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TrueBlue
Posts: 29144
Alba Posts: 12
Joined: 9/20/2006
Member: #1172
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Posted by Solace:
Posted by TrueBlue:
Posted by Solace:
Wow, I can't believe how underrated Marion is on this board. Sure, you could trade Marion, but why? The Suns are extremely close to a championship. If you trade a player for whom you have no hope of getting someone better in return for, you're making it more difficult to win a championship. The money I understand, but as Bonn said, Deng has to get paid too... and Marion is plain better. Those stats show that Deng is good, but Marion is better by a VERY significant margin.
Now rebuilding if you're the Suns is interesting, but you'd have to question that decision. If you want to indulge it, you're talking about trading Marion, Nash and Stoudamire. And if they make those trades, they don't get back equal value. Every team wants to get the level the Suns are at... so they should go for it and try to win some titles. IMHO, they are the best team in the NBA.
Deng will be considerably paid less than Marion even 2 yrs from now witha pay raise. Look Marion is a regular season stud everyone knows this. But he has peaked as a player and his salary continues to escalate. The Suns have been in championship contention for 3yrs now it won't last forever so instead of letting the bottom just fall out for no reason at all trade one of your best assets to trim payroll, help the rebuild process, while taking a chance at possibly remaining highly competitive. No one will want Marion once he's past 30 as much as they may want him now. Besides he's been on the trade block already it's not like this is some shocking idea or something.
I doubt he's been on the trade block before. I think that was garbage rumors from garbage journalists.
As I said in my previous post, if you're considering trading Marion, you probably should consider trading at least Nash, as well, since Nash won't win a title without Marion, you might as well get value for Nash while he's at his peak.
But again, difference of opinion, but the Suns are the best team in the league in the eyes of many and have a very good shot at 1-3 titles in the next few seasons. Breaking things up might make some long term or financial sense, but if the ultimate goal is a title, you don't trade Marion. Marion, Nash and Stoudamire is your best shot at a title. Break up that group and your chances decrease (aside from getting a top 5 player in return for one of them). Jonathan Givony is a pretty reliable source and this rumor sounded more than legit Word on the Street: Suns, Sonics Closing in on Deal? (Update:12:55 AM)
by: Jonathan Givony - President
June 24, 2006
Multiple sources told DraftExpress today that the Phoenix Suns and Seattle Supersonics are working on a potential blockbuster trade. The Sonics have implied to numerous people over the past 48 hours that “something is going to go down,” white another source in Seattle told us that the Supersonics are “getting very close” to finalizing a trade.
While the exact details of the trade are still unknown, numerous names have been mentioned as key components. The main ones are Shawn Marion and Rashard Lewis, who would be exchanged along with the team’s first round draft choices (#10 for #27). Other pieces that are being discussed include Leandro Barbosa and Danny Fortson.
Seattle is interested in moving Rashard Lewis due to the fact that they believe he will opt out of his contract next summer and will end up losing him for nothing. With so many concerns about the future of the franchise in Seattle, the best way to put fans in the seats is certainly to start winning more games, which is the primary motive of this trade.
Phoenix’s motive is to avoid the luxury tax for next season, which they are dangerously close to, and still keep the team as competitive as they are now. The Suns still have to extend Boris Diaw for 5 years and anywhere from 45-55 million dollars, which would put them well above the luxury tax threshold. With Leandro Barbosa looking for a contract starting in the 7-8 million dollar range, and Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Marion making max or near max dollars, keeping their core together past next season does not appear to be very likely. Instead, the Suns can save quite a bit of money in the long term by taking on Rashard Lewis’ more affordable deal and securing an immediate contributor (such as Rodney Carney or Ronnie Brewer) on a cheap 4 year rookie contract. Lewis makes over 5 million dollars less than Marion.
Danny Fortson would be used as filler to make the trade work under the cap. He is an ending contract next year and could either give the Suns more toughness, rebounding and depth, be used as trade bait, or bought out of his contract. That depends on whether or not he can resolve his differences with Jerry Colangelo, whom he sued for defamation in 2004 for calling him a “thug” in the media after breaking Zarko Cabarkapa’s wrist in a game between Dallas and Phoenix. Now Dantoni came out and shot the rumors down but when doing so he said they were fielding calls on Marion and it wasn't a coincidence that they were looking at a bunch of sf on the draft board at the time of last yr's draft. According to that Seattle/Phx rumor the bottom fell out because players weren't available at the draft positions to make the trades. Here's an article from Sporting News that speaks on this very subject which makes the idea suitable for discussion and serious consideration. If the Suns are to stay together, they must win it all
April 13, 2007
Certainly, Dallas has its share of pressure heading into the postseason. Blowing a lead of 2-0 in the Finals will do that to a team, especially when there's the added bonus of having blown a 13-point fourth-quarter lead that would have put the team up, 3-0. But step back and look at the numbers. Seems to me that no team is entering the playoffs with a greater pressure to win than Phoenix. No matter what happens in the playoffs, next year's Mavericks are likely to look a lot like this year's Mavericks. That's not necessarily the case for the Suns.
Just check out the Suns' books. Phoenix is already paying three players eight-figure salaries: Shawn Marion, Amare Stoudemire and Steve Nash. The Suns are fortunate that the eight-figure contracts they pay all belong to All-Stars -- that's not usually the case around the league. But those contracts are just the first layer of a bigger problem. Because of extensions handed out last summer, Phoenix will give big raises to Boris Diaw and Leandro Barbosa next year, from just over $3 million combined to well over $14 million combined.
Suns owner Robert Sarver has expressed his desire to keep the team out of range of the league's dollar-for-dollar luxury tax threshold. Last offseason, Phoenix was so dead-set on avoiding the luxury tax that it gave away two first-round picks. But, without significant alterations, the Suns are headed for an $80 million payroll, which is well over the tax threshold (which is about $65 million this year and should go up a bit next year).
A while back, I asked coach and GM Mike D'Antoni about whether this is a must-win situation for Phoenix, because this team as we know it might not be together much longer. "I know what you're getting at," D'Antoni said. "But that's not necessarily the case. We could have problems with the tax, I know, and like every team, we want to avoid that tax.
"But our owner wants to win a championship. And, you know, once you win a championship, who knows? There's more incentive to spend more. You can be a little looser with the checkbook once you've won a championship."
True, but that still seems to mean that this is a must-win championship for the Suns, to keep this team together. It sounds like Sarver would be willing to sit down and write a tax check only if he were looking at the Larry O'Brien trophy while he was writing. Make no mistake, there is not a lot of fat that can be trimmed to get the Suns under the tax threshold. So when we say keeping this team together, we're talking about the well-paid Nash-Stoudemire-Marion core.
Of course, it won't be the first time that Marion's name has come up in trade rumors. He was a target last summer, until the team made it clear that he would not be traded. But that was likely putting off the inevitable. The Suns, obviously, cannot trade Nash, because he is the hub of this wacky wheel of an offense. They can't trade Stoudemire, because you simply do not trade 24-year-old All-Star power forwards with freakish athleticism. The team will, no doubt, try to move Kurt Thomas -- who has one year left on his contract -- but the $8 million Thomas is to make next year isn't enough to solve Phoenix's tax problem and would be only a very short-term fix.
That's why it's always Marion, who has two years at $33 million left on his contract, who is left to bear the brunt of the trade rumors. Marion is one of the game's best players, of course, an incredible rebounder and great defender on the wing, but he's also more replaceable than Nash and Stoudemire. The Suns can fill in for Marion by trade, plug Boris Diaw into his spot and/or draft a player like Florida's Corey Brewer. Stoudemire can pick up some of the scoring and rebounding slack. That's not a perfect fix, but the team probably would not suffer a tremendous drop-off with that sort of lineup.
A replacement for Marion is still a replacement, and thus a blow to this team. But it's just impossible to see how else this team, from a payroll standpoint, is going to work next year. Unless, of course, they win it all now.
[Edited by - TrueBlue on 05-14-2007 3:42 PM]LMFAO @ the Bio [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephon_Marbury[/url]
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