Suns Lose, Dream Dies / Time to Trade Steve Nash / Basketball Musings

Tuesday was a dark day for basketball lovers. The Spurs, despite an off game from Manu Ginobili*, finished off the Suns’ season with a 92-87 victory. This means more than that the Shaq trade was a mistake (which we already knew). It means that the dream that was the Steve Nash Suns is likely over.

*Who else is digging the Manu/Nash commercials with Radiohead’s “House of Cards”?

Probably they weren’t good enough to win a championship before the Shaq trade, but I’m certain they’re not good enough afterward, now also stuck with Shaq’s albatross of a contract for two more years. The Lakers are going to (scarily) be even better next year with a full season of Bynum and Gasol. The Blazers will make it ten teams good enough to be the four seed in the East. The Hornets, Jazz, Rockets, Nuggets aren’t going anywhere. The Mavs and Spurs will be back for at least one more year, and the Warriors will be dangerous even with the possibility of losing Baron Davis. And unless Amare Stoudemire turns into a defensive force, there’s no reason to expect the Suns to get anything but worse.

It really is sad. The Suns were the most entertaining team I’ve ever seen and a team that, with a couple of breaks going the other way, could easily have won a title by now, which would have kept Kerr from making the knee-jerk Shaq trade. Now, I can’t shake the feeling that their window with Nash has closed.

If Kerr really wants to show how bold he is, he needs to realize that this team can’t win the West next year, and Nash only has a few more years of value left. He needs to do the boldest thing possible—trade Steve Nash.

The list of teams that would be interested in the third or fourth best point guard in the NBA and has a decent number of young assets is surprisingly short. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Trade 1: Blazers acquire Steve Nash, Raja Bell. Suns acquire Sergio Rodriguez, Travis Outlaw, Josh McRoberts, Steve Blake, Joel Pryzbilla, the draft rights to Rudy Fernandez, Blazer’s lottery pick.


Why the Suns do it:
They acquire four cheap young guys in Rodriguez, Fernandez, Outlaw and the lottery pick (DeAndre Jordan? Darell Arthur?) that are perfect fits for their system. Rodriguez and Fernandez look like they could be studs, particularly in Suns uniforms, Outlaw’s an athletic scorer that would thrive in an up-and-down offense, and Pryzbilla would provide good depth at both frontcourt spots. They build around a core of Stoudemire, Barbosa, Diaw, Fernandez, Rodriguez, Outlaw, Frye, the lottery pick and their own late first-rounder. In a couple of years, especially if one of the non-Stoudemire guys turns into a superstar (I’m guessing Diaw or Fernandez), that could be a pretty dominant team. At the very least, they’d be a crazily deep team that could run all day.

Why the Blazers do it:
Kevin Pritchard is one of the ballsiest, most proactive GMs around, and he already spent the last trade deadline trying to move some of his smaller pieces for a young point guard he could build around, specifically Devin Harris before he was shipped to Jersey in that terrible Kidd trade. Nash, of course, isn’t young, but he’s still a top five point guard in the association. The upgrade from Jarett Jack/Steve Blake to Nash would be huge. This is what their roster would look like:

1: Nash (Jack, Roy in a pinch)
2: Roy (Martell Webster)
3: Bell (Webster, a resigned James Jones/someone else)
4: Aldridge (Frye)
5: Greg Oden (LaFrentz, Frye)

That’s a damn good team, with a two or three year window to win a title with Steve at the point, and a bigger one with someone else. Nash’s decline should coincide nicely with the rise of Aldridge and Oden (I think Roy already about as good as he’s going to get), keeping them at a steady level of play. They’d have no superstars until/if Oden becomes one, but they would have four borderline All-Stars in Nash, Roy, Aldridge and Oden, a couple of fantastic role players in Roy and Frye, and a few other useful pieces with upside in Jack and Webster. Combine that with Paul Allen’s willingness to buy first round picks all over the place and the bevy of first-rounders they already own the rights to in Europe, and they should be extremely deep and consistent. The Pistons have shown that you can win by being well above average at every spot and not superlative at any.

Is this a team that can beat the Lakers? I wouldn’t bet on it, but then again, I wouldn’t bet on anyone in the west beating LA next year, and Portland would at least have a chance. They could keep waiting around for their young players to make the leap, and maybe that’s the right move, but the Bulls have shown us that waiting around for the perfect deal to come around can leave you in the lurch with nothing to show for it.

Speaking of the Bulls….

Trade 2: Bulls acquire Steve Nash, Raja Bell. Suns acquire Tyrus Thomas, Joakim Noah, Larry Hughes, Bulls’ lottery pick.

Why the Suns do it:
They’re essentially getting three lottery picks that are great fits for their system in Thomas, Noah and, well, the lottery pick. That’s a nice way to start over. The core becomes Stoudemire, Diaw, Barbosa, Thomas, Noah, lottery pick (Mayo? Bayless? Ty Lawson?), and their late first rounder (Robin Lopez?). That’s a damn good base to start from. They’d have to take Hughes’ terrible contract, but he might actually be useful again on an up-and-down team.

Unless they take a true 1 like Lawson with the draft pick, they’d probably have to start running the offense through Diaw, which might actually be a good thing based on the way he played in San Antonio. I really think he’s ready to be an All-Star at the 3, where he’s just as fast as everyone else and a solid shooter but can abuse other 3s on the block and is also a great passer. How amazing was that where he drew like 8 straight fouls on the Spurs in the 3rd quarter?

Let’s say they take Bayless and Lopez, and let’s leave Shaq off, who won’t contribute whenever they do win a title:

1: Bayless (D.J. Strawberry/random dude)
2: Hughes (Barbosa)
3: Diaw (a resigned Gordan Giricek (?), Thomas, Hughes)
4: Stoudemire (Thomas, Lopez)
5: Noah (Lopez)

The key to this deal for me is not Thomas, who has the upside of another Amare, but Noah, who’d give them an athletic, energetic big that plays good defense and rebounds. That’s what they need next to Stoudemire more than anything else and what they were missing all year after giving away Kurt Thomas*.

*Damn you, Robert Sarver!

Why the Bulls do it:
Well, they’ve got to do something, don’t they? This leaves them with a ridiculously well-paid back-up point in Hinrich*, but he’s not good enough to start for a good team unless he really turns things around. Also, if they want to re-sign Ben Gordon, they’d have a very tough time defending anyone with a backcourt of Nash and Gordon.

Still, this is a deal they have to make isn’t it? Maybe they can sign-and-trade Gordon for another solid big, or use him as a Barbosa-like 6th man, as they did early in his career. A team with a core of Nash, Bell, Deng, Nocioni, Gooden and Gordon/someone else probably isn’t quite good enough to win a title, but it’s a chance John Paxson probably has to take after last season’s debacle.

***

The white elephant in both of these deals is Shaq, of course. He and his $20 MM/yr contract would essentially become useless to them because all he would do is take playing time away from their young guys. That’s a sacrifice Kerr has to be willing to make though. Shaq was a mistake and is a sunk cost, and one of the signs of a good manager is acknowledging mistakes and moving on. Plus, hey, in a year he’ll be a ridiculous expiring contract, so if another Chris Wallace wants to give away another Pau Gasol, they’ll be at the top of the list.

Other musings:

• Can someone tell these goddamned super-athletic guards to take the damn ball to the hole? I know Iguodala is being guarded well, but how can he possibly think it’s a good idea to take fade-away, off-the-dribble jump shots?

• Ditto LeBron, actually. Even as good as he’s been, he settles for the jumper way too often. He does have a pretty good excuse in that his teammates, for lack of a better word, suck. I can’t wait ‘til he signs with the Brooklyn Nets in 2010.

• Ditto Josh Howard*. My God, did he suck in that series. I understand he’s not being guarded on the outside, but there’s a very good reason: he’s lucky to hit the freaking rim from there right now.
  
  *Of course it was stupid of Howard to admit he smokes pot in the offseason during a playoff series, but all these commentators acting like this is some kind of travesty or that it’s a surprise are blowhards. Most NBA players are young, rich people who never had to learn to be mature adults. You’re surprised they smoke weed? Just be thankful if that’s the worst thing they do.

• Ditto especially Tracy McGrady. I didn’t see game 5 because of my NBA TV lacking, but game 4 was painful. I’ve been a McGrady apologist for as long as I can remember, and I still love him, so I was happy when everyone got off his back after game 3, but, man, even that wasn’t particularly good. All he did was hit three shots in the 4th. The thing is, when he takes the ball to the basket, he gets a good shot every time or gets fouled. But instead he does his take a dribble and rise up routine, which he make about 40% of the time. Why, why, why? Now, if the problem is his knee, then I take it back, but my recollection is that this basically how he’s always done it.

• I love Jannero Pargo. The man is ridiculous, he just doesn’t miss. He does what I was just bitching about McGrady doing, except he makes it. All the time. Or at least that’s how it seems when he’s hot. He could take a step-back half-court shot, and I’d fully expect it to go in.

• I used to feel like that about Steve Nash too. If he missed a jump shot, I’d be shocked. The last few games though, he was just off. It was a sad way to go out.

• David West is good. Really, really good. Paul gets all the credit for that team, and probably rightfully so, but West just doesn’t miss a 17-foot jumper, and he destroyed everyone last night one on one.

• The Mavs are screwed. The Kidd trade always looked like a bad, bad idea, and now that their season has petered out, they really have nowhere to go, lacking the assets to really go for it or to start over. And Kidd is just about cooked. I feel bad for Dirk because he plays with so much passion and wants it so badly.

• I love Josh Smith, even as I root for the Celtics to make the finals. I hope he learns to shoot jumpers because if he does, he’ll be a superstar.