Should we have signed Amare to the max?

[GMATCallahan]

Part of the reason for doing so would be that the two-time MVP was thirty-six and would not possess the same trade value two years later, especially given that he would be a free agent by then.

Anyway, as I noted in my first post in this thread, the Suns probably would have 'broken up' that 2010 team even if they would have kept Stoudemire—they just would have done so in a more subtle way that most people would not have recognized until later on.

I rarely disagree with you, but why break up the team after a WCF appearance that was close? Obviously most of us agreed with the decision, but another time I disagreed with you was when you felt Shaq without Amare could make us a better team (remember that from the espn forum). I thought that sort of team wouldn't have had a chance with an aging roster. Amare had his faults and this is mostly hindsight talk, and I don't think either way we get to the finals by keeping either one of them, but it would have been fun to see Amare play out two more years with Nash, especially in hindsight seeing what we decided to help Nash.

I would not have supported breaking up that team just for the sake of it, but given the roster's structural limitations and the economics at play, doing so may have represented Phoenix's most prudent move—had the process been handled intelligently and coherently, which obviously was not the case.

In terms of O'Neal and Stoudemire, I guess that you are referring to the 2009 season when Stoudemire went down shortly after the All-Star break? I do not recall saying that Phoenix would be a better team as a result, although I cannot disprove that I might have said it. (Perhaps WiseOldSun said it? He was the one who wanted to see Nash, Hill, and O'Neal playing together through at least the 2012 season, and he still wanted Nash back beyond 2012, although most fans agreed with him there. Personally, I felt that Phoenix should have let Hill leave and traded Nash after the 2011 lockout.) Of course, I was an advocate of trading Stoudemire circa 2009—not in losing him for nothing, though.

I do feel, though, that the Suns never would have gone anywhere of note with O'Neal and Stoudemire playing together, and I will address that matter shortly in your "Suns History" thread.

[GMATCallahan]

I rarely disagree with you, but why break up the team after a WCF appearance that was close? Obviously most of us agreed with the decision, but another time I disagreed with you was when you felt Shaq without Amare could make us a better team (remember that from the espn forum). I thought that sort of team wouldn't have had a chance with an aging roster. Amare had his faults and this is mostly hindsight talk, and I don't think either way we get to the finals by keeping either one of them, but it would have been fun to see Amare play out two more years with Nash, especially in hindsight seeing what we decided to help Nash.

Or you might mean having O'Neal and someone else instead of Stoudemire—okay. I did want that by the middle of the '08-'09 season.

[bwgood77]

Part of the reason for doing so would be that the two-time MVP was thirty-six and would not possess the same trade value two years later, especially given that he would be a free agent by then.

Anyway, as I noted in my first post in this thread, the Suns probably would have 'broken up' that 2010 team even if they would have kept Stoudemire—they just would have done so in a more subtle way that most people would not have recognized until later on.

I rarely disagree with you, but why break up the team after a WCF appearance that was close? Obviously most of us agreed with the decision, but another time I disagreed with you was when you felt Shaq without Amare could make us a better team (remember that from the espn forum). I thought that sort of team wouldn't have had a chance with an aging roster. Amare had his faults and this is mostly hindsight talk, and I don't think either way we get to the finals by keeping either one of them, but it would have been fun to see Amare play out two more years with Nash, especially in hindsight seeing what we decided to help Nash.

I would not have supported breaking up that team just for the sake of it, but given the roster's structural limitations and the economics at play, doing so may have represented Phoenix's most prudent move—had the process been handled intelligently and coherently, which obviously was not the case.

In terms of O'Neal and Stoudemire, I guess that you are referring to the 2009 season when Stoudemire went down shortly after the All-Star break? I do not recall saying that Phoenix would be a better team as a result, although I cannot disprove that I might have said it. (Perhaps WiseOldSun said it? He was the one who wanted to see Nash, Hill, and O'Neal playing together through at least the 2012 season, and he still wanted Nash back beyond 2012, although most fans agreed with him there. Personally, I felt that Phoenix should have let Hill leave and traded Nash after the 2011 lockout.) Of course, I was an advocate of trading Stoudemire circa 2009—not in losing him for nothing, though.

I do feel, though, that the Suns never would have gone anywhere of note with O'Neal and Stoudemire playing together, and I will address that matter shortly in your "Suns History" thread.

I am almost positive you were pro Shaq and anti Stoudemire and thought we had a legit chance at that point, but I may be wrong and it is in the past so deciding who said what is an unworthy exercise. WiseOldSun, who I enjoyed reading his posts was so pro ownership to the point I felt he had some connection with Sarver and it would be interesting to see his posts, and I think I would recognize them if they showed up here.

[bwgood77]

I rarely disagree with you, but why break up the team after a WCF appearance that was close? Obviously most of us agreed with the decision, but another time I disagreed with you was when you felt Shaq without Amare could make us a better team (remember that from the espn forum). I thought that sort of team wouldn't have had a chance with an aging roster. Amare had his faults and this is mostly hindsight talk, and I don't think either way we get to the finals by keeping either one of them, but it would have been fun to see Amare play out two more years with Nash, especially in hindsight seeing what we decided to help Nash.

Or you might mean having O'Neal and someone else instead of Stoudemire—okay. I did want that by the middle of the '08-'09 season.

I think that was it, and maybe it was Diaw, but I can't remember for sure, or signing someone else.

[GMATCallahan]

I am almost positive you were pro Shaq and anti Stoudemire and thought we had a legit chance at that point, but I may be wrong and it is in the past so deciding who said what is an unworthy exercise. WiseOldSun, who I enjoyed reading his posts was so pro ownership to the point I felt he had some connection with Sarver and it would be interesting to see his posts, and I think I would recognize them if they showed up here.

I did want to trade Stoudemire by the middle of the '08-'09 season and floated a bunch of different ideas (as if that mattered)—one to Atlanta for Joe Johnson and Zaza Pachulia (that was before Phoenix traded Raja Bell and Boris Diaw for Jason Richardson and Jared Dudley), one for Tyrus Thomas and maybe someone else (admittedly, that would not have been worthwhile in retrospect, but the Suns badly needed to improve their defense and Thomas averaged 1.9 blocked shots that year, and if feeding off Nash in pick-and-rolls, he might have become a respectable offensive player), one for Paul Millsap. That last idea, I feel, would have been great in retrospect. Millsap was everything that Stoudemire was not—not as explosive or spectacular as a scorer, but an earn-everything all-around player with a versatile, subtly skilled game. I was also interested in D.J. Augustin and Dudley (before the Suns traded for him) from Charlotte, although I do not recall whether that idea involved Stoudemire or who, exactly.

I was never that "pro-Shaq"—I was always ambivalent about the trade, given O'Neal's age and regressed state—but I stated after the 2008 playoffs that the Suns may well have needed both O'Neal and Marion. I did not mean that the Suns should have traded Stoudemire instead of Marion—I was just speaking abstractly and conceptually—but "Babyshaq" (you remember him) read it that way, and WiseOldSun either interpreted my statement that way or expanded on it, saying, "Sounds like they traded the wrong player."

Of course, whereas WiseOldSun was saying circa January 2007 that Phoenix would eventually be Stoudemire's, Diaw's and Barbosa's team, by about January 2008 he was teasing the idea of sending Stoudemire to Denver for Marcus Camby. By the end of the Suns' brief 2008 playoff run, he definitely wanted Stoudemire gone, saying that Phoenix should run him out of town as the Suns did to Jason Kidd. WiseOldSun wanted Elton Brand instead of Stoudemire. That summer, when he read about how some anonymous scout or executive had labeled Stoudemire a "prima donna," WiseOldSun instantly took to the label and said that he wanted to hear Suns' fans chanting it to the rafters the following season. In different ways, he also criticized Stoudemire as being too similar to both Kevin Johnson and Charles Barkley—like Johnson, he apparently deemed Stoudemire too distant (off the court) and too prone to speaking in parables (I guess; I never fully understood where he was coming from there). Like Barkley, he thought that Stoudemire represented too much talk, too little defense, and too little deliverance in the clutch. (His overall critique of Barkley was actually "too much": he felt that Barkley held the ball "too much," shot from beyond the arc "too much," golfed "too much," and ran his mouth "too much.")

The guys that he supported unstintingly were the troika of Sarver, D'Antoni, and Nash, plus Marion, Diaw, Barbosa, Hill, and O'Neal. (WiseOldSun said that even back in 1998, he felt that Nash was better than Kidd.) He also liked Raja Bell and James Jones. He did value the late Cotton Fitzsimmons a lot, and he respected Jerry Colangelo. He did not care for Terry Porter or Steve Kerr, calling the former a "lapdog" and the latter "incompetent" (at least as of the middle of the '08-'09 season). When O'Neal allegedly held a late-night party the night before a game that year, he gently criticized Stoudemire for allegedly showing up, yet—curiously—he never criticized Shaq himself.

Anyway, as I will discuss in the other thread, I did not feel that O'Neal and Stoudemire made for an optimal duo, and Stoudemire certainly possessed much greater trade value at that point.

I do not believe that I ever thought that the '08-'09 Suns could go all the way, though, regardless of who was on the court. I never felt that that club was remotely close to a championship level, and I had not supported the trade of Bell and Diaw for Richardson and Dudley, even though I had been interested in Dudley myself. Although Richardson's shooting ability and explosiveness did fit Phoenix's offensive style perfectly, I felt that the Suns had lost too much basketball intelligence and defense (although Dudley eventually proved to be a stout defender). Even in the middle of '06-'07, when the Suns were running off long winning streaks and fans were giddy with excitement, I was more cautious and skeptical than most. Whereas WiseOldSun felt that the Suns "controlled their own destiny," I stated that unless Phoenix improved defensively or Stoudemire recaptured his pre-Microfracture explosiveness, winning a championship over San Antonio and Dallas would constitute "a struggle—not impossible, but a struggle."

I know that after Stoudemire's season-ending eye injury, I would have felt better about the '08-'09 Suns if Diaw had still been around to step into the lineup at power forward. With Diaw, Phoenix may have made the playoffs that year even without Stoudemire. The truth is that once Gentry took over for Porter, the Suns proved exceptional offensively that season even without both Stoudemire and Diaw—Phoenix did not really need either of them offensively, at least in the regular season. Ironically, for most of the second half of '08-'09, the Suns were without their three best front-court players from recent years—Marion, Stoudemire, and Diaw—but they still averaged more points per game after the All-Star break (117.7) than any club since the 1992 Warriors. Defense represented the team's undoing, however, and Diaw could have helped the Suns there. Of course, the faster and more explosive Richardson was starting at shooting guard instead of Bell, but with either of them and Diaw at power forward, that Gentry-coached club could have been dangerous in the playoffs. Being better than the Lakers, though, still would have been unlikely.

That said, could you imagine a 2009 Western Conference Finals between the Suns and Lakers with Shaq playing for Phoenix? The hype would have been wild.

[bwgood77]

Spoiler:

I am almost positive you were pro Shaq and anti Stoudemire and thought we had a legit chance at that point, but I may be wrong and it is in the past so deciding who said what is an unworthy exercise. WiseOldSun, who I enjoyed reading his posts was so pro ownership to the point I felt he had some connection with Sarver and it would be interesting to see his posts, and I think I would recognize them if they showed up here.

I did want to trade Stoudemire by the middle of the '08-'09 season and floated a bunch of different ideas (as if that mattered)—one to Atlanta for Joe Johnson and Zaza Pachulia (that was before Phoenix traded Raja Bell and Boris Diaw for Jason Richardson and Jared Dudley), one for Tyrus Thomas and maybe someone else (admittedly, that would not have been worthwhile in retrospect, but the Suns badly needed to improve their defense and Thomas averaged 1.9 blocked shots that year, and if feeding off Nash in pick-and-rolls, he might have become a respectable offensive player), one for Paul Millsap. That last idea, I feel, would have been great in retrospect. Millsap was everything that Stoudemire was not—not as explosive or spectacular as a scorer, but an earn-everything all-around player with a versatile, subtly skilled game. I was also interested in D.J. Augustin and Dudley (before the Suns traded for him) from Charlotte, although I do not recall whether that idea involved Stoudemire or who, exactly.

I was never that "pro-Shaq"—I was always ambivalent about the trade, given O'Neal's age and regressed state—but I stated after the 2008 playoffs that the Suns may well have needed both O'Neal and Marion. I did not mean that the Suns should have traded Stoudemire instead of Marion—I was just speaking abstractly and conceptually—but "Babyshaq" (you remember him) read it that way, and WiseOldSun either interpreted my statement that way or expanded on it, saying, "Sounds like they traded the wrong player."

Of course, whereas WiseOldSun was saying circa January 2007 that Phoenix would eventually be Stoudemire's, Diaw's and Barbosa's team, by about January 2008 he was teasing the idea of sending Stoudemire to Denver for Marcus Camby. By the end of the Suns' brief 2008 playoff run, he definitely wanted Stoudemire gone, saying that Phoenix should run him out of town as the Suns did to Jason Kidd. WiseOldSun wanted Elton Brand instead of Stoudemire. That summer, when he read about how some anonymous scout or executive had labeled Stoudemire a "prima donna," WiseOldSun instantly took to the label and said that he wanted to hear Suns' fans chanting it to the rafters the following season. In different ways, he also criticized Stoudemire as being too similar to both Kevin Johnson and Charles Barkley—like Johnson, he apparently deemed Stoudemire too distant (off the court) and too prone to speaking in parables (I guess; I never fully understood where he was coming from there). Like Barkley, he thought that Stoudemire represented too much talk, too little defense, and too little deliverance in the clutch. (His overall critique of Barkley was actually "too much": he felt that Barkley held the ball "too much," shot from beyond the arc "too much," golfed "too much," and ran his mouth "too much.")

The guys that he supported unstintingly were the troika of Sarver, D'Antoni, and Nash, plus Marion, Diaw, Barbosa, Hill, and O'Neal. (WiseOldSun said that even back in 1998, he felt that Nash was better than Kidd.) He also liked Raja Bell and James Jones. He did value the late Cotton Fitzsimmons a lot, and he respected Jerry Colangelo. He did not care for Terry Porter or Steve Kerr, calling the former a "lapdog" and the latter "incompetent" (at least as of the middle of the '08-'09 season). When O'Neal allegedly held a late-night party the night before a game during the '08-'09 season, he gently criticized Stoudemire for allegedly showing up, yet—curiously—he never criticized Shaq himself.

Anyway, as I will discuss in the other thread, I did not feel O'Neal and Stoudemire made for an optimal duo, and Stoudemire certainly possessed much greater trade value at that point.

I do not believe that I ever thought that the '08-'09 Suns could go all the way, though, regardless of who was on the court. I never felt that that club was remotely close to a championship level, and I had not supported the trade of Bell and Diaw for Richardson and Dudley, even though I had been interested in Dudley myself. Although Richardson's shooting ability and explosiveness did fit Phoenix's offensive style perfectly, I felt that the Suns had lost too much basketball intelligence and defense (although Dudley eventually proved to be a stout defender). Even in the middle of '06-'07, when the Suns were running off long winning streaks and fans were giddy with excitement, I was more cautious and skeptical than most. Whereas WiseOldSun felt that Phoenix "controlled its own destiny," I stated that unless the Suns improved defensively or Stoudemire recaptured his pre-Microfracture explosiveness, winning a championship over San Antonio and Dallas would constitute "a struggle—not impossible, but a struggle."

I know that after Stoudemire's season-ending eye injury, I would have felt better about the '08-'09 Suns if Diaw had still been around to step into the lineup at power forward. With Diaw, Phoenix may have made the playoffs that year even without Stoudemire. The truth is that once Gentry took over for Porter, the Suns proved exceptional offensively that season even without both Stoudemire and Diaw—Phoenix did not really need either of them offensively, at least in the regular season. Ironically, for most of the second half of '08-'09, the Suns were without their three best front-court players from recent years—Marion, Stoudemire, and Diaw—but they still averaged more points per game after the All-Star break than any club since the 1992 Warriors. Defense represented the team's undoing, however, and Diaw could have helped the Suns there. Of course, the faster and more explosive Richardson was starting at shooting guard and Bell was in Charlotte, but with either of them and Diaw at power forward, that Gentry-coached club could have been dangerous in the playoffs. Being better than the Lakers, though, still would have been unlikely.

That said, could you imagine a 2009 Western Conference Finals between the Suns and Lakers with Shaq playing for Phoenix? The hype would have been wild.

All great points, and you certainly have a better recollection of WiseOldSun's thoughts than I do, so I definitely know you have a better recollection of your own, although that is obvious without the former statement. I'm not sure how you remember such details. If you have the most incredible photographic memory I have come across, or you have archived such pages somehow, or what. Always great reading your posts and insight though.

I am interested to see what your thoughts are on our draft picks and the Dudley signing, although I imagine you might think judging draft picks before you have seen what they bring to the team may be an unworthy exercise as well.

[GMATCallahan]

All great points, and you certainly have a better recollection of WiseOldSun's thoughts than I do, so I definitely know you have a better recollection of your own, although that is obvious without the former statement. I'm not sure how you remember such details. If you have the most incredible photographic memory I have come across, or you have archived such pages somehow, or what. Always great reading your posts and insight though.

I am interested to see what your thoughts are on our draft picks and the Dudley signing, although I imagine you might think judging draft picks before you have seen what they bring to the team may be an unworthy exercise as well.

Thanks. (For the record, I do not have those pages archived. Here and there, I did save some stuff years ago by copying-and-pasting into Microsoft Word, but I lost it when my old computer went kaput over four years ago.)

Yeah, I am not going to prejudge the individual picks, but from the current vantage point, I would consider this draft excellent. The Suns did what they needed to do, which was to give themselves a chance to redeem the disastrous '15-'16 season by potentially having it pay off in a needed influx of young talent. Phoenix badly needed an infusion of athleticism and talent at forward, especially power forward, and the franchise addressed that concern by acquiring both Bender and Chriss. What I particularly like about drafting them both (in effect) is that the Suns improved their odds: by selecting two long, tall, athletic forwards with range both offensively and defensively, there is a decent chance that at least one of them will "hit" and become a quality, useful, rotational player (meaning someone who will become a mainstay in the playing rotation, preferably as a starter). So even if one of them "misses" and becomes the next Earl Clark, the odds that both of them will flop seem slim. I would draw an analogy to baseball, where if you create a pool of top prospects coming up from the minor leagues, odds are that at least some of them will "hit" and you can afford to suffer some "misses." And if both Bender and Chriss "hit," then the Suns will have struck a bonanza, giving themselves a range of options.

Oh, and the Markieff Morris trade did end up paying dividends, as acquiring Washington's first-round pick (thirteenth) enabled the Suns to move up and obtain Chriss. Phoenix should have traded Morris last summer, but I was pleasantly surprised that the Suns were ultimately able to attain a lottery pick in exchange for him.

From the highlights that I viewed, I like Ulis, too. He seems as if he is a true point guard, like Tyler Ennis (whom Phoenix drafted two years ago with a much higher pick), but unlike Ennis, Ulis seems to possess some speed and quickness, which you need in the NBA if you are an undersized point guard. I am not sure what role he will play for Phoenix next season, but at least he provides options, depth, and a natural quarterback—a role that Bledsoe and especially Knight and Goodwin fail to easily fit.

These draftees will not necessarily make the Suns that much better next season, but certainly there is now greater upside to the roster. In an ideal scenario, Bender will become the next Tom Chambers and Chriss will become a taller version of Shawn Marion. Those chances may be unlikely, but the Suns will at least combine length and athleticism in a way that they did not a year ago.

By the way, I know that trading Bell and Diaw for Richardson and Dudley worked out in many respects, and I know that Diaw failed to realize his potential (although he still proved to be a very valuable complementary piece when the Spurs won the title in 2014), but I felt early in the '08-'09 season that Diaw probably represented Phoenix's long-term fallback plan should Stoudemire depart in free agency following the 2010 season. Some fans where aghast at the prospect of Diaw (undefined body, French, finesse, passive, lack of rebounding, seemingly lacking for individual motivation, but he did play defense and possess a real post game with terrific footwork) replacing Stoudemire (defined body, athletic American stud, thunderous dunks, self-promoting, in-your-face attitude, but very little defense or good basketball technique beyond shooting form and scoring out of spread-floor pick-and-rolls/pops). But while Diaw was a very different player, in some cases for the worse and in some for the better, he did constitute the Suns' potential insurance policy at power forward behind Stoudemire. When Phoenix traded Diaw and then allowed Stoudemire to defect a year and a half later (after trading Marion less than a year before trading Diaw), the Suns opened themselves up to a wasteland at that spot. Just something to consider ...

[bwgood77]

By the way, I know that trading Bell and Diaw for Richardson and Dudley worked out in many respects, and I know that Diaw failed to realize his potential (although he still proved to be a very valuable complementary piece when the Spurs won the title in 2014), but I felt early in the '08-'09 season that Diaw probably represented Phoenix's long-term fallback plan should Stoudemire depart in free agency following the 2010 season. Some fans where aghast at the prospect of Diaw (undefined body, French, finesse, passive, lack of rebounding, seemingly lacking for individual motivation, but he did play defense and possess a real post game with terrific footwork) replacing Stoudemire (defined body, athletic American stud, thunderous dunks, self-promoting, in-your-face attitude, but very little defense or good basketball technique beyond shooting form and scoring out of spread-floor pick-and-rolls/pops). But while Diaw was a very different player, in some cases for the worse and in some for the better, he did constitute the Suns' potential insurance policy at power forward behind Stoudemire. When Phoenix traded Diaw and then allowed Stoudemire to defect a year and a half later (after trading Marion less than a year before trading Diaw), the Suns opened themselves up to a wasteland at that spot. Just something to consider ...

Interesting to think about, that if they had never traded Marion or Diaw/Bell, and somehow still brought in Grant Hill, that could have provided some interesting depth even post Amare. Even without Hill, they would have likely still been very competitive through 2012. While they would have had to find a SG (unless Diaw remained a worthy starter), people seemed to thrive in that role in Phoenix.

[GMATCallahan]

Interesting to think about, that if they had never traded Marion or Diaw/Bell, and somehow still brought in Grant Hill, that could have provided some interesting depth even post Amare. Even without Hill, they would have likely still been very competitive through 2012. While they would have had to find a SG (unless Diaw remained a worthy starter), people seemed to thrive in that role in Phoenix.

When the Suns signed Hill nine years ago, Marion and Diaw were both on the roster, and they all played together during the '07-'08 season until Phoenix traded Marion in February 2008. So, yeah, without the Charlotte trade Phoenix probably would have featured Hill and Diaw as a starting forward combination during the second half of '08-'09 (after Stoudemire went down), '10-'11, and '11-'12. And in that case, they may well have made the playoffs all three seasons instead of missing the playoffs all three seasons. (The Suns could have retained Bell as their starting shooting guard or found someone else for that spot, perhaps Jared Dudley via a smaller deal with Charlotte. Plus, Phoenix could have kept Barbosa throughout those years.) Of course, the Suns also may not have made that run to Game Six of the 2010 Western Conference Finals under that scenario, and that exciting and memorable experience was probably worth the tradeoff.

Still, the fact that the Suns missed the playoffs in three of Nash's final four seasons in Phoenix slightly clouds the latter part of his tenure. One wonders, for instance, if Phoenix would have made the playoffs in '05-'06 without Marion and Diaw, even though Nash was in the peak phase of his career at the time. (That season, he became just the third player in NBA history, after Magic Johnson and Kevin Johnson, to average at least 18.0 points, 10.0 assists, and a .500 field goal percentage in the same season. They have since been joined by Deron Williams and Chris Paul, although both of those guys accomplished the feat once, compared to multiple times for the others, including Nash.)

And, yes, in the Nash-led offenses, succeeding at shooting guard was not that difficult. You just needed a guy who could run the floor and efficiently shoot spot-up threes. With his speed, size, and athleticism, Jason Richardson enhanced the template offensively, but other guys could have played better defense.

[bwgood77]

Interesting to think about, that if they had never traded Marion or Diaw/Bell, and somehow still brought in Grant Hill, that could have provided some interesting depth even post Amare. Even without Hill, they would have likely still been very competitive through 2012. While they would have had to find a SG (unless Diaw remained a worthy starter), people seemed to thrive in that role in Phoenix.

When the Suns signed Hill nine years ago, Marion and Diaw were both on the roster, and they all played together during the '07-'08 season until Phoenix traded Marion in February 2008. So, yeah, without the Charlotte trade Phoenix probably would have featured Hill and Diaw as a starting forward combination during the second half of '08-'09 (after Stoudemire went down), '10-'11, and '11-'12. And in that case, they may well have made the playoffs all three seasons instead of missing the playoffs all three seasons. (The Suns could have retained Bell as their starting shooting guard or found someone else for that spot, perhaps Jared Dudley via a smaller deal with Charlotte. Plus, Phoenix could have kept Barbosa throughout those years.) Of course, the Suns also may not have made that run to Game Six of the 2010 Western Conference Finals under that scenario, and that exciting and memorable experience was probably worth the tradeoff.

Still, the fact that the Suns missed the playoffs in three of Nash's final four seasons in Phoenix slightly clouds the latter part of his tenure. One wonders, for instance, if Phoenix would have made the playoffs in '05-'06 without Marion and Diaw, even though Nash was in the peak phase of his career at the time. (That season, he became just the third player in NBA history, after Magic Johnson and Kevin Johnson, to average at least 18.0 points, 10.0 assists, and a .500 field goal percentage in the same season. They have since been joined by Deron Williams and Chris Paul, although both of those guys accomplished the feat once, compared to multiple times for the others, including Nash.)

And, yes, in the Nash-led offenses, succeeding at shooting guard was not that difficult. You just needed a guy who could run the floor and efficiently shoot spot-up threes. With his speed, size, and athleticism, Jason Richardson enhanced the template offensively, but other guys could have played better defense.

Great post with new information as usual that either I forgot or never knew. Don't you think it's almost a certainty that we make the playoffs in 11 and 12 with Hill, Marion and Diaw? Even with what we had, we only finished like a game or two out each year. Of course there would have been other moving parts, like we never would have had the assets to trade for Gortat, so you never know how those things work out. Heck, even those guys at 3/4/5 would have certainly gotten us to the playoffs but it would have possibly been tough against bigger teams, but we would have likely made it hard on them.

[GMATCallahan]

Great post with new information as usual that either I forgot or never knew. Don't you think it's almost a certainty that we make the playoffs in 11 and 12 with Hill, Marion and Diaw? Even with what we had, we only finished like a game or two out each year. Of course there would have been other moving parts, like we never would have had the assets to trade for Gortat, so you never know how those things work out. Heck, even those guys at 3/4/5 would have certainly gotten us to the playoffs but it would have possibly been tough against bigger teams, but we would have likely made it hard on them.

Yeah, the roster probably would have been different in other areas, most notably with regard to Gortat, so you never know. (On the other hand, the Suns still could have traded Barbosa for Turkoglu and Turkoglu for Gortat, leaving out the Richardson-Carter part of the Orlando trade.) And Phoenix may not have re-signed Marion even had the Suns not traded for O'Neal, although once Marion hit the open market and found that no one deemed him a 'max' player (had a thirty-year old Marion become a free agent nowadays, that situation might be different), he might have returned to the Suns anyway. Either way, the presence of Diaw alongside Hill at forward certainly could have made the difference, especially given that Diaw was a guy who could do more if you gave him more responsibility, like the year when Stoudemire was out ('05-'06) or when D'Antoni switched to a post-up offense revolving around Diaw for the final two games of the 2008 Western Conference First Round. Imagine that instead of Nash just running the pick-and-roll/pop time after time in his final two seasons in Phoenix, when the Suns' offense slowed a bit and became less explosive and efficient (ninth in Offensive Rating, or points scored per possession, both years), the team could have mixed in post-ups for Diaw that fed Nash for open catch-and-shoot threes and Hill for cutting baseline dunks. Plus, Diaw's versatility as a passer and ball-handler made him a terrific pick-and-roll partner for Nash in '05-'06. When Nash got the ball to Diaw in the pick-and-roll, Diaw could not finish above the rim or shoot as well as Stoudemire, but he gave the team so many options: posting up against a smaller switched defender or a weak-side help defender, crossing over or spinning on a help defender, whipping the ball out to a three-point shooter on the weak-side or at the top of the arc. With Nash, Diaw, and Hill as a featured trio, that ball would have moved. Add a couple of off-ball three-point shooters in Jared Dudley and Channing Frye, or Dudley and a true center such as Gortat whom Diaw could feed at the basket or along the baseline, and that Phoenix club probably would have made the playoffs.

Remember, too, how good Diaw looked posting up against Miami at times during the 2014 NBA Finals—hitting cutters and shooters at will, making up-and-under post moves and occasional jump hooks, out-foxing the Heat's defense. He never became the All-Star player that he should have been had he proved more aggressive and in better shape, but the guy had some Magic Johnson to his game—at least the "old man" Magic who returned to the NBA in the middle of the '95-'96 season at the age of thirty-six (and carrying a lot more pounds) after four and a half years out of the league.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyY5rxVWOSs[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFE-HqwE7io[/youtube]

Of course, I am not sure if Diaw has ever shown as much emotion in any aspect of his life as Magic in that second video ...

[phrazbit]

The Knick franchise is a dumpster fire, largely because of their decision to max Amare. I don't know how this can even be questioned. We get... maybe, one more quality season, but have to suffer through 4 miserable ones where the franchise has too much money committed to rebuild but no actual ability to contend because that money is wrapped up in a flawed and constantly injured player.

No, no, no. 1000x no. The last few years havn't been fun but I cannot imagine if the rebuild was only just starting because we'd been stuck with that disaster of a contract until last season.

[Moochthemonkey]

The Knick franchise is a dumpster fire, largely because of their decision to max Amare. I don't know how this can even be questioned. We get... maybe, one more quality season, but have to suffer through 4 miserable ones

How do you know that Amare's production would have drastically declined in Phoenix though?
What if signing Amare meant that we didn't have the cap space to sign your favorite player of all time, Michael Beasley?

[phrazbit]

The Knick franchise is a dumpster fire, largely because of their decision to max Amare. I don't know how this can even be questioned. We get... maybe, one more quality season, but have to suffer through 4 miserable ones

How do you know that Amare's production would have drastically declined in Phoenix though?
What if signing Amare meant that we didn't have the cap space to sign your favorite player of all time, Michael Beasley?

Beasley was one year of misery, Amare would have been much longer with longer consequences.

And I can empirically say that DID Amare suffer a massive decline and that it was a decline that our own medical guys advised the Suns was coming. There is no reason to think he would not have declined here. As lauded as our training staff is they are not miracle workers and they struggled to keep Amare healthy in his best years.

[GMATCallahan]

The Knick franchise is a dumpster fire, largely because of their decision to max Amare. I don't know how this can even be questioned. We get... maybe, one more quality season, but have to suffer through 4 miserable ones

How do you know that Amare's production would have drastically declined in Phoenix though?
What if signing Amare meant that we didn't have the cap space to sign your favorite player of all time, Michael Beasley?

I agree that his production would have drastically declined, regardless of his location, simply due to his knees and his body. Consider the '12-'13 season, for instance, where he played in 29 regular season games, averaging all of 23.5 minutes per game. Then in the playoffs that year, he played in 4 games (out of 10), averaging 8.3 minutes. To be sure, the additions of Carmelo Anthony and Tyson Chandler reduced Stoudemire's role and to some extent his playing time, but his body constituted the major limitation in terms of availability and minutes.

Now, there have been a few players in history who have retained high value despite proving injury-prone because they were just that great—their per-game value was extraordinary. Unfortunately, Stoudemire was not one of them, namely because he did virtually nothing well (on a consistent basis) outside of assisted scoring. The 2010 playoffs, and especially the Western Conference Finals versus the Lakers, represented the icing on the cake in that regard. Already, one could—at least in retrospect—see in the distance Stoudemire's future as a scoring specialist off the bench, kind of like when Phoenix head coach Cotton Fitzsimmons moved the late Armen Gilliam, the player that the Suns had selected with the second overall pick in 1987, to the bench during the second half of the '88-'89 season. Gilliam could score, both inside and with mid-range jumpers, while matching up at either power forward or center—during one 24-game stretch that season, he had averaged 21.5 points on .531 field goal shooting (on a team loaded with scorers), including a 41-point performance where he shot 18-26 from the field.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/198812160PHO.html

And he could rebound some, although not on a stellar level. (He averaged 8.5 boards during the aforementioned stretch.)

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/gilliar01/gamelog/1989/#65-88-sum:pgl_basic

But like Stoudemire, Gilliam's defense proved highly questionable and his assists-to-turnover ratio was awful. Eventually, Fitzsimmons decided that Gilliam would be best utilized in limited minutes off the bench as an instant-points type of big man who could provide more of a floor-spacing, offensive look. (Keep in mind that in those days, a "floor spacing" big man often meant a guy who could shoot from fifteen feet, like Gilliam.) Game One of the 1989 Western Conference Finals at the Great Western Forum provided an example of how Fitzsimmons would utilize Gilliam and what the player could produce in that function.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/198905200LAL.html

Again, at least in retrospect, one could already see by the time of the 2010 Western Conference Finals, when he was twenty-seven, that Stoudemire would be headed toward that kind of role by the time that he was twenty-nine or thirty. Instead of growing into the sort of all-around big man that could lead a club to the championship, Stoudemire had stagnated and in some areas was even regressing. And had he played for a team with better all-around big men, or in a system that was not predicated on maximizing floor spacing in order to optimize the pick-and-roll, Stoudemire may have become that sort of off-the-bench scoring specialist (for a contending club) much earlier in his career, rather like Gilliam on the 1989 Suns. (I do not mean those comments as an indictment of the system at all, just as a statement of fact.)

I thus do believe that the Suns made the correct call; they just handled the aftermath poorly. I will try to offer some more comments on that matter some other time.

[bwgood77]

The Knick franchise is a dumpster fire, largely because of their decision to max Amare. I don't know how this can even be questioned. We get... maybe, one more quality season, but have to suffer through 4 miserable ones

How do you know that Amare's production would have drastically declined in Phoenix though?
What if signing Amare meant that we didn't have the cap space to sign your favorite player of all time, Michael Beasley?

Beasley was one year of misery, Amare would have been much longer with longer consequences.

And I can empirically say that DID Amare suffer a massive decline and that it was a decline that our own medical guys advised the Suns was coming. There is no reason to think he would not have declined here. As lauded as our training staff is they are not miracle workers and they struggled to keep Amare healthy in his best years.

I think he could have probably had two fairly solid years. A decline in season 2 but he would have still been able to work well with Nash. We may have been able to trade him too after two years like we did Nash, and start the rebuild then. It was a good decision to move on from him at the time, but the roster decisions were terrible.

The last few years havn't been fun but I cannot imagine if the rebuild was only just starting because we'd been stuck with that disaster of a contract until last season.

If we couldn't trade him and he was terrible or injured, what makes you think our rebuild would be just started? Sounds a bit contradictory. It sounds like it would have started a few years ago, just like it did, and we wouldn't have been able to make ridiculously stupid signings.

[GMATCallahan]

I think he could have probably had two fairly solid years. A decline in season 2 but he would have still been able to work well with Nash. We may have been able to trade him too after two years like we did Nash, and start the rebuild then. It was a good decision to move on from him at the time, but the roster decisions were terrible.

... not sure if the Suns could have traded him after the second year if injuries and declining performance were starting to creep into the picture, as occurred in New York. As you know, Phoenix only traded Nash as part of a sign-and-trade with Nash as an unrestricted free agent, so another team negotiated the terms of his contract, as opposed to inheriting a contract negotiated by the Suns. No other club, at that point, would have been likely to endorse the remaining terms of Stoudemire's contract.

The Suns might have been able to trade Stoudemire after the first year, but such a move would have proved highly unpopular and thus Sarver probably would not have made it. Whereas Jerry Colangelo and Cotton Fitzsimmons believed in the maxim of trading a player a year too early rather than a year too late, Sarver seemed to believe in the opposite (or least he acted that way), 'trading' Nash only after he was already an unrestricted free agent and could pick his destination, with Phoenix possessing no leverage.

Wait, I thought that Sarver was a 'great businessman.' I love how some fawning media people have seemed to believe that his success in banking could naturally translate to basketball.

Sarver founded the then-National Bank of Tucson at age 23. And while skeptics like to challenge his drive because he was born into privilege — his late father, Jack, founded a bank and built several Tucson-area hotels — the National Bank of Tucson's assets grew substantially by the time he sold it in 1994.

And Sarver's "real" job continues to show his business savvy. His Western Alliance Bankcorporation has $7 billion in assets and is the largest financial institution headquartered in Arizona. It has earned $126 million in profits over just the past four quarters.

He knows what he's doing.

... Employees say he can have a heavy-handed management style and be demanding at times. Those are not unusual adjectives, by the way, to describe accomplished business people.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/2014/09/27/time-valley-fans-escape-jerry-colangelo-nostalgia/16347359/

On the other hand, Sarver did make a good business decision on Stoudemire, and unlike Jim Buss, he was not foolish enough to offer a three-year contract at major money to a thirty-eight-year old (Nash).

But missing the playoffs in six straight seasons and seven of eight, a historic drought for the franchise that he took over, while—until this last draft—having only one top-twelve lottery pick to show for all those non-playoff finishes speaks for itself. I thought that a 'business genius' would have possessed a long-term strategic vision, would have been unburdened by sentimentality and fickle public whims, and would have been willing to 'strip down' a business in order to build it back up in stronger fashion.

Yeah, right ...

[phrazbit]

If we couldn't trade him and he was terrible or injured, what makes you think our rebuild would be just started? Sounds a bit contradictory. It sounds like it would have started a few years ago, just like it did, and we wouldn't have been able to make ridiculously stupid signings.

Because we'd be doing what the Knicks were stuck doing, just praying he got better. We'd have built a roster we were hoping to contend with, probably loaded up with veterans (and I don't think that is much of an assumption, it's what they'd been doing even a couple years after Amare left). During his contract we'd have been lousy but not horrible and generally unable to improve because of how much his contract drained our cap. And again, going by previous experience, I wouldn't have been shocked if we'd spent a few of those years trading away what meager draft picks we had in an effort to keep the team fighting for the playoffs.

[bwgood77]

If we couldn't trade him and he was terrible or injured, what makes you think our rebuild would be just started? Sounds a bit contradictory. It sounds like it would have started a few years ago, just like it did, and we wouldn't have been able to make ridiculously stupid signings.

Because we'd be doing what the Knicks were stuck doing, just praying he got better. We'd have built a roster we were hoping to contend with, probably loaded up with veterans (and I don't think that is much of an assumption, it's what they'd been doing even a couple years after Amare left). During his contract we'd have been lousy but not horrible and generally unable to improve because of how much his contract drained our cap. And again, going by previous experience, I wouldn't have been shocked if we'd spent a few of those years trading away what meager draft picks we had in an effort to keep the team fighting for the playoffs.

We ended up doing that anyway, and my posts were from the perspective of knowing what we did anyway, which was replace him with Turkoglu, Warrick and Childress, and looking back in hindsight knowing we couldn't change those signing, so knowing what did happen instead of signing him, personally I would have taken a year or two and kept the WCF team intact, and by then we would have had to rebuild anyway. And even though he missed over 30 games in his second season with the Knicks, he still played from Christmas through late March, and then came back for the last week of the season and the playoffs.

He missed a large portion of his third season in NY, but by then we could have dealt Nash (like we did) and trade some of the vets, and maybe end up with a little worse pick in the 2013 draft, so we wouldn't have likely had Len and would have had to settle for, say Steven Adams or Rudy Gobert.

At that point in the off season, we could have, say, traded Dudley for Bledsoe (like we did) and play with a returned Amare, and a young rookie in Adams or Gobert.

I think I would have enjoyed those two more years with Nash, then not minded the down year and going younger, and having Amare return with Bledsoe and Adams or Gobert.

Or if he wasn't productive, we could have just used the amnesty on him or stretched him.

Since I don't want to go through all the numbers, he wasn't that bad of a player throughout those years, and likely would have been MUCH better playing with Nash and Bledsoe than playing with Felton or whoever else and Melo taking 20 shots a night.

But I will just take a more inclusive stat (even though I know it's not the greatest one) and list his PERs in those five years. 22.7, 17.7, 22.1, 18.8 and 20.3. He was not the 2004-8 Amare, but those were similar numbers than the ones he had in 2009 and 2010.

Alternatively, Turkoglu had a 13.1 with Phx, Childress had a 13 and an 11.1 and Warrick had a 16.5 and 13.1.

So those two years where Nash and the Suns fell a game or two short of the playoffs, with Amare and the WCF team intact we not only make the playoffs, but probably get a high seed since we nearly made the finals those last two years.

Plus the team had depth, with Dragic, Barbosa, Dudley, Frye and Amundson off the bench.

I understand why the decision was made at the time, and was disappointed but ok with it, but I hated everything that happened after that.

I can't believe with the hindsight we have, and knowing we were as close to the finals as we have been since 93, that people are good with all that went down, or at least would have still made that decision if they could go back five years and give us two more years with a chance at the title, and possibly a quicker rebuild instead of those two years with a bunch of crappy vets fighting for the 8th seed.

[phrazbit]

Yes, they could have started the rebuild when they did anyway... but my point is that they would not have. With over 60 million still left on Amare's deal they would have kept plugging away. The only reason they finally let Nash go was because his contract ran out, and even then their answer was more vets, only the front office was so grossly incompetent that the team bottomed out anyway.

I'm one of the more positive posters in general, but even I cannot see them simply swallowing Amare's disaster of a contract via amnesty or stretch... no, they would have been stuck with it. As far as his PER goes... wonderful, he still put up decent individual offensive numbers... while hardly playing and being worse defensively than he ever was here. They had no interest in rebuilding, they SHOULD have started it right then in 2010 when Amare left, but instead they delayed 2 years trying to make it work with Nash. Had Amare still been there they would have dragged it on another 3.

People are fine with Amare leaving because that team had clearly peaked, had virtually no way of improving itself and then Amare's career went off a cliff, his new franchise became a joke and he was the punchline.

If I had a time machine would I go back and do it all the same? Heeeeeell no, but I'd still take the misery I know over the obvious misery and potentially far worse in the long term (which is where we now are) that 5 years of the team limping around, literally and figuartely, in an effort to build around a player who's career was toast.