Shaq Gets Traded to the Suns

If would've been better if this trade was a couple of years ago when Shaq daddy was still healthy and wanted to actually win a game. Nonetheless it would still be interesting to see how it turns out.

Just found out Steve Kerr is the GM of the suns.

I think Marion is overrated. He makes a good team great, but he isn't enough on his own. Ironically (like the discussion re Lamar Odom earlier), Marion makes an ideal third or fourth option--at athletic player who can cut, finish, defend, and stick the open three despite not having any plays called for him. That's kind of the problem with Marion, however--he's not the kind of guy you call plays for. You can't exploit matchup problems with him because, offensively, he doesn't really cause any. He's a guy who contributes positively across the board and doesn't hurt your team in any way (except perhaps psychically, in the locker room), but he doesn't take the game over. There's something to be said about hard-hat-and-lunch-pail kind of guys (of which I think Marion is one of the very best), but at the end of the day they're not the guys who win it all for you.

History doesn't remember the "great" Mavs teams of the late 80s, the Sonics or Jazz teams of the mid 90s, the Blazers teams of the late 90s, or the Kings of the early 00s. These were great teams that just didn't get it done. The Suns' best shot was last year, and they didn't get it done then. They're not as good as they were then, and a lot of other teams have gotten better. So I applaud Kerr for rolling the dice. You need a little luck to win a championship, and you might as well roll with the biggest die of them all.

Marion was an allstar without nash too, guys. Don't think he's just a system player. He's not a #1 option for a team, but could be a #2 on a loaded team or a great #3 option. He's kind of like andre iguodala in a way. But with marion being a better boarder and post defender and iggy being a better passer. Don't get me wrong, iggy is great and all and could potentially be a key player (probably a #3) in winning a title but he's not a single guy to build a team around. The suns have a bunch of good players but amare is the only one who is a guaranteed all star on any team, almost any style in the league. Nash is great too, but the system is just as perfect for him as he is for the system. One of those match made in heaven things. The suns have had 4 guys on the team all make all star games without eachother (marion, amare, nash and joe johnson). They always are good at cycling talent in.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the season and playoffs with the new look suns, lakers and potentially spurs/mavs/jazz/rockets depending on if they make some moves. Kidd, artest, korver already gave the jazz a shooting threat (finally) and some other guys are all looking for relocation. Should be interesting with all the different player combos.

I mean, let's put it this way: Generally speaking, I would rather have Turkoglu on my team than Marion

The game in question was officiated by the ref that was since indicted for fixing games, and there were some other questionable calls in that series from that ref.

As for the Shaq trade, as a Laker fan I'll always love Shaq for his "quotaciousness" (to quote the man himself), but this trade worries me not one tiny bit. He'll be a good outlet passer to start the break, but he's done.

Originally Posted by landho

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I think Marion is overrated. He makes a good team great, but he isn't enough on his own. Ironically (like the discussion re Lamar Odom earlier), Marion makes an ideal third or fourth option--at athletic player who can cut, finish, defend, and stick the open three despite not having any plays called for him. That's kind of the problem with Marion, however--he's not the kind of guy you call plays for. You can't exploit matchup problems with him because, offensively, he doesn't really cause any. He's a guy who contributes positively across the board and doesn't hurt your team in any way (except perhaps psychically, in the locker room), but he doesn't take the game over. There's something to be said about hard-hat-and-lunch-pail kind of guys (of which I think Marion is one of the very best), but at the end of the day they're not the guys who win it all for you.
I honestly think people don't regard Shawn Marion as highly as you make them out to be. Except the fantasy basketball crowd, may be.

Originally Posted by whacked

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I honestly think people didn't think that highly of Shawn Marion to begin with. Except the fantasy basketball crowd, may be.

I often wonder how much Marion's reputation is inflated because of the lovefest that's shown him in nine-category leagues.

Interesting footnote:
Today's LA Times has a brief bit from AP noting that the NBA is going to have to rule on whether Marion and Banks are eligible to play in the scheduled March 8 replay of the final 51.9 seconds of the December 19 Atlanta/Miami game. That's the replay ordered by the league after it was determined that the official scorer had ruled incorrectly that O'Neal had fouled out (he in fact had only five fouls, not six).

To my mind, most reasonable ruling would be to let them play, since there's no way you can have Shaq "returned" to Miami for that one mini-game. Kind of ironic, though, that the premise of the replay is that Shaq should have been eligible to play that final minute, and now he's gone.

He plays defense at multiple positions well, rebounds exceptionally well for his size, has a slightly above average 3point shot, super athletic, gets you as many garbage/hustle points as you want, and has tons of energy. That has nothing to do with stats. There really isn't anymore you can ask of marion. He has done it in multiple systems on the suns too, including playing with kidd and the selfish starbury.

I pray you guys don't really think turk is better because he's playing better this year in a great system for him. Have you seen him play in year's past? It's not like he's a young guy who finally hit his stride. He has always been a tall, soft, slow, spot shooter who can occasionally pump fake and go in for a leaner. He doesn't board or play much defense. Not only that but this is the first season that he has been even remotely consistent. Before, you never knew what the hell you were gonna get. I think turk is a great fit in orlando at the moment, but i don't think he's as great a player as his numbers might indicate this season. He's having a good season on a surprise team but comparing him to marion is ridiculous.


lawyerdad edit: Yea, i thought of the replay game when the trade happened too. It's kinda weird since shaq is the only reason they were going to replay it. So they're basically going to make the last 51 seconds identical to the original game with no shaq. I hope the hawks win.

Originally Posted by chronoaug

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He plays defense at multiple positions well, rebounds exceptionally well for his size, has a slightly above average 3point shot, super athletic, gets you as many garbage/hustle points as you want, and has tons of energy. That has nothing to do with stats. There really isn't anymore you can ask of marion. He has done it in multiple systems on the suns too, including playing with kidd and the selfish starbury.

I pray you guys don't really think turk is better because he's playing better this year in a great system for him. Have you seen him play in year's past? It's not like he's a young guy who finally hit his stride. He has always been a tall, soft, slow, spot shooter who can occasionally pump fake and go in for a leaner. He doesn't board or play much defense. Not only that but this is the first season that he has been even remotely consistent. Before, you never knew what the hell you were gonna get. I think turk is a great fit in orlando at the moment, but i don't think he's as great a player as his numbers might indicate this season.

Back in the day when the Weber/Bibby/Christie/Stojakovich Kings were the contender trying to knock off the Shaq/Kobe/Fischer/Horry/Fox Lakers, I used to breathe a huge sigh of relief whenever Turkgolu would come into the game for Sacramento.

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

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Back in the day when the Weber/Bibby/Christie/Stojakovich Kings were the contender trying to knock off the Shaq/Kobe/Fischer/Horry/Fox Lakers, I used to breathe a huge sigh of relief whenever Turkgolu would come into the game for Sacramento.
As a magic fan the past couple years, i would yell at the court from the top row at turk to move within 15 ft of the basket for once. For christ's sake he's 6'10-6'11 and almost feel like i can get a board on him. At least now, teams are trying to double team zone box out dwight at times so other magic players are getting some board numbers. Seriously though, what possesses a person with that much height to play really soft even for a 6'4 guy? He never uses at least 3 of those inches, he should just toss them my way.

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

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Back in the day when the Weber/Bibby/Christie/Stojakovich Kings were the contender trying to knock off the Shaq/Kobe/Fischer/Horry/Fox Lakers, I used to breathe a huge sigh of relief whenever Turkgolu would come into the game for Sacramento.

Really? Turkoglu always frightened me. He was just getting into the league then.

Turkoglu is playing in a system that tailors to his talents, but his talents are considerable and as such I think a good coach would alter his system to accommodate those talents (much as Stan Van Gundy has done). He's a tall player who can dribble well, can shoot well, and most importantly can make plays. He's a pretty good rebounder and makes defensive plays, although no one will confuse him with Bruce Bowen. (That said, the Magic defensive system is geared toward gambling and having Howard erase any mistakes that come from that.) Stats don't tell the whole story, but here is the simple truth: Turkoglu is a matchup nightmare. He can stretch the floor and finish around the hoop, and he can post up. He's too big for most SFs to handle and too quick for PFs to handle. In this way, he's a lot like Dirk (although less in everything, of course). This year, he's come up big in crunch time, too--according a recently posted Yahoo! article, he's fifth in the league in fourth-quarter scoring, which sounds like a meaningless stat until you consider the august company ahead of him (LeBron, Wade, Joe Johnson, and Kobe).

Granted, I am a bit idiosyncratic in my basketball tastes (as I am in my fashion tastes!), but I especially like players like Turkoglu. The fact that you can go to him again and again when you have an exploitable matchup is something that you will never be able to do with Marion. For all of Marion's attribute's, and I'll say it again, he's just a glorified Udonis Haslem. Do you think the Magic would be better with Marion rather than Turkoglu? I say no way.

I honestly think the Suns' offense will run much more smoothly with Diaw in the lineup rather than Marion. What that does to the Suns' defense is another matter, but that really wasn't their game, anyway. That just means that the burden of their perimeter defense will fall more on Raja Bell's shoulders, which should be OK.

Originally Posted by landho

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Really? Turkoglu always frightened me. He was just getting into the league then.

Turkoglu is playing in a system that tailors to his talents, but his talents are considerable and as such I think a good coach would alter his system to accommodate those talents (much as Stan Van Gundy has done). He's a tall player who can dribble well, can shoot well, and most importantly can make plays. He's a pretty good rebounder and makes defensive plays, although no one will confuse him with Bruce Bowen. (That said, the Magic defensive system is geared toward gambling and having Howard erase any mistakes that come from that.) Stats don't tell the whole story, but here is the simple truth: Turkoglu is a matchup nightmare. He can stretch the floor and finish around the hoop, and he can post up. He's too big for most SFs to handle and too quick for PFs to handle. In this way, he's a lot like Dirk (although less in everything, of course). This year, he's come up big in crunch time, too--according a recently posted Yahoo! article, he's fifth in the league in fourth-quarter scoring, which sounds like a meaningless stat until you consider the august company ahead of him (LeBron, Wade, Joe Johnson, and Kobe).

Granted, I am a bit idiosyncratic in my basketball tastes (as I am in my fashion tastes!), but I especially like players like Turkoglu. The fact that you can go to him again and again when you have an exploitable matchup is something that you will never be able to do with Marion. For all of Marion's attribute's, and I'll say it again, he's just a glorified Udonis Haslem.

I honestly think the Suns' offense will run much more smoothly with Diaw in the lineup rather than Marion. What that does to the Suns' defense is another matter, but that really wasn't their game, anyway. That just means that the burden of their perimeter defense will fall more on Raja Bell's shoulders, which should be OK.

Well, it's been long enough that I can't really remember who usually would be going off the floor when Turkgolu came in. Stojakovich? Weber? My partisan memory is quite fuzzy, but I just remember I always felt like even though Turkgolu seemed like a pretty good player, the momentum would usually seem to shift to the Lakers with him in the game. At least in my memory, he'd always end up making at least one turnover or ill-advised jumper. There may well have been no legitimate basis for me to feel that way, but that's the way it was -- he seemed kind of like the anti-Horry. In a close game, Bibby would scare me a little. Weber and Peja would scare me. Bobby Jackson really scared me. Turkgolu I wasn't worried about.

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

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Well, it's been long enough that I can't really remember who usually would be going off the floor when Turkgolu came in. Stojakovich? Weber? My partisan memory is quite fuzzy, but I just remember I always felt like even though Turkgolu seemed like a pretty good player, the momentum would usually seem to shift to the Lakers with him in the game. At least in my memory, he'd always end up making at least one turnover or ill-advised jumper. There may well have been no legitimate basis for me to feel that way, but that's the way it was -- he seemed kind of like the anti-Horry. In a close game, Bibby would scare me a little. Weber and Peja would scare me. Bobby Jackson really scared me. Turkgolu I wasn't worried about.

Turkoglu would come in for Christie, Stojakovic, and Webber. I just remember him sinking 3s all the live-long day and wondering, "Who the hell is this guy?"

During crunch time, I remember being worried about Bibby and Turkoglu and kind of (nervously, of course) hoping that the ball would end up in Webber's hands and his eggshell-like psyche. I don't think he's ever recovered from "The Timeout."

I will say that my friend (who is a fan of classic power-forward basketball and smash-mouth football) hates the style of basketball that Turkoglu plays--similar sentiments to those Chron was voicing. Sure, Turkoglu wasn't as good last year, but Rashard wasn't there yet. He probably wouldn't be as good on the Spurs, for example, but he would be a hell of a player on the Suns, Warriors, or even Mavs, I bet.

There was a rumor here in Detroit that the Pistons were willing to trade Rasheed for Marion( there were other players involved).I think that trade would have made more sense for the Suns.