There's been a lot of talk about trading various players, and there's a meme surrounding the Shaq to Cleveland trade rumors that Shaq didn't really do anything playing with Steve Nash.

But people have short memories, and if anything is true it's that the Gentry era started with a bang. As Hollinger's article in March points out, this teams' offense during the time before Barbosa got injured was *historically good*, even without Amare.  Shaq shot 68.4% during that time, and it was the kind of offense some of us expected to see all year.

Going forward to the upcoming season, we have to put away what happened this year, with the trades and changes in the head coach, and just forget it as an aberration.  Those early games under Alvin showed what this team is capable of doing, and I'd love to see what level they can reach with a pre-season under their belts.

That's not to suggest that the team doesn't have some serious issues, particularly surrounding it's defense, but it's not clear to me that those defensive woes weren't caused mostly by bad coaching by Terry Porter.  Certainly the inability of the defense to communicate on the court has less to do with individuals, and more to do with making sure everyone on the floor is on the same page.  Team defense is vastly more important than man defense.

IMHO, if Kerr and Sarver decide to trade Shaq, then they should just go ahead and start the rebuilding.