PHOENIX -- As the trade deadline begins to approach, it's no secret that Amar'e Stoudemire's name will be high on the list of players who are rumored to be dealt. He's in the final year of his contract and is seeking a max extension, which is something that the Suns have been unwilling to give him. If the two sides can't come to an agreement, it wouldn't be a surprise for Phoenix to attempt to get something for him in a trade, rather than letting him walk for nothing.
We know the situation, and we know the rumors are going to fly. But one in particular, floated by ESPN's Chad Ford, drew an angry response from Suns head coach Alvin Gentry before his team faced the Bulls on Friday night.
Ford had Stoudemire as one of ten players whose "trade buzz is getting louder," and gave the following as his reason why:
"... the feedback I've received in the last week has caused me to recalibrate the chances of Stoudemire getting traded. The Suns are in a slump (losers of 15 of their last 26), and the word out of Phoenix is that there has been some tension in the locker room involving Stoudemire."Now, the Suns pride themselves on having a great group of guys, and chemistry as good as or better than any other team in the league, which might explain Gentry's passionate response when asked to address this alleged "locker room tension."
"It's the biggest crock of s*** I've ever heard," Gentry said.
Twice.
"Because there's nothing going on in our locker room," Gentry continued. "Not one thing. Our locker room has been great, and that pisses me off, to be honest with you. Because there's not one thing going on in our locker room. There really isn't.
"For somebody to make a statement that there's tension in our locker room, when it comes from a guy who's living in Hawaii? I could understand if he'd been at our practices or been in our locker room, but he hasn't. So that's very disappointing for someone to say that when they have not a clue about what's going on in our locker room."
Gentry went on to say that Stoudemire has been great in handling it all, and that the team as a unit is as focused as ever.
"[Amar'e]'s been absolutely wonderful in that department," Gentry said. "He hasn't talked about trades or contracts or anything like that, he's been terrific. As far as he's concerned, he wants to have a great year. He wants us to win games, and he wants us to be able to get into the playoffs.
"That's what every guy in that locker room talked about. And I don't think they've ever lost focus on that."
http://nba.fanhouse.com/2010/01/22/g...ion-involving/
Bad defense and chemistry problems were just some of the things that were supposed to go away with Shaq. Funny that the Suns still play bad defense and still have locker room tension, meanwhile, Cleveland has the 6th best defensive rating in the NBA and has no chemistry problems to speak of. Weird.
Didn't he just say there are no chemistry problems?
Yeah, that's all Shaq.Cleveland has the 6th best defensive rating in the NBA and has no chemistry problems to speak of. Weird.
Cleveland is worse defensively than they were last season.
The way the Phoenix media talked about Shaq last season, he was such a defensive cancer that it would be impossible to have a good defensive team with him on it and that once he was traded Phoenix would improve defensively. Granted having him has hurt Cleveland on D trading him didn't do for Phoenix's D.
So is Phoenix. I could really give a about Shaq, my only point is that trading Shaq hasn't done for the Suns, and trading Amare won't do either.
Yeah, I'm sure a coach is gonna publicly say, "Yeah, our chemistry sucks." Where there's smoke there's fire, Ford has no reason to fabricate a story about chemistry problems with an irrelevant team, what he said was based off something.
One atom said to another.
"I think you stole an electron from me."
"How do you know?"
"I'm positive."
On the plus side, Nash's stats look great!
A neutron walks into a bar.
"How much for a drink?" he asks.
The bartender replies "For you, no charge."
Mushroom walks into a bar and asks for a drink.
Bartender replies, "We dont serve you kind."
Mushroom asks, "Why not? I'm a fungi."
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