Would you trade Stoudemire for Garnett now?

During the offseason talks of the past Summer most of us discussed about a possible trade bringing Kevin Garnett to Phoenix.

Before KG being dealt to Boston on July 31st for a bunch of more or less promising young players - and a lifetime beer supply from Danny Ainge to old pal Kevin McHale - the Suns made a real attempt to bring him to the Valley.

More or less, from what we know now, the Suns were offering, in a three-team deal, Shawn Marion and some draft picks for Garnett while Minnesota was asking for Stoudemire.

Steve Kerr basically refused to include one of the best young center in the League, STAT, in any talk with the Timberwolves. Most of us, included myself on this same blog, agreed with Kerr's point of view.

Now, after two months of the season I am not so sure anymore.

Kevin Garnett (6-11, 31-year-old) 18.9 PPG, 10.5 RPG, 3.6 APG, +26.56 EFF

KG has changed the face of the Celtics. Garnett plays all-out every night, he's shooting well (.545) and playing the best defense in the league. NBA MVP so far this season.

Amaré Stoudemire (6-10, 25-year-old) 21.5 PPG, 8.70 RPG, 1.2 APG, +24.89 EFF

STAT is playing one of the best, if not the best, season of his career on offense (shooting .584) while showing all his well-known limits on defense.

It all come down to this I believe: STAT means future (5-7 more years at this level) and offense while KG means present and a better overall game. Since Steve Nash is 33, Grant Hill is 35 , Shawn Marion is 29, the best chance the Suns have to win it all is NOW (this and possibly next season).

If I had a choice now I would trade STAT for KG. I feel Steve Kerr would do the same....now. But that's just speculation.

Go Suns !

Merry Christmas to the Suns Nation !

Dear Santa,

all I am asking you for Christmas is a nice win on Chirstmas Day on National TV (Abc, 3 PM) against Kobe and the Lakers.

Thanks


Yours truly, Steve Fan

Believers or Doubters

Five Reasons to Believe

1. The Suns are 19-8 (11-4 on the road) and have the second best record in the West.
2. Grant Hill is actually better than everyone thought (16 ppg and 4.6 rpg), looks young and has started all 27 games.
3. Amaré is shooting .567, a career high so far.
4. Nash is leading the league with 12.4 assists per game (another career high so far).
5. Brian Skinner can play (12 minutes per game, .560 shooting).

Five Reasons to Doubt

1. The Suns have been inconsistent (especially on defense) often. During the same game we've seen good spans and awful periods. They are 3-4 over the last two weeks.
2. The Suns have been outrebounded badly the whole season: totals so far 1,261 for the opponents - 1,099 for Phoenix.
3. The Suns lost everytime they failed to score 100 points. Suns defense is not gonna win games anytime soon.
4. Amaré looks bad on defense too often, how many times have you seen Stoudemire defending with his arms down or being late in rotations?
5. Players development. D.J. has appeared in six games, Tucker in three and both too often failed to appear in games, even with the Suns up by 20 while Marcus Banks is not the needed back up to Steve Nash, at least that's what the coaching staff believes. His positive performance during the pre-season is long forgotten.

Go Suns!

What's going on in Dallas?

At 17-7, writing after the loss in New Orleans, the Suns now head to Texas to face the two best team in the West (not calling Arizona home): San Antonio (18-5) and Dallas (16-9).

While the Spurs are playing well, despite Tim Duncan missing a few games (he's back...don't worry), one of the toughest question in the NBA right now is what's going on in Dallas?

It's such an interesting issue (check the excellent Mavsblog on the Dallas Morning News), even for non-Mavs fans, because it's a perfect example of the thin equilibrium NBA teams are living on, day in and day out, as the key is both technical and psychological.

The Mavs are very good at home (10-2) not so good on the road (6-7) but look like a team in search of its soul on most nights.

Compare it to what they have in San Antonio. The Spurs know where they are, trust their skills, know what to do, who should get the ball when it matters; a classic case of winners' confidence.

The Mavs have possibly the best roster in the NBA and for sure some of the game's most talented players: Nowitzki, Howard, Terry, Harris plus some very good players off bench in Stackhouse, Bass, Diop, Barea. Only the Suns' top six players could match the Mavs talent wise.

They have an excellent coaching staff too, led by one the game's brightest young coach, and an Owner ready to pay what's needed to win.

Yet, despite this they are still looking for certainties. I believe it all comes down to Confidence and Collective Intelligence.

On a basketball court it means that you're expecting the best (a win) in every game because you know the TEAM can find solutions that a single player wouldn't be able to create (unless he's MJ...but that's a different story). It means that a team can actually perform better than the sum of its single players.

Good attitude and good coaching can create some form of collective intelligence and the Mavs have both (like the Suns) but only winning can actually generate optimism and self-confidence and I believe Dallas has not recovered yet from last year's awful loss to the Warriors in the first round of the playoffs and - above all - the terrible loss (up 2-0 in the series with game three in control) to the Heat in the NBA Finals the year before. It won't be easy to get over those.

Imagine how the Mavs will feel when they start the playoffs next spring. The whole season will be a process of self-confidence building and I think Avery Johnson is primarily working on this side of his team. He needs a self-confident Nowitzki, above all.

While the Suns haven't experienced a "dramatic" loss, the way a first round exit is when you're supposed to win it all, Phoenix will somewhat experience the same kind of mental pressure in the Playoffs.

The next couple of games in San Antonio and Dallas should be very interesting.

Go Suns !

Are the Suns actually playing good defense?

The 5-game Eastern road trip ended with an unpredictable loss to the Timberwolves but still remained a success with Phoenix winning four (of five) and scoring at least 115 in each of those games. The Suns actually put 122 on the Wizards, 136 on the Raptors, 121 on the Pacers and only 115 on the Knicks. With last night exception against the T-Wolves the Suns have been the better team on the court every game.

Phoenix is 16-4, third highest total in the League behind the Spurs and the Celtics, and is basically winning games because the Suns are outplaying their opponents: Nash & Co. are running faster, passing the ball around and shooting better....sounds easy eh!?

The Suns are shooting an excellent .497 from the field (.373 from 3-point and .786 on FT), their opponents just .462 .361 .708.
The Suns are dishing an amazing 27.9 assists per game, seven more than their foes, not to mention more steals (8.2 vs 7.1), less turnovers (14.1 vs 15.8) and more blocked shots (5.5 vs 3.8) per game.

Are the Suns just better than their challengers or is there a case for the Suns defense as well? Not sure, when the Suns are able to impose their high-speed rhythm to the games they become effective in chasing the ball, getting deflections (a big key in Coach D'Antoni's system) and thus generating fastbreaks and points off turnovers: that's the key to the Suns defense.

The only apparent weakness being the rebounds as the Suns have been out-STATed 45.8 to 41.9. But that deficit on the boards has actually been the results of a few bad games:

• 54-34 vs LA Lakers
• 56-40 vs Atlanta
• 47-34 vs Houston
• 55-33 vs Minnesota

The Suns lost every time they scored less then 100 points this season (0-4) and on three of those they have been outrebounded badly.

The next few games should be very interesting to check where the Suns are now. After playing Miami (4-15) on Monday Phoenix has the biggest challenge of the season so far with games in New Orleans (13-7), San Antonio (17-3) and Dallas (13-8). Those two games in Texas should be very interesting to watch.

One quick note. I hadn't realized how much Steve Nash had improved his shooting over the years until I read this great (as usual) post on The Painted Area.

Finally, before leaving, remember to Ask Raja on YouTube !

Go Suns!

PG-SG Combo Power Ranking

Last night's game against the Magic showed how great Steve Nash and Raja Bell are as a PG-SG combination. So while I was watching the game I thought about where would I rank them in a ideal PG-SG (power) ranking.
I have tried to rank the ten best starting PG-SG combination right now. Starting (right now) means no Parker-Ginobili as long as Manu comes off the bench and no Gilbert Arenas or Mike Bibby as only active players have been taken into consideration. I have indeed included LeBron as he's just day-to-day.

Here's my PG-SG Combo Power Ranking. Each player is followed by his current avg. in points, rebounds and assists. (PPG, RPG, APG - NO DECIMALS). Stats as of Sunday, December 2nd, 2007.

1. Detroit - C. Billups (16, 2, 7), R. Hamilton (16, 3, 4)

2. Dallas - D. Harris (15, 3, 5), J. Terry (17, 2, 3)

3. Milwaukee - M. Williams (14, 3, 7), M. Redd (23, 5, 3)

4. Chicago - K. Heinrich (10, 2, 5), B. Gordon (19, 4, 2)

5. New Jersey - J. Kidd (11, 8, 10), V. Carter (18, 5, 4)

6. LA Lakers - K. Bryant (27, 6, 4), D. Fisher (11, 2, 3)

7. Golden State - M. Ellis (16, 3, 2) B. Davis (23, 5, 8)

8. Cleveland - D. Gibson (12, 2, 3), L. James (30, 7, 8)

9. Phoenix - S. Nash (18, 3, 11), R. Bell (10, 3, 2). Great Combination of defense, playmaking and shooting...if you could combine the offensive side of Nash with the defensive side of Bell you would make the greatest guard to ever play the game

10. Miami - J. Williams (9, 2, 5), D. Wade (19, 3, 4)

11. Charlotte - J. Richardson (17, 5, 2), R. Felton (16, 3, 7)
12. Houston - T. McGrady (25, 5, 5), R. Alston (8, 3, 4)

13. New York - S. Marbury (14, 2, 5), J. Crawford (16, 2, 4)
14. Denver - A. Iverson (23, 3, 7), A. Carter (7, 3, 5)

15. Utah - R. Brewer (13, 2, 2), D. Williams (19, 3, 8)

16. San Antonio - T. Parker (20, 3, 7), M. Finley (7, 2, 1). With Manu Ginobili (19, 4, 4) starting the Spurs' duo would be in the top five.

17. Indiana - M. Dunleavy (16, 5, 2), J. Tinsley (14, 4, 8)

18. New Orleans - C. Paul (19, 4, 10), M. Peterson (9, 3, 1)

19. Boston - R. Rondo (8, 3, 5), R. Allen (20, 4, 3)

20. Toronto - J. Calderon (9, 2, 7) or TJ Ford (13, 2, 7) and A. Parker (11, 4, 1)

21. Seattle - K. Durant (19, 4, 2), D West (7, 2, 3) or Watson (7, 2, 6).
22. Memphis - D. Staudamire (7, 2, 4), M. Miller (14, 7, 3)

23. LA Clippers - C. Maggette (20, 6, 2), B. Knight (4, 1, 4). Not much better if you count S. Cassell (13, 2, 4) at PG

24. Atlanta - A. Johnson (4, 2, 3), J. Johnson (22, 3, 5)

25. Philadelphia - A. Miller (14, 4, 4), W. Green (11, 3, 2)

26. Orlando - J. Nelson (12, 4, 5), K. Bogans (9, 4, 1)

27. Portland - S. Blake (5, 2, 5), B. Roy (16, 3, 4)

28. Sacramento - B. Udrich (14, 3, 4) K. Martin (24, 5, 2)

29. Minnesota - S. Telfair (9, 2, 4), C. Brewer (4, 2, 1). Not much better with Marko Jaric in the line-up.

30. Washington - A. Daniels (7, 3, 4), D. Stevenson (7, 3, 2).They're missing G. Arenas (22, 4, 5) a lot.

Go Suns !