scotsman13
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Mike Monroe / Special to FOXSports.com
DENVER, Colo. — I'm giving this season's Kiki Vandeweghe Impossible Salary Dump Award to Suns president Bryan Colangelo, who managed to escape salary cap hell and give the Suns a chance to get better sometime in the next two or three seasons.
New Knicks GM Isiah Thomas is being hailed in The Big Apple as a genius GM for engineering the trade that sent Antonio McDyess, Howard Eisley, Charlie Ward, et. al., to Phoenix for Stephon Marbury and Penny Hardaway, but I say it's Colangelo who is grinning like the cat that ate the canary.
Few things in the NBA are more difficult than getting out from under the salary cap bind that keeps teams from being players in the free agent market.
Vandeweghe pulled off what now looks like the best trade of the decade of the 00s when he got Dallas to take Nick Van Exel, Raef LaFrentz, Avery Johnson and Tariq Abdul-Wahad — and their bloated contracts — for Juwan Howard, Donnell Harvey and Tim Hardaway just about two years ago. It's the deal that enabled Vandeweghe last summer to sign Andre Miller, Earl Boykins, Voshon Lenard and Jon Barry, and the Nuggets' resulting 21-15 record heading into the weekend ranks as one of the most amazing stories of the first half of the season.
A couple of seasons hence and we may be saying the same thing about the deal Colangelo pulled off. Said Bryan Colangelo: "We effectively have given a rebirth to the organization. "We've taken a very valuable player and a valuable asset in Stephon Marbury and converted it into flexibility for the future: draft picks, financial viability for the organization and a lot of different things."
The most immediate impact should be on the two coaches involved. Don Chaney just got handed a boatload of bloated expectations. Mike D'Antoni had his burden eased, because even Colangelo admitted the Suns weren't headed anywhere this season.
"It is what it is," Colangelo said of the deal. "There is no spin whatsoever. This team wasn't going anywhere."
For now, the Suns are worse than they were before the deal, but all Colangelo has to do this summer is give D'Antoni the players he needs to be competitive every night and the Suns might replicate a Nuggets-esque turnaround.
As for the Knicks, Marbury and Hardaway had better help them advance deep into the playoffs this season, because they now have no shot at improving through free agency any time in, oh, the next dozen seasons, or thereabouts.
Veteran NBA correspondent Mike Monroe contributes frequently to FOXSports.com.
DENVER, Colo. — I'm giving this season's Kiki Vandeweghe Impossible Salary Dump Award to Suns president Bryan Colangelo, who managed to escape salary cap hell and give the Suns a chance to get better sometime in the next two or three seasons.
New Knicks GM Isiah Thomas is being hailed in The Big Apple as a genius GM for engineering the trade that sent Antonio McDyess, Howard Eisley, Charlie Ward, et. al., to Phoenix for Stephon Marbury and Penny Hardaway, but I say it's Colangelo who is grinning like the cat that ate the canary.
Few things in the NBA are more difficult than getting out from under the salary cap bind that keeps teams from being players in the free agent market.
Vandeweghe pulled off what now looks like the best trade of the decade of the 00s when he got Dallas to take Nick Van Exel, Raef LaFrentz, Avery Johnson and Tariq Abdul-Wahad — and their bloated contracts — for Juwan Howard, Donnell Harvey and Tim Hardaway just about two years ago. It's the deal that enabled Vandeweghe last summer to sign Andre Miller, Earl Boykins, Voshon Lenard and Jon Barry, and the Nuggets' resulting 21-15 record heading into the weekend ranks as one of the most amazing stories of the first half of the season.
A couple of seasons hence and we may be saying the same thing about the deal Colangelo pulled off. Said Bryan Colangelo: "We effectively have given a rebirth to the organization. "We've taken a very valuable player and a valuable asset in Stephon Marbury and converted it into flexibility for the future: draft picks, financial viability for the organization and a lot of different things."
The most immediate impact should be on the two coaches involved. Don Chaney just got handed a boatload of bloated expectations. Mike D'Antoni had his burden eased, because even Colangelo admitted the Suns weren't headed anywhere this season.
"It is what it is," Colangelo said of the deal. "There is no spin whatsoever. This team wasn't going anywhere."
For now, the Suns are worse than they were before the deal, but all Colangelo has to do this summer is give D'Antoni the players he needs to be competitive every night and the Suns might replicate a Nuggets-esque turnaround.
As for the Knicks, Marbury and Hardaway had better help them advance deep into the playoffs this season, because they now have no shot at improving through free agency any time in, oh, the next dozen seasons, or thereabouts.
Veteran NBA correspondent Mike Monroe contributes frequently to FOXSports.com.
