Fan House Brett is a fan

updated on Mar 3, 2009 10:58 PM MST

Brett Pollakoff from AOL Fanhouse

1) Shaq came to the Suns and had an undeniable impact. How do you think it's worked out so far?

On paper, it seemed ridiculous to try to mesh an aging and broken Shaquille O'Neal with the 7SOL Phoenix Suns. I mean, how could that possibly work out, right? As it turns out, it hasn't -- so far. But honestly, it wasn't that bad of an idea. The Suns were a Tim Duncan three-pointer away from taking the Spurs to six or seven games in the playoffs last season, and based on what we've seen this year, it's a fair assessment that if Terry Porter wasn't hired to change things from the start, everything could have worked out a lot differently.

Shaq has seen a rejuvenation and is playing his best basketball of literally the past five years. It's clear that he's just fine in the uptempo offense, especially because he gets easy hoops in transition when he runs the floor and gets the ball in the post before the opponent can set their defense. And with Amare's injury right now, without Shaq the team would have zero shot at the playoffs. With him, at least there's hope. It could have worked out better, but the coaching change was what messed things up -- not the play of the Big Shaqtus.

2) Knowing what you know now would you do the deal again (assuming you have that awesome power to make deals at all....and go back in time)?

Only if I could also have the power to have Mike D'Antoni still in the head coach's seat. But Alvin Gentry seems to be doing his bidding anyway, so right now, (except for Amare's injury) things are going pretty much as initially planned.

3) If you wouldn't have done this deal with Shaq, what would you have done with Marion (assuming again that anyone other then the rest of us listens to you)?

N/A