The Curse of Kareem and the Gamble
by hookedonphoenix on Jul 25, 2009 3:34 PM MDT
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PrintI'm sure you solid Suns fans know the story of how we were one pick away from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1969. How good would we have been? How many championships would we have?
Since then, no Suns team without a franchise center has come close. The Finals Suns in '76 had Alvan Adams. He was still decent until '84-'85, and fell off the following year. Coincidence that we missed the playoffs in '85-'86? Maybe not.
We got back into the playoffs in '88-'89. Guess who we picked up then? Tom Chambers!
We lost Tom Chambers in '93-'94. Guess who we picked up then? A.C. Green!
We missed the playoffs in '01-'02. You know who our center was? Washed up Tom Gugliotta!
We made the playoffs again in '02-'03. You know who we had? Amare Stoudemire!
Do you see the pattern here? We need a franchise center. That's how we win games. Amare Stoudemire refuses to play center now. If so, we have to find someone who will. We gave up Shaq. Unless you find a way to pry Dwight Howard from Orlando or Al Jefferson from Minnesota, Yao's it, basically.
The gamble is this. I proposed a trade with Houston which didn't go down so well because I was trying to think of ways to deal with Houston, specifically. They have a giant that might not be back, and they're praying that he comes back, but they know they won't have him. They would really like to win so Yao Ming doesn't opt out in 2010. At the same time, their only remaining worthy asset is Yao Ming. For this reason, I bet Houston would be willing to deal Yao. They have to accept the fact that no one's going to come to Houston in 2010 if they lose all the time, and they have to sacrifice Yao to make that happen.
Richardson for Yao. The upside is that we get one of the games great giants, a great defensive presence and a perennial matchup problem. The possible downside is that he never plays for us. Our medical staff is the best in sports. If they didn't get him running in the fastest amount of time of any team that could possibly have him, I would be surprised. We don't really need Jason Richardson anyway, though, in my opinion.
The biggest problem is if Houston's bluffing. If they're bluffing with his diagnosis, and Yao Ming isn't as bad as he seems, then they bring him back as soon as possible and Yao causes problems for us on the court like he causes problems for everybody. I somehow doubt it, but stranger things have happened in sports.
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Yao is too injury prone
I know we have the best staff in the league and people come here and resurrect their career/health, but at the end of the day-I don’t trust Yao to be ever be healthy for a whole season AND playoffs. I think we need a center-but not necessarily a dominant one. We need a defensive one who can rebound and pick up the garbage points and intimidate. Amare, Nash and Richardson can do the rest. I feel J-rich will do good this year and this team is gonna be good with another BIG who can run and d up.
The game has gotten
smaller and faster….look how well the Lakers did with Gasol playing big minutes at Center. Maybe not the best example given how good he is and how good the rest of that team is but these days I would take mobile, active, rebounding big over back to the basket slow bang in the paint big.
We basically need Robin to be Robin
Blogging Suns Basketball
yaoch
Yao is just too fragile and I dont think he can keep up with the Suns. All we really need is a fast, defensive center who can rebound and hit jumpers, which i guess Yao does all of that except the whole running part.
Agreed. Yao is too slow, and his feet and ankles won't hold up much longer, if at all.
I was hoping the GS deal would go through, because I’m a huge fan of Andris Biedrins.
"Fun fact: Larry Hughes, who couldn’t stay healthy if all his human parts were replaced with bionic implants, is out for the next four weeks with a bruised leg. Do you think that Willis Reed ever reads about all these players missing time with bruises and sprained fingers and throws up in his mouth a little?"
flawed post
None of those guys you mentioned is a center.
April 29, 2008 Total Eclipse of the Sun. Is the sky falling?
Super flawed post
You are forgetting the most important rule regarding trade suggestions. Even if it is a longshot, it needs to actually have a possibility. Leslie Alexander is a notorious racist, and an unscrupulous, greed-driven jerk whose only intention with Yao Ming the past 6 years has been to use him as a money-farm. Unlike Mark Cuban, or even Sarver, Alexander has likely never watched a basketball game before, and couldn’t tell a basketball from a tennis ball. He is in it for the money to be had from exploiting Yao Ming.
This same team that is paying 21million to Tracy Mcgrady to alternate sucking and sitting on the bench refuses to build an actual competitive roster by keeping that massively bloated contract sitting there and rotting away the whole franchise. When did Houston last sign a semi-decent backup center to provide cover for Yao Ming?
And of course, this is the team that rushed Yao back from injury to play pointless games. Many, many, many useless games. They played Yao MIng 38 mins a game through numerous meaningless season-end games, games against tanking/really weak teams, games which the Rockets should have passed up because they had no good chance of contention, and they act surprised when his stress fracture can’t heal. There is no conceivable package that would make Leslie Alexander give up his Chinese money-tree.
There isn’t any way you can defend Leslie Alexander from being anything other than a complete scumbag and all-around lowlife.
http://themeanderingtruth.evony.com/ ve watched, loved, and rooted for the Suns for half my life! I hate smug and hypocritical Laker fans.
Quiz
Which one of these is not like the others?
a) Vegetarian
b) World Famous Animal Rights Activist
c) Racist
I’m just sayin.
Don't feel bad, Channing. We can't rebound either.
There's no connection between all 3
Being a vegetarian doesn’t make you a better person, much as pompous vegans would like to perpetuate the notion. But more importantly, being a vegetarian doesn’t make you any less of a racist.
Guy A: I hate blacks and Asians
Me: OMFG you racist asshole!
Guy A: I work in PETA and I like broccoli.
Me: Hey, that totally makes you NOT a racist, or at least it plasters over and makes racism totally okay!
And yes he is an animal rights activist, it helps to make him less of a douchebag, but it does not make him any less of a racist.
It’s his exploitation of Yao Ming and his contemptuous view/treatment of Chinese that makes me lash out against him. I neglected to factor in his dietary preferences and his animal rights activism. Of course, it would be a lot more ironic if he was an ardent human rights activist and yet is a racist scumbag.
Incidentally, there was a guy in my city who worked at an animal shelter and seemed to be a real kind-hearted guy until he was arrested for molesting his nephew.
And a even closer example, one of my ex-neighbours, about 7 years ago, was a wife-beater, but he loved animals and I always saw him feeding and petting the strays. Yet his wife was on several occasions in far worse condition.
Wife beaters and child-molesters can be animal lovers too.
I’m just saying.
http://themeanderingtruth.evony.com/ ve watched, loved, and rooted for the Suns for half my life! I hate smug and hypocritical Laker fans.
I didn't say it those things
made him less of a racist if he is racist.
I just meant that’s a fairly unlikely demographic combo and barring any real hard evidence you have of his racism, like a specific public incident of racism, I’m probably not going to buy into it.
Don't feel bad, Channing. We can't rebound either.
Wait, why is he ‘allegedly’ a scumbag low-life?
"I’m tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok." ~Shaq
by Max_in_Missouri on Aug 4, 2009 1:19 AM MDT up reply actions
I liked amare at center when we have an athletic power forward like we did with Matrix..also we did pretty well with Kurt Thomas as our center and even though Frye isnt the defender Thomas is he can do a lot of things offensively as far as shooting that made us so tough
by Lebrontophx2010 on Jul 26, 2009 8:52 PM MDT reply actions
He's just too injury prone
It’s not a good gamble. The likelihood of positive returns is way too small. If he wasn’t such a walking MASH patient, I might like the idea.
Mmmmm ... Guinness
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