Quest Club of Arizona

It is interesting that since Suns GM Steve Kerr publicly criticized the team’s big men for their lack of pick-and-roll defense, many fans have been jumping on the bandwagon stating that the Suns need to trade Shaquille O’Neal for a center “who plays defense.” This is absurd.

Shaq has limited lateral mobility because of his size. As a result, he cannot defend the pick-and-roll like a skinnier player such as Kevin Garnett. However, Shaq is a good defender in the post. To suggest that Shaq doesn’t play defense is missing the point. There are very few centers who can defend both the post and the pick-and-roll well. Dwight Howard can. Yao Ming cannot. But I don’t see calls coming out of Houston demanding that Yao be traded for the likes of Ben Wallace or Erick Dampier.

Kerr has decided that he wants to build the Suns defense around defending the pick-and-roll. Never mind the fact that prior to Shaq coming to town, the Suns were so weak at defending the post, that pundits said the Suns will never win a championship unless they find a good post defender.

You know, “Back to the Future” worked for Michael J. Fox, so maybe it will also work for Steve Kerr. And as I mentioned in my last post, I believe Shaq will be traded in the offseason because of it. It would be a big mistake, but nevertheless I see it happening.

So if Shaq will be gone, who else might be? The rest of this post focuses on players who may or may not be back with the Suns next season.

Matt Barnes
(’08-’09 salary: $1,200,000, ’09-’10 salary/status: Free agent)
The one certainty for the Suns this offseason is that majority owner Robert Sarver will not increase payroll. If anything, payroll will be reduced. This puts Barnes in limbo.

Let’s not forget that the emergence of Jared Dudley at small forward and Louis Amundson at power forward have given the Suns depth at the two positions Barnes plays. This leaves Barnes with two options: accept a minimum contract again with the Suns or look for a raise with a different team.

Time will tell which option pans out.

Grant Hill
(’08-’09 salary: $1,976,400, ’09-’10 salary/status: Free agent)
After playing all 82 games in a season for the first time in his career this season, Grant Hill wants to come back for ’09-’10. He would probably be willing to sign for the minimum as he did two seasons ago.

However, there is a caveat. If the Suns dump their best players and replace them with scrubs, rookies, and washed up veterans, then Hill will likely not want to come back. He won’t want to play for a team locked in to reaching the lottery for the second year in a row. (By the way, as mentioned previously, the Suns traded an unprotected 2010 first round pick to the Thunder.)

So Hill’s future with the Suns is really more about the Suns convincing Hill that it will be worthwhile for him to return rather than Hill proving he is still a viable player.

Amare Stoudemire
(’08-’09 salary: $15,070,550, ’09-’10 salary/status: 16,378,325)
Similar to Shaq, Kerr does not see Stoudemire as a prototypical Suns big man. Just who would actually be the future Suns power forward remains to be seen. Somehow, I think it will be difficult to find a player with career averages of 21.1 ppg, 8.9rpg, and 1.5 blocks, while shooting 54 percent from the field.

Who knows, maybe the Suns will win the lottery so they can draft Blake Griffin. Yet, the knock on Griffin is that he doesn’t have an “NBA-ready” defense. Then again, didn’t Kerr claim that Jason Richardson is a good defender? Perception is reality.

I continue to beat the drum of the “Keep Amare” movement. And this also includes keeping Shaq, Steve Nash and coach Alvin Gentry. Nevertheless, I have no doubt that if the right financial deal comes their way, the Suns will not hesitate to trade Stoudemire, just as they will with Shaq.

The lucky break for the Suns (at least in my opinion) is that equitable deals will likely not be offered for Stoudemire. There are two red flags: his season-ending eye injury and his opt-out clause for the ’10-’11 season. Either factor is a risk that the trading team will not have Stoudemire for the long term. Without any good offers, the Suns will be forced to keep STAT for at least one more year. Fate might actually be smiling on the Suns for once.

With these three players’ future with the Suns in limbo, along with two players who won’t be back, the Suns are left with eight keepers. The final article in this three-part series will focus those eight who appear to be set to return with the Suns for next season.

Now that the season is over, we should waste no time in thinking about the future of the Phoenix Suns. After all, the team finished the season on a high note and even with all the uncertainty facing the team in the offseason, there are many positive developments that fans can take away from 2008-09.

First and foremost is that the Suns have found a coach. Alvin Gentry still has the term, “interim” next his title, but the Suns would be foolish not to renew Gentry for the coming season and beyond. He has stabilized the team and the players are responding to his coaching. Furthermore, even with a key injury to Amare Stoudemire, Gentry’s win percentage as Suns head coach (18-13, .581) is better than his predecessor’s (28-23, .549).

The Suns are also fun to watch again. Sure, the run-and-gun offense has its critics, but no one can deny that the last 31 games of the season have been enjoyable even with all the ups and downs.

Finally, for the first time in years, the Suns appear to have an effective bench comprised of young players who have gone through noticeable development. Give credit to Gentry for putting his interim job on the line. He trusted unproven talent that many had given up on. The emergence of Jared Dudley, Goran Dragic, and Robin Lopez is proof of the masterful job Gentry has done in not only giving the new guys meaningful court time but also instilling confidence in his players.

Over a series of three posts, we are going to examine the Suns current roster and predict, or perhaps wish, which players will not be returning, are in limbo, and will definitely return. Today’s article focuses on who will be dropped by the Suns.

“Dropped” is perhaps an inaccurate term. As you will see, it is not as simple as dropping a player when guaranteed contracts are involved.

Stromile Swift
(’08-’09 salary: $380,612, ’09-’10 salary/status: Free agent)
Appearing in 13 games for the Suns, Swift has not shown much to warrant his return for next season. His best game was a 10 point, 12 rebound, 1 blocked shot game in a win over the depleted Washington Wizards. He also had 12 points and 6 rebounds in a blowout loss to Portland. The rest of his appearances offered little excitement. What stands out most to me is that even as a 9-year NBA veteran, Swift is not a fluid offensive player. For a team that routinely puts up 120 points this is a problem especially since Swift is not an in-the-trenches, hustle-play type of player. His best asset is his size. For a team severely lacking in size, the only way Swift can possibly return to the Suns is if Stoudemire cannot come back from his eye injury, or the Suns cannot draft or sign a free agent big man.

Shaquille O’Neal
(’08-’09 salary: $20,000,000, ’09-’10 salary/status: $20,000,000)
As much as I have advocated keeping Shaq, I will concede that he will be gone before the beginning of next season. Even coming off a great revival season, there are two things about Shaq that the Suns front office cannot stand: his huge contract and his lack of mobility on defense. And if there are two common themes that have characterized the Robert Sarver/Steve Kerr era, it is the tunnel-vision quest to cut payroll and the holy grail search for a better defense.

The Suns will shop very hard to trade Shaq. However, it’s his $20M price tag that will make it difficult for the Suns front office to find an offer they can live with. But as the saying goes, desperate people do desperate things. And I don’t see the Suns hesitating very long in lowering their expectations to get a deal done.

So there you have it. Only 2 players out of the current 13 will definitely not be back next season. This is somewhat surprising given the amount of personnel changes the Suns have made recently. For a team that for so long talked about being committed to “keeping its core intact” the Suns have had considerable turnover.

When you think of names like Joe Johnson, Shawn Marion, Raja Bell, and Boris Diaw you probably believe they are core players, and yet they are all gone. And when you add to this list the departed role players who made an impact such as Quentin Richardson, Eddie House, James Jones, Kurt Thomas, and Tim Thomas, you come to realize that the Suns have constantly been in transition even when they were averaging 58 wins from 2004 to 2008.

I am not advocating that the Suns should have kept anyone specific from the above list of players. But what is obvious is that there is a pattern of the Suns making annual major roster changes. This pattern must be broken for the Suns to establish stability and focus on getting better as a team.

The next article in this three-part series will focus on players who equally may or may not be back with the Suns next season.

Regardless of whether or not the Dallas Mavericks really want to trade for Shaq, the latest rumors of where The Diesel will end up for the last year of his $20M per year contract makes sense.

Shaq admires the way Mark Cuban runs the Mavs. And in the West, any team that is not named “Lakers” is a pretender, not a contender. If Jason Kidd returns to the Mavs as a free agent with a much reduced salary, and if Josh Howard can stop being a flake, Dallas could lay claim to being the second best in the West for 2009-10.

Now to what really matters to readers of this blog. How do the Suns benefit? As you all know, I am against the Suns getting rid of any of their Big 3 (Shaq, Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire). Nevertheless, the reality is that Suns majority owner Robert Saver is simply going to inflict his will into making a trade happen for either Shaq or Stoudemire or both.

Of the two, Shaq has the most trade value. Believe it or not, he’s actually less of a health risk than Stoudemire. And productive centers are much harder to come by. Most importantly to Sarver, trading Shaq will save the Suns the most money.

The most logical Suns-Mavs deal is Shaq for “Ericka” Dampier and Jerry Stackhouse. The Suns will immediately save $2.6M in salaries for 2009-10. Then Stackhouse is only guaranteed $2M for next season, so the Suns can buy out his contract and save another $5.25M. The end result is a $7.85M cut in payroll plus any potential luxury tax savings. There may not be any other trade available to the Suns that will save as much money as this trade would.

From a basketball perspective, Dampier is not the kind of player to get the fans excited. However, given the lack of size on the Suns roster, anyone over 6-9 would be a welcome addition to at least offer a few minutes of defense per game. And the driving force behind all this trade talk is that Sarver will not let a basketball decision get in the way of his ultimate goal of saving money by any means necessary.