Initial reaction to the Shaq trade: it sucks. I'm going to hold off on sending Kerr to the executioner for the following reasons:
1 - Blame D'Antoni. D'Antoni's philosophy left us w/ no future, but Sarver and Kerr truly deserve some of the blame here, for not standing up to D'Antoni's "who needs tomorrow" approach. D'Antoni screwed the future to get his 60-win seasons. Those of us who are committed to the Suns long-term saw the day of reckoning coming where we would have to re-build, without the benefit of 4 years' worth of 1st-rounders (almost as bad as Minny's Joe Smith blunder).
2 - Terrible timing. The Shaq to CLE trade appears to signal a comprehensive re-build. The problem is that it comes at a time when the draft-able talent has so many question-marks. The FO must give pause to trading for a high pick this year, because the 20 or so guys after #1 are lumped into a category where the risk and reward is very similar for each of those 20 guys.
3 - No first-rounder next year. If we trade our veteran assets to get younger and get future draft picks, we're up a creek since the only bonus of having a crappy season is the high pick the following year. I hope we can deal w/ OKC to get our pick back. Think back to the year we used the #9 selection to get Amare. We had dealt our pick to Orlando, and then we got it back from them right before we dumped Rodney Rogers and Tony Delk to Celtics for Joe Johnson and change in a mini-re-build.
4 - Big picture. If this really is a comprehensive re-build, then this is just the beginning. Shaq probably is just a one-year rental for the Cavs anyway. I'll miss Shaq more for the entertainment value (and the fact that he and Raja are the only guys in the NBA that don't kiss-up to Kobe) than I will for anything he did on the court (i.e. just one playoff victory; missed the playoffs the following year). On both ends of the court, he's a terrible fit w/ Steve Nash.
Kerr gets a pass from me for now, considering that D'Antoni left him w/ a really lousy situation. In my opinion, Kerr's reckoning day will come after we see what he does w/ Amare and Nash.
Reserving judgment
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Reserving judgment
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- Ballboy
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Re: Reserving judgment
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- Senior
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Re: Reserving judgment
Did you read Shaq's twitter during the finals? he did some major kobe @$$ kissing 

