Amare?

[Rip2137]

I still just think of how they could have had KG, Marion, Hill, Bell, Nash and would have had two guys in the front court giving you around 25 rebounds a game, two of the better defenders in the league, KG is a better midrange shooter and passer which would have helped their offense. Then I cry a little bit.

And Josh, i dont understand that logic. The Spurs showed they were the better team by being 15 down to the suns without their leading rebounding, shotblocker and scorer in the series and his backup? I am not saying the suns showed they were better either, it was probably emotions leading to that 15 point lead, but if anything that showed the parity between the two teams.

And Besides KG, there really isn't anyone in the league I say trade Amare for. I mean, that you could realistically get. Like Dwight Howard, sure, but you would have to kidnap and threaten Otis Smith's family to get that deal done, and people, its just not that serious. Its just basketball.

Conley- Marion can create his own shot. He just doens't in this offense. Marion has a point guards first step and plays the PF position. When the Suns traded Marbury and Penny for..well..nothing, he was able to display it and was really scoring at will against other bigs. He still hasn't lost that step either.

He would be as effecient one on one offensively as Smith, but his superiour defense and rebounding along with that shooting ability would more than offset it...for about 1 year. Thats when a motivated Smith, angered by the trade averages 25 points, 10 reboundss 4 blocks 3 steals and 5 assist and everyone calls the Hawks stupid.

Age wise, you don't make that trade, but if you can't resign Smith, you couldn't do much better than marion.

[Harry10]

Harry... Amare is a monster in the playoffs though. When the game slows down you need a player who can create his own shot and Amare has been their best offensive player by far when it counts. Okafor and Marion can't create their own shot which would really hurt them come playoff time. They need a two way big man and they really screwed up by not doing that 3 way trade to land KG.

no.... in the playoffs... you need Defense.

[HoopsGuru25]

He would be as effecient one on one offensively as Smith,

Josh Smith is not a good one on one player so that is not a good thing. Both Marion and Smith are both quick but both have weak handles(for their size) and Smith's jumpshot is worse than Marions. I like Marion and I really like Josh but if are depending on either one to be your best offensive player...your team will probably be garbage.

[Rip2137]

You need to be able to score even more. All this talk about how the Suns couldn't play defense and thats why they lost to the SPurs, look at the numbers. The spurs aren't playing any better defense on the Suns in their matchups either. The first playoff matchup, the Spurs were just better. Even if Joes face hadn't been broken, they still would have beaten the suns, only in 6 instead of 5.

If you can't score and can only play D, you have to Knick it up out there and run 24 seconds off the shot clock on every possession. But at the end of the day, scorers are going to score baskets. if you can't do that with them, then you are giong to lose and I don't give a crap how good your defense is.

the NBA has changed enough rules where defense is almost not allowed anymore....except with Bruce Bowen who is still allowed to hand check for some reason.

[Rip2137]

He would be as effecient one on one offensively as Smith,

Josh Smith is not a good one on one player so that is not a good thing. Both Marion and Smith are both quick but both have weak handles(for their size) and Smith's jumpshot is worse than Marions. I like Marion and I really like Josh but if are depending on either one to be your best offensive player...your team will probably be garbage.

And neither team would.

[JoshB914]

All I'm saying Rip is everyone wants to say the series was "tainted." The reality was that the NBA did to Amare and Diaw exactly what they have done to everyone guilty of violating that rule. And the Suns only have themselves to blame for blowing a huge 2nd half lead at home.

Of course it changed the series, but it's not fair to say that Phx got screwed or was actually the better team. They may meet again this season and we will see.

I'm pulling for PHX-NO in the 2nd round and Nash vs. Paul. That could be one of the best series' ever.

[conleyorbust]

He would be as effecient one on one offensively as Smith,

Josh Smith is not a good one on one player so that is not a good thing. Both Marion and Smith are both quick but both have weak handles(for their size) and Smith's jumpshot is worse than Marions. I like Marion and I really like Josh but if are depending on either one to be your best offensive player...your team will probably be garbage.

Because our offense is the way it is, Smith gets most of his points one on one. He is actually very good at it - he generally blows by his perimeter defender. He could be better for sure but he gets 7 FTA a game which is hard to do if you aren't a good one on one player.

[Harry10]

You need to be able to score even more. All this talk about how the Suns couldn't play defense and thats why they lost to the SPurs, look at the numbers. The spurs aren't playing any better defense on the Suns in their matchups either. The first playoff matchup, the Spurs were just better. Even if Joes face hadn't been broken, they still would have beaten the suns, only in 6 instead of 5.

If you can't score and can only play D, you have to Knick it up out there and run 24 seconds off the shot clock on every possession. But at the end of the day, scorers are going to score baskets. if you can't do that with them, then you are giong to lose and I don't give a crap how good your defense is.

the NBA has changed enough rules where defense is almost not allowed anymore....except with Bruce Bowen who is still allowed to hand check for some reason.

look at the last +20 NBA champions, and tell me if their defense was good or bad?

look at the suns now or the last couple of years, and would you classify their defense as good???

[HoopsGuru25]

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no.... in the playoffs... you need Defense.

The most important thing in the playoffs is stars not defense. If that was the case then Denver should be working on a Carmelo for Bruce Bowen trade. Ideally you want a big who can play good defense and create his own shot on offense(like KG)but I don't see many of them available. Trading Amare for Okafor would make the team worse especially during crunch time because Duncan would still clown Okafor when he tried to guard himand he would get to rest on defense against Okafor. Amare and Duncan pretty match match buckets whenever they play which not a lot of other big men can say.

[JoshB914]

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look at the last +20 NBA champions, and tell me if their defense was good or bad?

look at the suns now or the last couple of years, and would you classify their defense as good???

Yup. And they could have changed that drastically if they had traded for KG. They completely screwed up.

[conleyorbust]

All I'm saying Rip is everyone wants to say the series was "tainted." The reality was that the NBA did to Amare and Diaw exactly what they have done to everyone guilty of violating that rule. And the Suns only have themselves to blame for blowing a huge 2nd half lead at home.

Of course it changed the series, but it's not fair to say that Phx got screwed or was actually the better team. They may meet again this season and we will see.

I'm pulling for PHX-NO in the 2nd round and Nash vs. Paul. That could be one of the best series' ever.

Whether or not the you think the series was tainted, it definitely changed the series. It doesn't mean the were the "better" team, but it does mean they could have done better, no? As far as losing the lead, again its tough to play at the intensity they were playing at (incredibly high) in a second round playoff series against a good team when you don't have your second best player and a heavily used backup.

... and none of that has anything to do with the fishy officiating in the previous game.

And I was pulling for SA!

[HoopsGuru25]

look at the last +20 NBA champions, and tell me if their defense was good or bad?

If you look at the last 20 NBA champions...the majority of them had multiple hall of fame players. Trading a future HOF player(who appears to be on his way)for a worse player would not increase their chances to win a title unless they got another HOF player who played good D. Trading Amare for KG makes sense..trading him for some one like Okafor or Camby doesn't.

[conleyorbust]

look at the last +20 NBA champions, and tell me if their defense was good or bad?

If you look at the last 20 NBA champions...the majority of them had multiple hall of fame players. Trading a future HOF player(who appears to be on his way)for a worse player would not increase their chances to win a title unless they got another HOF player who played good D. Trading Amare for KG makes sense..trading him for some one like Okafor or Camby doesn't.

Word, KG would have been a great fit there as an athletic big man. Oka? Not so much because you lose that great PnR weapon you can run with Amare.

[Rip2137]

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look at the last +20 NBA champions, and tell me if their defense was good or bad?

look at the suns now or the last couple of years, and would you classify their defense as good???

Suns the last 2 years (not counting this one) had one of the more underrated defenses in the NBA. Especially last year. Yes, their defense last year was good. The year before it was average-good.

[JoshB914]

I'm not saying the series was different. All I'm saying was that SA won the series for the same reason that they would have won even with Amare playing- they couldn't stop Duncan/Parker.

[NDaATL]

The Hawks would get better defensively,

Smith is one of the best help defenders in the entire NBA. That is one of the reasons teams struggle to score on us this year, if you notice when Smith sits down, teams just "naturally" start scoring in the paint. Smith's 3 blocks per game is not the only thing he is good for on defense, it's his presence. It's so obvious how players just backout of the lane and won't go up for a shot when Smith is nearby.

better on the boards

I disagree, when you play on the fastest paced team in the entire NBA there are alot more rebounds to go around. Marion is a slightly better rebounder, nothing more.

Marion is a better off the ball offensive player.

I'd LOVE to see what Smith could do with Nash feeding him the ball and if he had a presence like Amare inside on his team.

Josh should be striving to be as good as Shawn Marion one day.

Josh is almost there and is 8 years younger.

We are talking about a guy that just two years ago had a 5-6 game streak of 30 points and 15 rebounds. If Josh did that once every two weeks we would be happy.

Bob Sura had three straight triple doubles, accomplishments like those are nice at the time but they don't define a player's career.

Alot of Marions points come from midrange shots. Not exactly Joshs fortay.

LOL. Marion can only shoot when wide open, and no, he doesn't have a midrange game. Marion is a better 3pt shooter than he is a midrange one, just look at his hotzones for the entire 06-07 season. Marion made a grand total of 19 shots from about 13 feet out to the 3pt line in the ENTIRE season. That's one in every 5 games. He shoots around 25% on those shots.

Don't get me wrong, Josh woudl be great in phoenix, but I think you are underrating Marion a little there. All atlanta would lose is some shotblocking.

I'm not underrating Marion, he's a great player, but he's not better for this team at all. A Marion/Horford frontcourt would be smaller than our already small frontcourt, no thanks.