I found this article on NBA.com today about the Suns off-season so far which includes comments from Kerr.
Enjoy!
Steve Kerr hears the talk, reads the projections and, quite frankly, understands why much of the basketball world thinks the Phoenix Suns have taken a huge step backward out of the Playoff picture.
In short, they traded Shaquille O'Neal for a handful of beans.
"I think that move was looked at as a white flag of surrender," said Kerr, the Suns' president and general manager. "We didn't get anything back in that trade in terms of bodies, of players that we intended to keep. But the truth is that move gave us the financial flexibility to move forward and improve in a subtle way."
What was not so subtle was Amar'e Stoudemire's absence from the lineup last season as the result of a detached retina. Even without Stoudemire on the floor for 29 games, the Suns still won 46 games and finished just two out of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
Yet even if Stoudemire had been able to play, the Suns didn't see themselves as a true championship caliber club.
"We thought we had the potential to be good, maybe very good," said Kerr. "But we thought we were in the next group below the Lakers, with teams like Houston and Denver and Dallas. Barring Amar'e's injury, maybe we could win a round or two in the Playoffs.
"But if you're not a championship team -- and that, obviously, is what prompted the deal to get Shaq -- then it made no sense to have a $20 million player clogging the payroll when you know that you're not going to get over the hump."
While many expected the Suns to blow up their roster and start over in a full rebuilding mode, Kerr's goal was to infuse the roster with youth while keeping old hands Steve Nash and Grant Hill around to provide guidance and stability.
The transition actually began in the middle of last season when Alvin Gentry replaced Terry Porter as coach and got the Suns back to playing their more open-court style of offense.
"Alvin has a great feel for our players, their abilities and their styles and they all love playing for him," Kerr said.
After dealing O'Neal and promptly buying out the contract of Ben Wallace (they also plan to let Sasha Pavlovic go), the Suns then had the money to sign forward Channing Frye to a $3.8 million free-agent contract and also got the 36-year-old Hill to return to the fold. Then 35-year-old former two-time MVP Nash was locked up with a two-year, $22 million contract extension.
"I guess, in the eyes of some, it seemed a little funny to be so committed to going forward with an older Steve Nash," Kerr said. "And when Steve and I talked about the future, maybe at first he had those kinds of questions, too. But I'm not looking at just having Steve Nash around to play out the string on his career. I think that with what he can do and what Grant Hill can do, these veterans can lift up a young team and do some big things."
http://www.nba.com/2009/news/features/fran_blinebury/08/25/suns/index.html
Click the link to read the rest of the article.
Your thoughts on the article?
It's interesting that Kerr continues to insist that the pre-Shaq trade team was not going to win the whole thing even though they were in 1st place in the West before the trade.
