RealGM

The question is kinda self explanatory. Both the Suns and the Mavs made big trades and both are currently staring at a 3-1 deficit in the opening round of the playoffs. Which team do you think made the bigger misstep?

I'd say the mavs. They gave up their entire roster for a PG who's a little bit past his prime. I mean he's great but playing in the dallas system he's not much better than devin harris. The suns had to cut losses, marion was gonna walk after the season. The san antonio series lead 3-1 is actually very deceiving. They should have won game 1 but duncan hit a 3... i mean wtf.. duncan hit a 3? and the other 2 games were kinda close so the series could easily be 2-2 or 3-1 the other way...

the mavs got owned... so yeah..

Personally I'd say it's a toss up, but giving the edge to Phoenix.

With Dallas, Kidd is old, Dirk is getting up there, Josh Howard seems to want out, Dampier is old, Stackhouse is old, and Terry's dropped off (statistically at least). They were about to win a championship, and have suffered humiliation after humiliation. Now Avery might be on his way out, and I think Cuban might blow the team up.

With Phoenix, Nash seems like he's about to exit his prime (or maybe it's just the emergence of Deron Williams and CP3), and Shaq and Grant Hill probably don't have much left in the tank. At least Amare keeps getting better, and they still have Barbosa and Diaw.

The Mavs gained cap flexibility.

The Suns lost it.

Mavs win. They can easily trade off most of those guys for expirings if they have to, and they look to the MLE in the offseason if next season represents one last run. Their problem isn't Kidd, it's lack of depth, but that's easier to address than getting a whole new crop of starters.

Phoenix is stuck with Shaq's $20M per deal until 2010. That's probably worse than Marion bolting.

i dont think either was a mistake

the name of the game was to win and both teams did what they needed to do to have any shot at winning this year

i think the suns definately had to because the nash window is closing the mavs could have held on to harris and the rest of their stars are pretty young still so if either team made a mistake it was the mavs

@ rooster, are you not noticing the massive cap space the suns will have in 10 when a whole bunch of contracts come off the books?

Neither really. Mavs got bounced in the first round last year and look to repeat that feat. No big change other than giving away a young guard prospect for the PR of trading for Jason Kidd.

Phoenix Suns were always a good team, but never quite good enough. That hasn't changed with the trade. Shaq opens things up for Amare inside, but they are still the same "not quite there" team they've been for years.

Neither team vastly improved, but neither really damaged themselves more than the other either. They were lateral moves that they will get blasted for becuase the end product didn't happen.

I think Phoenix.

The Mavs.

They could have had their future PG for the next decade in Harris but moved him for a guy in the twilight of his career who isn't having a big enough impact on their games to justify the trade.

Kidd's contract is up at the end of next year, Shaq's contract is on the books for two more years (excluding this year).

With their MLE in hand I would look for Dallas to take a step forward next year, while Phoenix could potentially take a step back if they mess up the Atlanta pick and refrain from using the MLE to sign anyone of value (I would think Kerr gets decent value with the Atlanta pick, but I question whether or not he has permission to use the MLE).

all because of a knee jerk reaction to the gasol trade