Why did we trade for J-Rich?

[nowagimp]

That's just it--nowagimp thinks that regardless of whether Amare went down or not, the trade shouldn't have happened. And he's basing that entire argument on how they are playing in Charlotte right now and how they played 3 years ago for us--he is completely ignoring the last season and a half.

Diaw was the suns best player in last years playoff with the spurs, and it took DA 4 games to figure out that they needed to use him. Anyone who shoots 57% against the spurs in the playoffs isnt as washed up as you say. But he was playing with the starters there after hill proved he couldnt play. Seems like alot of guys, Hill, Barnes, Diaw, LB just plain play ALOT better with the starters.

 

[elindholm]

Diaw was the suns best player in last years playoff with the spurs, and it took DA 4 games to figure out that they needed to use him.

Isn't that because D'Antoni was hoping the series would be SSOL, at which Diaw is less effective, and only accepted later that they'd have to play a halfcourt offense, more suited to his strengths?

 

[YouJustGotSUNSD]

Diaw was the suns best player in last years playoff with the spurs, and it took DA 4 games to figure out that they needed to use him. Anyone who shoots 57% against the spurs in the playoffs isnt as washed up as you say. But he was playing with the starters there after hill proved he couldnt play. Seems like alot of guys, Hill, Barnes, Diaw, LB just plain play ALOT better with the starters.

He was the best player for a dozen plays where he was mismatched and Finley was guarding him.

Give it up man.

 

[nowagimp]

He was the best player for a dozen plays where he was mismatched and Finley was guarding him.

Give it up man.

Finley, oberto, udoka, it didnt matter who was on him. For the series, 55% 14.6ppg, 5.6reb, 4.6asst. Amare shot 49%, nash 46% and shaq 44% FG's.



http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/teams...8&season=3&sort=pts&order=true&avg=pg&split=0

 

[YouJustGotSUNSD]

A smaller guard, a slower center, and a bench scrub. I admit he was our best weapon vs the spurs for 3 games, but that doesnt make up for his last two seasons of being the most underperforming frustration in the NBA.

 

[nowagimp]

A smaller guard, a slower center, and a bench scrub. I admit he was our best weapon vs the spurs for 3 games, but that doesnt make up for his last two seasons of being the most underperforming frustration in the NBA.

How about jermaine O neil? How about Luol Deng or Randy Foye(traded for branden Roy), tyrus thomas, stephon marbury, Ben Wallace, there are tons of others. The NBA is chock full of underperforming players. Just because the guy is one of the most underperforming players that was on the suns doesnt mean that he is an NBA wide leader there. When the going got tough in the playoffs he was one of the few suns to produce at a high level last year.

 

[Covert Rain]

Diaw was the suns best player in last years playoff with the spurs

Diaw was the best player in 2 out of the 5 games...the others were not even close. He was in foul trouble and lacked aggressive play in multiple games that series. He played himself out of a couple of those games.

The only reason Diaw had a good game 4 and 5 was because he started at Small Forward and created mismatch with Shaq, Amare and Diaw on the floor at the same time.

it took DA 4 games to figure out that they needed to use him.

On what planet is 30 minutes per game in that series "not using him"? Diaw was playing significant minutes the entire series because of Grants injury. Diaw limited his own minutes in game 2 because of his play. He had plenty of time with the starters in those games.

So, the only thing inserting Diaw into the starting lineup has proved is that he can inflate his numbers while playing next to Shaq and Amare or because he had a favorable match up in that series. We lost 1 out of 2 of those games and Diaw did not play good defense that series.

This does nothing to support the view "bad trade". This does nothing to support the view that if Diaw was still on this team the team would be better on either end of the floor.

 

[YouJustGotSUNSD]

How about jermaine O neil? How about Luol Deng or Randy Foye(traded for branden Roy), tyrus thomas, stephon marbury, Ben Wallace, there are tons of others. The NBA is chock full of underperforming players. Just because the guy is one of the most underperforming players that was on the suns doesnt mean that he is an NBA wide leader there. When the going got tough in the playoffs he was one of the few suns to produce at a high level last year.

Ben Wallace is the only player you listed that is close to competing with Diaw for most underperforming, but Wallace's ceiling is so low that Diaw still locks it down.

Oneal has been plagued by injuries for years. Im going to pretend you didnt mention Foye, as ONE team that doesnt know how to scout talent thought he had potential. Thomas is showing improvements every year, he just isnt at the level people want him to be.

Marbury wasnt underperforming, he had chemistry issues with those around him. He still has a 20ppg average for his career. Diaw was adored by his team and especially his shortsighted coach and still sucked it up.

Most Underperforming Player, period.


Giveitup

 

[nowagimp]

Ben Wallace is the only player you listed that is close to competing with Diaw for most underperforming, but Wallace's ceiling is so low that Diaw still locks it down.

Oneal has been plagued by injuries for years. Im going to pretend you didnt mention Foye, as ONE team that doesnt know how to scout talent thought he had potential. Thomas is showing improvements every year, he just isnt at the level people want him to be.

Marbury wasnt underperforming, he had chemistry issues with those around him. He still has a 20ppg average for his career. Diaw was adored by his team and especially his shortsighted coach and still sucked it up.

Most Underperforming Player, period.


Giveitup

Sounds like a bunch of excuses, I suppose JOneals 1 friggin rebound at the center position in his heat debut was because he had a hangnail. He and marbury made 20 mil plus this year, what exactly is expected of a top ten salary in the NBA, scrubstats? Tyrus Thomas was a top pick several years ago wasnt he, where is the beef? Your bias is over the top.

 

[binkar]

You are still ignoring the facts. Kobe shoots 54% against Raja almost 10% more than his average. Explain to me how that is a positive please.

Please tell me your only leg to stand on now is not "I would rather agree with Van Gundy than you guys!". Come on man that's weak. You yourself said that in the SSOL system with Amare being healthy it would be hard for Diaw to produce anywhere near 9 million dollars worth on the floor. Diaw and Bell have been in the SSOL system the last 2 years and that's when Diaw was considered one of the most overpaid players in the game.

And can you please stop playing the childish "you read worse than a sixth grader" cards etc. It's all getting pretty silly and ridiculous.

Please don't get me wrong I hate this argument because A. I hate the Lakers more than any team in professional sports (except maybe the Spurs) and B. I can not stand Kobe Bryant. So doing a statistical analysis on how Kobe scorches my favorite team more than average is miserable and annoying. But facts are facts, and stats are evidence so I can't disagree with them regardless if Jeff Van Gundy told me to.

Nowagimp,

I am still waiting for an explanation on this from you? How do you interpret these numbers in Raja's favor? I am not trying to be a jerk and an idiot, I just want an explanation from you and to be accountable in your claims. If someone finds evidence/facts that prove your wrong than man up to it. How do these numbers reflect Raja as a defender at this stage of his career.

It seems as though after someone combats your arguments with facts/stats that you simply move to a new argument or something to complain about.

 

[binkar]

Stromile swift put up awful stats with the freaking grizzlies and the work is that he just doesnt have a fire anymore. If you think diaw is lazy, wait until stro hits the floor. Right now I just dont think the suns can rebound well enough with barnes and hill up front against most teams. But who knows, if matt barnes can rebound like he did against the lakers, I will gladly be wrong.

The difference is we were paying Diaw 9 million a year. We are paying Swift 220 thousand. If he turns out to be lazy and a waste than we only have invested $220,000 over a few months. But we were stuck paying Diaw 9 million a year for 5 years to be lazy. But Diaw being lazy is something that is debatable and up for individual interpretation. His lack of production for the Suns on a nightly basis however is not debatable. Does that mean Boris is a bad player? No. I actually think Boris is a great player, but his lack of production FOR US made him a bad investment for us, while it is proving not to be a decent/good investment for the Bobcats.

Boris wouldn't help are rebounding much (or at all). He turns in pretty poor rebounding numbers for a PF. In fact, in the Month of February he averaged 5.2 rebounds in 39 minutes a game. Barnes averaged 4.8 rebounds in 25 minutes a game and Grant averaged 4.2 rebounds in 28 minutes. Out of the three of them Boris is the worst rebounder averaging 6.4 rebounds per 48 minutes while Barnes is averaging 9.2 and Hill 7.2 in the Feb.

I agree with you on the statement that the Suns probably won't be able to rebound well enough. Even with Swift in the lineup I don't expect us to. I would love to be wrong though.

 

[nowagimp]

Nowagimp,

I am still waiting for an explanation on this from you? How do you interpret these numbers in Raja's favor? I am not trying to be a jerk and an idiot, I just want an explanation from you and to be accountable in your claims. If someone finds evidence/facts that prove your wrong than man up to it. How do these numbers reflect Raja as a defender at this stage of his career.

It seems as though after someone combats your arguments with facts/stats that you simply move to a new argument or something to complain about.

I didnt want to make excuses for raja's more recent madady of injuries over the last 2 years, he seems to get injured 3x a year. Of course you have sunsSD making excuses for jOneil b eing injuured, but not raja. Oneil aint defending the best player on the opposing team most nights. Raja may be too old to start anymore, too many groin pulls, twisted ankles etc. You cant play kobe with a twisted ankle, LOL. One thing is that raja plays kobe the WHOLE game when he did, that must be like hell. The new replacements switch off barnes, jrich and hill all played D on kobe. If you dig a little deeper and consider that D also includes denying the ball, I'd rather see kobe struggle to get the ball, not get it whenever he wants. Barnes did a pretty good job of making kobe struggle to get the ball, JRich doesn do that at all.

 

[binkar]

I didnt want to make excuses for raja's more recent madady of injuries over the last 2 years, he seems to get injured 3x a year. Of course you have sunsSD making excuses for jOneil b eing injuured, but not raja. Oneil aint defending the best player on the opposing team most nights. Raja may be too old to start anymore, too many groin pulls, twisted ankles etc. You cant play kobe with a twisted ankle, LOL. One thing is that raja plays kobe the WHOLE game when he did, that must be like hell. The new replacements switch off barnes, jrich and hill all played D on kobe. If you dig a little deeper and consider that D also includes denying the ball, I'd rather see kobe struggle to get the ball, not get it whenever he wants. Barnes did a pretty good job of making kobe struggle to get the ball, JRich doesn do that at all.

So now you are saying that Bell shouldn't be a starter in this league anymore? So you adamantly disagree with trading a guy getting paid 9 million a year to produce 8.3 points and 3.8 boards in 25 minutes, and a guy you yourself say shouldn't be starting in this league anymore for J-Rich and Dudley?

Come on Nowagimp, I just don't understand.

 

[nowagimp]

So now you are saying that Bell shouldn't be a starter in this league anymore? So you adamantly disagree with trading a guy getting paid 9 million a year to produce 8.3 points and 3.8 boards in 25 minutes, and a guy you yourself say shouldn't be starting in this league anymore for J-Rich and Dudley?

Come on Nowagimp, I just don't understand.

My beef had to do with not getting a big to backup amare and shaq at the 4/5, not with trading Bell. You gotta get a big in trade since amare and shaq are each an injury risk. You knew by the time of the trade that lopez wasnt going to work, gotta get a big who can play some D. Suns fans have been tortured by getting eaten up on the inside for years, and they dealt away their best defender at the '4', by far. Even though I like getting rid of diaws contract, it probably hurt the suns competitiveness this year, regardless of what happens with amare. Now that they got swift, perhaps that will swing the tide, but it sounds a little too optimistic to me. Everyone knows you must defend the inside game, right? Shaq is 37 and is only good for 28-30 mins most nights(if he plays 40 with no injury risk, then its all a moot point). this made the suns rely on lopez or lou to defend the '4', I dont like that, even though I like lou as a hustle player.

 

[Covert Rain]

My beef had to do with not getting a big to backup amare and shaq at the 4/5, not with trading Bell. You gotta get a big in trade since amare and shaq are each an injury risk. You knew by the time of the trade that lopez wasnt going to work, gotta get a big who can play some D. Suns fans have been tortured by getting eaten up on the inside for years, and they dealt away their best defender at the '4', by far.

Diaw was not a "far" better defender in a Suns uniform at the 4. He was probably slightly better. Also, at the time of the trade, the SG position was our weakest position on the team. The trade made sense.

Even though I like getting rid of diaws contract, it probably hurt the suns competitiveness this year, regardless of what happens with amare.

Is it really though? I don't see this team any better or any worse now that Diaw and Bell are gone. They just improved in some things and mades things worse in others. It's a push IMO.

 

[nowagimp]

Is it really though? I don't see this team any better or any worse now that Diaw and Bell are gone. They just improved in some things and mades things worse in others. It's a push IMO.

When the playoffs come, all opponents will be attacking the suns up front, and they are certainly worse there, bad defense up front. I would have taken a lesser SG than JRich and a physical defensive minded big over the trade they got. But who know maybe swift finally lives up to his potential after 9 years of failing.

 

[YouJustGotSUNSD]

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[elindholm]

My beef had to do with not getting a big to backup amare and shaq at the 4/5, not with trading Bell. You gotta get a big in trade since amare and shaq are each an injury risk. You knew by the time of the trade that lopez wasnt going to work, gotta get a big who can play some D. Suns fans have been tortured by getting eaten up on the inside for years, and they dealt away their best defender at the '4', by far. Even though I like getting rid of diaws contract, it probably hurt the suns competitiveness this year, regardless of what happens with amare.

Finally you're making some sense.

I agree with everything above. The question is whether the Suns should be thinking about "this year" or the long term. I don't think the front office has any illusions (anymore) about contending this year or next, so the focus is on 2010-11 and beyond. Bell had outlived his usefulness and Diaw gave every impression of looking like a long-term salary albatross. Converting them to Richardson, even though he has underperformed so far, looks like a better investment of long-term resources. But sure, from a pure talent standpoint right now, the swap was probably a push or worse for the Suns.

I think the trade was mainly about getting out from under Diaw's contract. Richardson makes more and his contract inflates (unlike Diaw's, which is flat), but Richardson's is up a year earlier. The Suns have 2010-11 to decide whether they want him to be part of their future. Also, Diaw's and Bell's attitudes made them very appealing candidates for addition by subtraction. Maybe the main chemistry problem was Porter, but Diaw has been a malcontent ever since Stoudmire came back from microfracture.

 

[Covert Rain]

I would have taken a lesser SG than JRich and a physical defensive minded big over the trade they got.

OK, so that might have solved the Amare playing no defense part. However, that wouldn't have solved the Bell problem. There were no indications that while in a Suns uniform the guy would ever show up on a consistent basis again and his defense was horrible. I guess we could have pursued a trade later to bring in a lesser SG but I bet we would have ended up with Barbs as our starting SG and left the bench depleted.

This team really needs an overhaul to solve the defensive problems.

The question is whether the Suns should be thinking about "this year" or the long term. I don't think the front office has any illusions (anymore) about contending this year or next, so the focus is on 2010-11 and beyond. .

I agree. Despite what the team is saying publicly, I don't think they consider this team "elite". Sure, they might be hoping something happens in the playoffs but I don't think the Suns FO seriously believes this team is a title contender.

Bell had outlived his usefulness and Diaw gave every impression of looking like a long-term salary albatross. Converting them to Richardson, even though he has underperformed so far, looks like a better investment of long-term resources. But sure, from a pure talent standpoint right now, the swap was probably a push or worse for the Suns..

No question it's a better investment. One player didn't show up and the other rarely did. No sense on having that on your team. Plus as you stated you have the opportunity to evaluate if JRich is a good long term investment. We already knew what we were getting from Bell and Diaw with their contracts and it wasn't much.

 

[binkar]

My beef had to do with not getting a big to backup amare and shaq at the 4/5, not with trading Bell. You gotta get a big in trade since amare and shaq are each an injury risk. You knew by the time of the trade that lopez wasnt going to work, gotta get a big who can play some D. Suns fans have been tortured by getting eaten up on the inside for years, and they dealt away their best defender at the '4', by far. Even though I like getting rid of diaws contract, it probably hurt the suns competitiveness this year, regardless of what happens with amare. Now that they got swift, perhaps that will swing the tide, but it sounds a little too optimistic to me. Everyone knows you must defend the inside game, right? Shaq is 37 and is only good for 28-30 mins most nights(if he plays 40 with no injury risk, then its all a moot point). this made the suns rely on lopez or lou to defend the '4', I dont like that, even though I like lou as a hustle player.

I agree and respect all the points you make here. Unfortunately it is a lot harder to find productive big men in the league IMO than it is to get quality shooting guards. If we could have got a quality big in the deal I would have been all for it. But with that being not likely, I still think we got good value in return for Diaw and Bell.

 

[Brianellsworth]

Those are some great points Binkar you are obviously very intelligent when it comes to the Phoenix Suns

 

[Covert Rain]

Unfortunately it is a lot harder to find productive big men in the league IMO than it is to get quality shooting guards. If we could have got a quality big in the deal I would have been all for it. But with that being not likely, I still think we got good value in return for Diaw and Bell.

Plus...let's be honest here..value was an issue. As you stated you were not probably going to get a shut down defending type PF. They didn't have that much value and ultimately, a team would have been much more willing to give up a guard then a legit PF for that. Bigs are at a much higher premiums in this league then shooting guards.

 

[nowagimp]

Finally you're making some sense.

I agree with everything above. The question is whether the Suns should be thinking about "this year" or the long term. I don't think the front office has any illusions (anymore) about contending this year or next, so the focus is on 2010-11 and beyond. Bell had outlived his usefulness and Diaw gave every impression of looking like a long-term salary albatross. Converting them to Richardson, even though he has underperformed so far, looks like a better investment of long-term resources. But sure, from a pure talent standpoint right now, the swap was probably a push or worse for the Suns.

I think the trade was mainly about getting out from under Diaw's contract. Richardson makes more and his contract inflates (unlike Diaw's, which is flat), but Richardson's is up a year earlier. The Suns have 2010-11 to decide whether they want him to be part of their future. Also, Diaw's and Bell's attitudes made them very appealing candidates for addition by subtraction. Maybe the main chemistry problem was Porter, but Diaw has been a malcontent ever since Stoudmire came back from microfracture.

I have a hard time letting go of the suns chances to be competitive this year. they finally get a real center and like that its over, and that sucks. I dont want to go back to rebuilding indefinitely, with dragic and lopez type picks while they toss aside the luol deng, rudy fernandez, and rondo type picks for cash, and that seems to be the case with this ownership group. I dont want to watch bad basketball any more than an outstanding musician wants to hear someone sing off key. I am a fan of basketball first and the suns second. I cant root for any other team with my heart, but I cant watch terrible, selfish, losing basketball. I guess I will just stop watching altogether and allow my interest to fade if the suns become the "wizards of the west".​

 

[Mainstreet]

I have a hard time letting go of the suns chances to be competitive this year. they finally get a real center and like that its over, and that sucks.​

I feel likewise. However, the Suns may have missed out on their chance for the playoffs with their lackluster play and record under Porter. The playoff type teams in the Western Conference are so good and so clustered together.

However, if the Suns can get their act together, I have seldom seen where some teams didn't falter down the stretch. But the Suns have to put themselves in position to take advantage of these potential opportunities.

I know the Suns can still be competitive but not make the playoffs but this is of little consolation. However, how the Suns play out the rest of the year means something to me... playoffs or not.

 

[Bufalay]

Those are some great points Binkar you are obviously very intelligent when it comes to the Phoenix Suns

It is hard to trade bad players for good players in NBA trading situations.