Grant Amar'e his Wish

[greensborohill]

Everybody thought Dirk was soft and could do nothing but being on Nash's tail for uncontested jumpers. Yet, he became a franchise player of sort after separation from Nash and MVP himself two years later.

By all account, Amare is not less talented than Dirk. Trading him for some unknown parts will almost surely make Suns the Bullls after MJ and at best the Blazers, i.e. we need 10 years at least to get relevant again assuming that Kerr and co. were as good at talent evaluation as the Blazers. So, instead of getting 10 cents for the dollar on Amare, it'd be a good strategy to "grant his wish" and take a year to see what he could do as the alpha dog for the first time in his career, before diving into the odyssee of 10 years of Bulls, Clippers status.

The more I think about it, shipping Nash to Blazers for Batum/Blake/filler would be optimal. If we could convince Nets of a RobinLopez/Blake for Dooling/Boone/Williams trade, plus bringing Hill back for 3 mil a year, even without further moves we'd have a competitive roster.

Shaq/Amare/Hill/JRich/Dooling starting with bench of

Boone/Lou/Williams/Dudley/Batum/LB/Dragic/#14

The differences between Dirk and Amare is work ethic and selflessness. Amare needs to work on those 3 things to even think of being the focal point of a team. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to want to. That's why Dirk is a sure-fire HoFer and Amare is still searching for his own basketball identity.

But I do agree with Amare having more God given talent. . .. . no doubt about that.

 

[greensborohill]

Look at http://www.nba.com/playerfile/dirk_nowitzki/career_stats.html and see if you find an obvious jump in Nowitzki's stats when Nash left. It's not there; basically all he did was bounce back from an off year. And Nowitzki has always been a solid rebounder, better than Stoudemire.

As for the Nowitzki/Nash Mavericks, they made it out of the first round three times and were in the conference finals in '02-'03. Stoudemire, by comparison, has made it out of the first round only twice. What happened in the summer of 2004 was that Cuban panicked in reaction to a down year and decided he needed to get tougher defensively, thus the decision to let Nash go and spend the money on Dampier. Nowitzki is the same player he was before and the Mavericks lost their identity, similar to what happened when the Suns traded Marion for O'Neal.

That wasn't an off-year as much as it was Walker & Jamison taking shots away from Nash, Dirk, & Fin

 

[elindholm]

That wasn't an off-year as much as it was Walker & Jamison taking shots away from Nash, Dirk, & Fin

Whatever. My point is that the whole legend about Nowitzki elevating his game after Nash's departure is a myth. He was very good before and he's very good now.

 

[Mainstreet]

Whatever. My point is that the whole legend about Nowitzki elevating his game after Nash's departure is a myth. He was very good before and he's very good now.

The same with Nash.

 

[elindholm]

The same with Nash.

That's less clear. Nash's shooting percentages went through the roof once he came back to Phoenix. They were already very high for a PG, but both overall FG% and 3FG% went up a couple of percentage points to take him to historic levels. His assist numbers soared as well. I'm sure he was literally, in some sense, "the same player," but he did experience a clear statistical jump after the split with Nowitzki.

 

[Blackification]

Misused? Amare was the main man under D'Antoni and had plenty of opportunity to prove himself. Hardly misused. Amare was still a primary option on this offense (especially when Shaq was on the bench).

Scapegoat? Amare said before the season he wants to be the man. He then followed up those statements with eradic play.

Doing a good job means playing on both ends which Amare has not done since the start of his career.

Amare still led the team in touches with the basketball. When is the last time a role player did that?

I was talking about Porter and this season.

 

[greensborohill]

Whatever. My point is that the whole legend about Nowitzki elevating his game after Nash's departure is a myth. He was very good before and he's very good now.

I agree, Nash never made him anything that he wasn't already.

 

[elindholm]

I agree, Nash never made him anything that he wasn't already.

Well, they clearly made each other much better through their Dallas friendship -- it inspired both of them to work harder. But I guess you don't want to acknowledge that. The bitterness you Mavericks fans have toward Nash is really hilarious.

 

[Covert Rain]

I was talking about Porter and this season.

Partially so was I. Amare still touched the ball the most, got plenty of opportunity to run the ball through him. Amare is the one that talked about being the man only to follow it up with eradic play.

 

[cly2tw]

Partially so was I. Amare still touched the ball the most, got plenty of opportunity to run the ball through him. Amare is the one that talked about being the man only to follow it up with eradic play.

What games did you watch? Amare on highpost passed the ball great and made great decisions all season long. He didn't do as well on lowpost, but people's memory was most biased by his failure against Duncan in the closing minutes in one particular game. And what do mean by touches anyway? Shot attempts? But that is not what Amare was talking about. Nash dominated ball the most and Shaq was the 2nd option to make offensive decisions. You don't get this just by reading stats sheets.

 

[Blackification]

Partially so was I. Amare still touched the ball the most, got plenty of opportunity to run the ball through him. Amare is the one that talked about being the man only to follow it up with eradic play.

He touched the ball before passing it to shaq unless he was wide open for a jumper or shaq wasn't in the game at the time.

 

[YouJustGotSUNSD]

Yeah he had way too many jumpshots under porter. Pissed me off every game.

 

[Covert Rain]

He called Amare a role player. I don't care how often you touch the ball and if the end result is passing or shooting. No role player touches the ball that much. That was the point. It's pure crap. Amare finished slightly above his career average in PPG as well. Since when does a role player average 21.4 PPG? Amare has only averaged more points twice in his career.

Sorry FAIL. Amare was a go to guy.

Also, I don't know what games you were watching but there was a stretch of games where Porter said he was going to run the ball more through Amare and Amare responded with a ton of turnovers, crappy shooting games and was dissappearing on the other end.

AGAIN....we already know what it is like to have Amare as our go to guy and how bad this team was defensively when Amare was our primary big. Either way it's a big fail.

 

[nashman]

^Correct Steel, Amare = Fail if he can be moved ship his ass out!!!

 

[shazaam6]

Bashman have you checked the Retool around Nash poll? Doesn't look too good.

 

[SirStefan32]

AGAIN....we already know what it is like to have Amare as our go to guy and how bad this team was defensively when Amare was our primary big. Either way it's a big fail.

Exactly!

 

[nashman]

Bashman have you checked the Retool around Nash poll? Doesn't look too good.

Well then I guess its a good thing a bunch of fans who think they know it all don't run the franchise huh? I'd rather have an older Nash running a team than Amar'me any day! Veteren leaders are very important and as Shaq may not be around or Grant who exactly would our veterans be? Amare....screw that he is not a leader, other players will not follow him. Thank goodness Kerr knows better than to blow this team up and be terrible for years to come.