It's more or less happening as I was told

[Joe Mama]

The Gasol trade was just BS all the way. It shocked everybody because it was clear that the grizzlies did not do their due diligence in trying to get the best offer for him. Hell, it was done in months before the trade deadline. Yes, Marc Gasol has turned out to be a very nice player from Memphis, but at the time he was viewed almost entirely as a throw in. The morning after that trade went down there were several furious front office people saying that they would have definitely offered something better for Gasol, but they didn't even know the grizzlies were ready to move him at that time. Lakers fans will argue that it was a decent deal, but even if it has turned out okay for the grizzlies that's not really the point. They didn't even try to do better than what looked like a pure giveaway at the time.

I guarantee there isn't an NBA person out there who believes this was a "legitimate" deal.

And if the Phoenix Suns had not traded away Kurt Thomas like they did this summer before they could have put together a better package for Gasol.

Joe

 

[ASUCHRIS]

Yes, Marc Gasol has turned out to be a very nice player from Memphis, but at the time he was viewed almost entirely as a throw in.

Exactly. He was so highly regarded that he was a mid 2nd round pick. Javaris Critendon and Kwame Brown for Gasol was an outrageous trade and a borderline conspiracy. With Jerry West as president of the Grizzlies at the time, it's hard to argue that foul play wasn't involved.

Gasol has transformed the Lakers from an also ran in the west into a multi time champion, and Kobe from a selfish malcontent to an upper crust NBA legend. Just disgusting.

 

[SunsTzu]

Exactly. He was so highly regarded that he was a mid 2nd round pick. Javaris Critendon and Kwame Brown for Gasol was an outrageous trade and a borderline conspiracy. With Jerry West as president of the Grizzlies at the time, it's hard to argue that foul play wasn't involved.

Gasol has transformed the Lakers from an also ran in the west into a multi time champion, and Kobe from a selfish malcontent to an upper crust NBA legend. Just disgusting.

Do you honestly think the Gasol trade was much worse than when the Suns traded Marbury to the Knicks? Both were borderline All-Stars that were traded for cap reasons.

And Marc Gasol may have been a mid 2nd round pick but he was having a break out year when he was traded,

I agree the Suns likely could have put a more appealing package together had they kept KT. Yet a title push didn't appear to be their primary focus since they gave him away with 2 1st round picks.

 

[AzStevenCal]

Exactly. He was so highly regarded that he was a mid 2nd round pick. Javaris Critendon and Kwame Brown for Gasol was an outrageous trade and a borderline conspiracy. With Jerry West as president of the Grizzlies at the time, it's hard to argue that foul play wasn't involved.

Gasol has transformed the Lakers from an also ran in the west into a multi time champion, and Kobe from a selfish malcontent to an upper crust NBA legend. Just disgusting.

I think Jerry had already stepped down by the time this deal went down but I agree with the overall sentiment of your post. There are Lakers fans who will tell you West had nothing to do with this trade but they're pretty easy to ignore.

Steve

 

[AzStevenCal]

Do you honestly think the Gasol trade was much worse than when the Suns traded Marbury to the Knicks? Both were borderline All-Stars that were traded for cap reasons.

And Marc Gasol may have been a mid 2nd round pick but he was having a break out year when he was traded

There was a big difference. We shopped Marbury and took the best offer but for all intents and purposes the Gasol deal occurred behind everyone's back.

And you need to check your information on Marc Gasol. He was NOT having a break out year when he was traded, at least not in the NBA.

Steve

 

[ASUCHRIS]

There was a big difference. We shopped Marbury and took the best offer but for all intents and purposes the Gasol deal occurred behind everyone's back.

And you need to check your information on Marc Gasol. He was NOT having a break out year when he was traded, at least not in the NBA.

Steve

This. The deals are hardly comparable from any standpoint. The Marbury trade was motivated by cap savings and clearly worked, as we were able to add one of the greatest, if not the greatest FA in Suns history in Nash.

More about the BS Gasol deal:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-heisleygasol060308

"Still, it hasn’t stopped a rampant anger around the league that this wasn’t so much of a trade, as much as it was the word that Bryant himself used: a “donation.” Privately, the Lakers were thrilled that they were able to keep negotiations with the Grizzlies quiet because Los Angeles officials were blown away that they could get Gasol for so little."

 

[SunsTzu]

And you need to check your information on Marc Gasol. He was NOT having a break out year when he was traded, at least not in the NBA.

Steve

He was in the middle of a season where he was named MVP of the 2nd best league in the world. How is that not breaking out? He easily would've been a high lottery pick had he entered the draft after that year. So to say he had no value because of being picked in the 2nd round is disingenuous.

I think a lot of the anger the trade received had more to do with teams having sour grapes that it made the Lakers contenders.

 

[AzStevenCal]

He was in the middle of a season where he was named MVP of the 2nd best league in the world. How is that not breaking out? He easily would've been a high lottery pick had he entered the draft after that year. So to say he had no value because of being picked in the 2nd round is disingenuous.

I think a lot of the anger the trade received had more to do with teams having sour grapes that it made the Lakers contenders.

No, the anger was over the fact that nobody knew he was on the trading block. There had been inquiries earlier that were rebuffed and then out of the blue this trade gets announced. It took the entire league by surprise and I've never heard of that happening before. West still had ties to the Grizzlies and obviously to the Lakers and on the surface it appears that this was an underhanded deal.

Add in the fact that there was a significant difference in talent involved in the exchange and it becomes clear why league coaches and GM's railed about the deal. And again, I can't ever remember that happening before either. We'll probably never know what actually transpired here but it appears to be a shady deal.

Steve

 

[chickenhead]

Well, it's definitely sour grapes, but there is some validity to it. I never thought it was a conspiracy, but rather the weird hypnosis that teams like the Lakers and Yankees seem to have on lesser teams--and the kind of move that often has the tacit blessing if not encouragement of a league that loves its cash cows.

 

[ASUCHRIS]

I think a lot of the anger the trade received had more to do with teams having sour grapes that it made the Lakers contenders.

Read the article above. This isn't monday morning qb'ing or sour grapes. The trade was a joke at the time, and the Grizzlies clearly didn't go out and get the best deal. Hell, the Grizz front office/owner even admits it! As mentioned before, by all accounts, Marc was considered a throw in at the time and has surprisingly turned into a half decent player. I don't know why you can't grasp this.

 

[elindholm]

The other critical point that apparently some people are forgetting is that the Suns dumped Hardaway in the same trade. Marbury's contract was enormous and went on forever, and Hardaway was on a max deal and could hardly play. The entire value of the package was zero or negative. That's completely different from trading an All-Star in his prime, by himself, on a fair-value contract.

 

[Gaddabout]

Shaq/Amare were never going to work together because Shaq took up too much space in the low block for Amare to operate. It was similar to the bad basketball decisions Houston made when they acquired Barkley to work with Hakeem in the low post. That's two guys on the block who need the ball a lot to be effective. It means you start every offensive set with weak floor spacing.

What was even more mystifying about the Shaq trade is the Suns wanted to get better defensively, but Shaq had long lost his game-changing low-post defense and has always been dreadful on the pick-and-roll defense. With him and Nash defending the p&r, it was just comical to watch. They were helpless.

 

[ASUCHRIS]

Interesting remarks by Bob Young about the turnover in the front office. Another hallmark of the stability of the organization.

"The dearly departed

When Steve Kerr and David Griffin recently left the Suns basketball operation, their names were added to a long list of front-office types who ranked at least as vice-presidents in various departments who have left the Suns family in recent years including:

Bryan Colangelo, Rex Chapman, Ray Artigue, Debra Stevens, Jim Brewer, Rob Harris, Paige Peterson, John Walker and Drew Cloud.

Also, Tom Ambrose, Cathy Moses and Bob Nanberg.

And the club's General Counsel Tom O'Malley, Mercury owners Kathy Munro and Anne Mariucci and Mercury President Seth Sulka are gone.

Even a former ownership partner, Dale Jensen, severed ties - and evidently didn't even keep his seats.

Some left of their own accord. Others, not so much. Either way, that's a lot of turnover.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/sports/heatindex/articles/2010/07/04/20100704amare-stoudemire-may-miss-phoenix-suns-young.html#ixzz0spZ5S5AX"

 

[elindholm]

Shaq/Amare were never going to work together because Shaq took up too much space in the low block for Amare to operate.

So should the Suns bring O'Neal back now?

 

[Gaddabout]

So should the Suns bring O'Neal back now?

Only if he's going to wear the Gorilla suit.

I take that back. He doesn't have the mobility.

 

[Gaddabout]

Interesting remarks by Bob Young about the turnover in the front office. Another hallmark of the stability of the organization.

"The dearly departed

When Steve Kerr and David Griffin recently left the Suns basketball operation, their names were added to a long list of front-office types who ranked at least as vice-presidents in various departments who have left the Suns family in recent years including:

Bryan Colangelo, Rex Chapman, Ray Artigue, Debra Stevens, Jim Brewer, Rob Harris, Paige Peterson, John Walker and Drew Cloud.

Also, Tom Ambrose, Cathy Moses and Bob Nanberg.

And the club's General Counsel Tom O'Malley, Mercury owners Kathy Munro and Anne Mariucci and Mercury President Seth Sulka are gone.

Even a former ownership partner, Dale Jensen, severed ties - and evidently didn't even keep his seats.

Some left of their own accord. Others, not so much. Either way, that's a lot of turnover.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/sports/heatindex/articles/2010/07/04/20100704amare-stoudemire-may-miss-phoenix-suns-young.html#ixzz0spZ5S5AX"

If some of you are frustrated with the media that this is just now being reported in its entirety, understand that the general consensus before this year was there was a rift between Colangelo people and Sarver people. Typical new ownership stuff. No one really saw this specifically as a Sarver problem because Sarver's people weren't talking.

Now Sarver's people are talking -- and some of them on the payroll. Some of them who've seen everything up close and personal.

I think when word gets back to Sarver who's been talking to the media, local or otherwise, he'll have only two choices: Totally clean house -- I mean like Black Monday kind of stuff -- or step back and take a silent partner position. His partners still seem totally supportive of him because he's making them money on their unrelated investments, but I can see them taking action down the road if it gets really messy and they've got media calling them asking them to take a public position.

 

[Covert Rain]

So should the Suns bring O'Neal back now?

I say complete and total BS Amare/Shaq didn't work together. They went on that run side by side and won a bunch of games.

The issue was Nash and having a traditional post up player. The offense was built around Nash making plays not throwing it down to the post.

If we had more of a traditional offense and didn't have Nash, I would say having Shaq wouldn't hurt. However, with Nash and this offense you can't have a traditional post up game here.

People can hate on Shaq all they like. What they can't dispute is he was the best player on our team that year, had one of the best center stat lines in the league and we were one of the most efficient in the paint.

 

[cly2tw]

I say complete and total BS Amare/Shaq didn't work together. They went on that run side by side and won a bunch of games.

The issue was Nash and having a traditional post up player. The offense was built around Nash making plays not throwing it down to the post.

If we had more of a traditional offense and didn't have Nash, I would say having Shaq wouldn't hurt. However, with Nash and this offense you can't have a traditional post up game here.

People can hate on Shaq all they like. What they can't dispute is he was the best player on our team that year and had one of the best center stat lines in the league and we were one of the most efficient in the paint.

You know you get the label of "Nash-hater" the moment you say it, right?

But, Porter was too much making Shaq the focal point. That marginalized Nash and Amare, unlike under DA. Gentry actually reduced Nash's ballhandling the past season. But he was gentle at handling it by stressing that the ball goes to Nash in the last 7 sec., which would be wise anyway. After that, we won a lot of games and turned the season around. In this reduced Nash-dribble format, Shaq would have no problem to coexist on the team.