Revisiting Summer 2010

[bwgood77]

Knowing what you know now, if you could change history, would you, rather, of the following TWO options (because I'm sure some will create their own option)

A. Have given Amare the same extension that the Knicks gave him, with no insurance, and brought back the WCF team intact. We could have obviously made minor changes if we wanted to trade Barbosa or something, but both units were pretty solid.

The last two years obviously would have played out much differently, with us REALLY competing in the playoffs....who knows how far we go....but

Nash, wanting his three year extension would have made sense with Amare and his three years remaining, so we would basically STILL have the same team intact, but obviously with risk of an Amare injury. But Nash likely finishes his career and major rebuild doesn't start in full effect until summer of 2015, when Nash retires.

B. Be in our current state. Obviously the last two years haven't been fun, but a few people still seem to like Gortat and having a pretty good center. Our team looks like it can be on the upswing IF we sign Gordon, but still we wouldn't be at the level above.

Having typed this, it sounds like a stupid question, but a lot of people seemed to want to let Amare go that summer, even though we didn't really have an adequate plan to try and replace him.

I thought maybe we should go after Zach Randolph but that wasn't really a popular suggestion at the time and I'm not sure other guys like David Lee or whoever else would have really given us an imposing frontcourt with Lopez (though it obviously would have been better than what we went with.)

[pidi]

i realy like the current roster and the situation we´re in right now.
the fo managed to cut the old players like nash and ghill and if we sign gordon we look pretty solid and young - realy chapeau to fo - no hate for them after they didn´t resigned nash, my person don´t like steve just for the fact he signed with la. i expected that the fo would take alot of heat for it..

and we managed a rebuilt with a ton of draft picks and players that have a huge upside..

congrats

[Saberestar]

We could have exacty the same team that we have in 2010 now. Way better than the current roster, and the last two years would have been fun and succesful.
Now, we can not do anything.Period.

[Revived]

People always say that "Oh its better that we didnt bring Amare back, look at him now"

But what people fail to realize is that had we resigned A'mare that summer, there's a good chance that our training staff continue to work their magic on him AND A'mare and Nash recruit 'Melo or Dwight to Phoenix.

Maybe even CP3 and Nash agrees to play backup for less mins.

[rsavaj]

Choice A.

I'd be fine with mortgaging our future if it meant bringing back that WCF team.

I simply don't know if Amare actually WANTED to be here, and Leandro was the one who requested a trade....seems like that unit wasn't sustainable.

[Cutter]

Choice A.

I'd be fine with mortgaging our future if it meant bringing back that WCF team.

I simply don't know if Amare actually WANTED to be here, and Leandro was the one who requested a trade....seems like that unit wasn't sustainable.

Option A, with the Suns also somehow trading for Gortat to be the starting C. I always thought the one weakness Suns had during their prime was having a very good center. Nash, JRich, Amare, Gortat, HIll starting plus our super bench would have been a very good team.

[rsavaj]

Choice A.

I'd be fine with mortgaging our future if it meant bringing back that WCF team.

I simply don't know if Amare actually WANTED to be here, and Leandro was the one who requested a trade....seems like that unit wasn't sustainable.

Option A, with the Suns also somehow trading for Gortat to be the starting C. I always thought the one weakness Suns had during their prime was having a very good center. Nash, JRich, Amare, Gortat, HIll starting plus our super bench would have been a very good team.

J-Rich would have to be gone in that trade. And I assume that Goran still would have been traded for Brooks

Nash/Brooks
Carter/Pietrus
Hill/Dudley
Amare/Lou
Gortat/Lopez

That's a heck of a lot better than the crap we rolled out for the past 2 years.

[BobbieL]

I had zero problem with not signing Amare but you don't just sign every small forward (Warrick, Turkoglu trade, Frye , Childress and then Dudley) - after saving the money.

And if you, you give them ONE year deals.

So, I understood why the not signing to Amare with the injury concerns but why all the rest of the contracts, didn't make sense to me for the SAME player. I get all the players have skills but when you add in Grant Hill - too many small forwards.

[bwgood77]

I had zero problem with not signing Amare but you don't just sign every small forward (Warrick, Turkoglu trade, Frye , Childress and then Dudley) - after saving the money.

And if you, you give them ONE year deals.

So, I understood why the not signing to Amare with the injury concerns but why all the rest of the contracts, didn't make sense to me for the SAME player. I get all the players have skills but when you add in Grant Hill - too many small forwards.

I think many people felt that it was fine to let Amare go if we had an adequate replacement. I wonder if the 2006 season (when Amare was out) hadn't gone as successfully as it did, if we would have been as comfortable letting Amare go in 2010?

[mybloodisorange]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eoy91sYdQPE[/youtube]

[eastsidecrossover]

I take option C! I understand not signing Amare to an extension because I dont think they would win it all. I love nash, but why keep him and add scrubs to replace him? Just plain stupidity. Personally, option C was go into rebuild mode and not keep with mediocrity.

[b-ball forever]

Option B was obviously the worst option.

There shoulda been no point in wasting the last years of Steve Nash surrounding him with a bunch of bench caliber players masquerading as starters (Gortat being the only other above average starter at his position, and Hill being the only other starting caliber player with Nash and Gortat).

Shoulda either kept Amare and tried adding on as many "win now" pieces as possible to keep on going as far as possible in the playoffs, or blown it up and moved Nash/Hill along with STAT for young players/draft picks, while keeping cap flexibility.

Steve Nash also very likely doesn't end up with the Lakers had we played it one of those 2 ways in 2010.

Sarver FTW

[garrick]

I was against letting Amare walk because that signaled the end of the SSOL offense as we knew it. We would have been contenders in the west the past couple years instead we were mired in mediocrity, if they weren't going to resign Amare they should have just blown the entire team up instead of losing two seasons for nothing.

[Moochthemonkey]

so i had a very lengthy post written, detailing various salary cap situations, but when I hit submit realgm has logged me out. My post wasn't cached either when I hit backspace. WTF REALGM!?

anyway, I choose Team A for two reasons.

1.) The Thunder are still growing....Durant, Westbrook, and Harden are ONLY FRICKEN 23. I don't believe the Heat big three have reached their potential yet either. My point being, they will be in several finals over the course of the next 5-7 years, along with the Bulls, Lakers, Nets, maybe Mavericks, maybe the Hornets (unlikely)...Any attempt for any team that starts to rebuild now or two years ago will be largely futile as they wont be able to match the talent of the previous teams...So, I believe the Suns best shot at a title (in this decade) would have been with Team A. Unless Dragic & Beasley explode, they won't be nearly as good as the 2010 Suns team (that could have been replicated & improved in 2011 and beyond)

2.) I went into the detail about this in my post that got erased, can't be bothered to do all the research and addition again. You would think that in 2014 Team B would have considerably more capspace than the team in 2012? Think again....In 2014 Nash and Turkoglu would be off the books, and we could use the amnesty clause on Stoudemire (although he only has 1 year left, but w/e) and our overall salary would be around 27.8 million. If we were to sign Gordon, and include Lopez for around 5 million on the Q/O signed this year (but NOT Gortat who will make 7.7 mil in the final year of his contract in 2014), AND amnesty Childress our overall salary would have been 51.9 million, 24.1 million more than the potential overall salary of Team A . Now i know it's not exactly fair to look at it in such a way, as we had no idea the amnesty clause would come to fruition under the new CBA while deciding to resign Stoudemire. But it's something to consider.

[sunster]

Hey mooch, you used the amnesty clause on both Amare and Childress in that 2nd scenario

[Moochthemonkey]

No I didn't; if Amare gets signed, I highly doubt Childress does too.

[sunster]

No I didn't; if Amare gets signed, I highly doubt Childress does too.

[DRK]

No I didn't; if Amare gets signed, I highly doubt Childress does too.