This was my response to the assertion Steph was traded for financial concerns and that they'd have been just as happy to have traded Marion for the same financial reasons:
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The Marbury trade was done for reasons independent of the then impending sale.
mjhp has made the argument that at one point Marion surfaced in trade rumors, and Steph was ultimately traded, therefore they would have traded Marion for the same reasons. But there is ZERO evidence of that.
The Suns finished the 02-03 season relatively strong with a good on-court chemistry and a strong performance against SA in the playoffs, and Marbury was thusly given an enormous extension. But then the 03-04 season, even before Amare got hurt, was a disaster. They had a large 66M payroll combined with their franchise worst pre-season ever. They continued on their rocky start and were in the cellar of their difficult division.
In such a situation trade rumors will always fly, but as you know they typically emanate from journalists bereft of inside info. At the time Steph was considered their best player, so few in the media suspected he'd be the prime trade candidate, and I believe that is why Marion's name was surfacing in media driven RUMORS.
How can you give unfounded media driven rumors the same weight as the clandestine deal that actually went down?
Now lets look at some elements of logic, which I will follow with quoted material.
Colangleo flat out stated the Marbury trade had nothing to do with the franchise sale and I believe him, otherwise, if he knew he'd be prepping the team for sale and Steph's contract were a hindrance, why give him the big extension a few short months prior?
Furthermore, if the new ownership would desire a trimmed payroll why did they then drive it up right back up to the former level as fast as they could?
No, when Colangelo does a deal for financial reasons he doesn't hide the fact. He stated flat out that the Googs deal was purely for luxury tax reasons.
``This deal [Googs] was clearly driven by the luxury tax,'' Suns president Bryan Colangelo said in a statement released by the team. ``The end result puts us comfortably under the expected tax threshold.''
Yet on the day the team was announced for sale was reported this:
Colangelo said Monday that the Marbury trade was unrelated to the current events.
A thorough investigation into the matter leads me to conclude that the suns desperately wanted Marbury and Hardaway off the team for chemistry reasons and would have made the deal with or without the impending sale simply because it made the team better. You can see why when the coach, GM and players talk about how stuck they felt and how much immediate optimism they felt after the deal was done.
Marbury simply wasn't in synch with the coach or teammates and there is nothing similar to be found with Marion.
Let's remember what Hardaway had to say of the situation:
"Coach D'Antoni is a great coach," Hardaway said. "He tried to have us buy into this system when we were here, and we really didn't. There was so much turmoil going on. Steve Nash and Quentin Richardson came in and had the type of game Coach wanted. That's up and down, push the ball, kick it ahead and it doesn't matter who shoots or who scores ... We had enough on the team to get it done, but we just didn't buy into the system."
Hardaway was upset in Phoenix because his playing time was reduced to make way for younger players. Marbury was in the middle of the turmoil that enveloped the Suns.
"It was like guys talking behind each other's backs, guys being selfish, everybody was trying to get their own," Hardaway said. "That leads to trades, and that broke the team up. It doesn't seem like they have any of that going on right now."
Some suggest Marbury may be best suited to play shooting guard, rather than point guard, to maximize his skills and keep him from dominating the ball. "I think a lot of people expect him to be a great point guard, but I don't think that's his main suit," D'Antoni said.
As a result, D'Antoni wanted to address leadership and IQ which Nash does but no frontcourt FA replacement for Marion would. So why trade Marion to go for Nash or Kobe when you already have Steph and JJ, but there's no one worthy of replacing Marion with?
Here were D'Antoni's thoughts on the Nash deal before he played a single game with them:
Ultimately, the franchise makeover's artist will be Nash, a two-time All-Star. He is expected to mentor, bring mental toughness and fire up the offense by leading fast breaks and hitting three-pointers.
"Steve Nash defined everything we were looking to address on this team," Bryan Colangelo said.
Quote:
San Antonio: Now with the addition of Steve Nash, what do you think he is going to bring to the team? sonia
Mike D'Antoni: We think he will have a major impact. The No. 1 thing we lacked last year was leadership and Basketball IQ. And with Steve running the show now, we think we have improved dramatically in both of those areas.
"There are very few players in the league that make other players better and make coaches smarter, and we've got one of them now," Suns coach Mike D'Antoni said.
Got that? Before a single game was played, trading Steph for Nash addressed ALL of his concerns. Now which forward from the FA class of '04 could Marion have been traded for who would have accomplished that?
The fact of the matter is that coach D'Antoni was brought in precisely because Steph's Suns were displaying EXACTLY the lackluster effort that we suffer from today:
"There's been something amiss all year, in my opinion," Suns owner Jerry Colangelo said. "The more I saw on the floor, the more I disliked what I saw as it related to body language, communication or lack of same."....
This year's season began with high expectations, but it was obvious that last year's chemistry had, for the most part, disappeared.
"Everybody's got to be in the trench together and it just didn't seem that way," Jerry Colangelo said. "That's not pointing fingers at anyone, but the bottom line was something's got to change."
D'Antoni, whose Denver team went 14-36 in 1998-99 season, wants to restore some energy to the Suns.
"We've got to get some excitement into the arena," he said. "Sometimes this year, it felt kind of down, like we were waiting to let the cannon fall on our head, like 'When are we going to mess up so people can talk bad about us?"'
He wants to give the players freedom to run.
"We're getting up and down," D'Antoni said. "It will be some adjusting and there will be some bad shots going up. I'm going to tell you that right now. It will take awhile to get that out of their system. But I'm not going to pull the reins back on them."
And Steph opposed this. Naturally he had to go!
Now look what D'Antoni says late in the season after the Marbury trade:
For D’Antoni, the most impressive aspect of the final portion of the season was the way his team approached every practice and every game.
“The players made it a lot better than what it should have been,” he said. “It should have been tougher but because they came every day and practiced, we had no problems. I have to thank them. They believed everything we were doing and trying. They kept working and kept getting better, and made it bearable.”
Notice the emphasis on practice after Massagebury was gone. This incidentally is why I was so down on Steph when the rumors of him not practicing here surfaced, because I had heard his former team had issues with it as well. He dismissed their [Marion and Amare's] concerns on the grounds "they were still young and did not understand." IOW, they didn't get he was the pimp and they weren't yet.
And were was Marion through all this:
Perhaps the most stabilizing force with all the changes surrounding this season was the consistent play throughout the year of Marion. He finished the season at or near his career averages in nearly every major category and led the league with 167 steals.
Now did any insiders see this coming? Here's David Aldridge at the time of the Marbury trade:
David Aldridge, ESPN.com
"You may think I hate this deal from the PHX side. I don't hate it, really. I've heard for weeks that Steph and Amaré Stoudemire haven't been feeling one another, that whatever chemistry the Suns had when they took the Spurs to the brink in the first round last spring never returned this season. Even Mike D'Antoni admitted before Monday's game with the Bulls that Steph may have dominated the ball to the detriment of Stoudemire and Shawn Marion."
So here's the pattern. Suns coach Frank Johnson has a ball motion offense that Steph doesn't buy into. He convinces him to go with a more structured offense (probably consisting of Steph's ball-domination all night long, like we saw here last year). They have great success with it, making the playoffs and giving the Spurs some chase. But then the team chemistry sours, there is bad body language and little effort (sound familiar?), so the coach gets the boot (Fire Lenny! Fire Larry!). In Spite of a dire situation Steph still wants his structure so he resists another coach's scheme despite the fact the coach was brought in explicitly to raise energy, movement and tempo. With Steph resisting things still don't improve, so Steph gets the boot as well. Suddenly things like body language, effort, and practices improve.
All independent of Marion or finances, and a striking parallel to what we've seen on our own team over the past two years.
Here's D'Antoni expressing such newfound optimism just days after the trade. Notice players are eager and coachable and an air of gloom is lifted:
D’Antoni: Well, we’ve got to start winning. Winning cures everything. Like last night, we’re coming from the road trip and we’re on the plane, just sitting up with the coaches. Barbosa’s watching the game, talking with one coach about his play, then we had Shawn Marion’s up with another coach talking about his play, then we had Jake Voskuhl with another coach looking at his game. And Lampe’s up there just watching the whole scene. That didn’t happen before. There were a lot of expectations and things were going bad. It’s hard for a player to blame himself, so they were either blaming each other or us and it was a negative. Now that is lifted and people are stepping out and taking responsibility and they understand where we can go if we do it right. We’re just trying to lay a foundation on how want to play and I think the fans will respond if they give these kids a chance, and I do think the wins will follow. Hopefully, we’re not too far off. I don’t know that for sure because we are young and with Sacramento coming in (Friday) night we have a lot of question marks. I do know that the energy and the concentration and the will is there. If you lay that foundation, you’re going to eventually be successful.
Anyone notice any similarities to here? And his Nets situation was even worse. I wont get exhaustive on that but here's one blurb:
What's more, Marbury had to leave the Nets. He had to go. What's happened for Marbury in Phoenix wouldn't have happened here. All those late nights in New York, all those family and friends hanging on him, all those teammates he had lost faith in. When the Nets made the trade two years ago, Marbury was on the brink of implosion. As much as Kidd wanted to stay in Phoenix, Marbury wanted out of New Jersey. He's an incredible talent, but he was so immature and so self-absorbed that Rod Thorn and Scott believed he was on the brink of holding the franchise hostage.
Love him or hate him, Steph's history is undeniable.
