender.
I think getting a big man that could defend the paint and not be an offensive liability was who they should've gone after...A Camby or Chandler type. , the reason they played the Spurs so tough in 07 was because Kurt Thomas did a good job of defending Duncan and consistently hit that mid-range jumper without bogging down their offense.
The problem with Shaq is that he still wants to be The Man. He talked a good game about blending in with Phoenix and being a complementary player...I don't pay near as much attention to the Suns as DOK or dsf, but it seemed watching from afar that he wanted the offense to run through him in the 08/09 season. I kinda agree with da_suns_fan that bringing him in means a short shelf life before he has a corrosive effect on team chemistry. He helped the Heat win a le but they were glad to be rid of him at the end of his days in Miami, and not just bc they were getting rid of his contract.
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