Steve Nash: Trade to Portland would be a "terrific situation"

I never said he was, I simply said "borderline allstar" which he was even with only 2 real elite PG's in the east of Rondo/Rose. Just like LA was a borderline allstar last year in the west.

 

Nash is not a young guy. He's almost 40. That's not young. Like I said, he's old enough to be the father of some of the youngest guys in the league. You want to trade some of our young talent for a guy who is almost 40?

 

In the West where there are a ton of good PFs.

 

Who cares what he almost is. He is 38 now and can play. I will take one WCF this year over no playoffs/out in first round over the next 10 years.

 

By the way, how old is the PG on the defending champs? I'll get that. He's 39 and very nearly 40. If Kidd's not too old, then neither is Nash.

 

Yeah, and Kidd wasn't even close to being the best player on the Mavs. You're expecting Nash to be our best player and our savior.

 

There's a difference between playing like an all-star and "pundits" saying you should be one.

 

I would like to at least be able to say that I think we'd compete with them. At this point I don't think we'd even compete with Miami in a seven game series.

 

I don't think McMillan has the cache to force Nash, an established star and probably Hall of Famer, to play a way he doesn't want to. There's no way McMillan could bench Nash, without losing his players and probably management, so he'd have no leverage.

 

Look: here's why we target Nash. SO WE DON'T HAVE TO WATCH OUR PGs DRIBBLE THE BALL OFF THEIR FEET. That's it. To ease the pain, to actually stand a chance of enjoying Blazer Basketball again.

BUT: it would indeed be incredibly stupid to give up Batum, just as he's kicking into gear. It would also be dangerous to give up Camby or Gerald, but if we're to take nasty Suns contracts off their hands, it would take that.
They're not going to want Wesley, whose contract is long and not very cheap, so give up on that idea.

I'd be happy to take on Childress, Warrick and/or Frye (be nice to have him back, even if he's not worth the money) off their hands, and even give them Oden just so that they can have their career-extending medical staff have a look at him, but you don't give up Batum. I would also give up Elliot Williams or Nolan Smith, because I have a hunch neither will amount to much (Nolan because he's too slow, Elliot because he's Gerald Green II [yeah, I know, Green just got signed by NJ after being MVP of the D-League all-star game - that's probably Elliot's ceiling]).

BUT BUT BUT: it's almost certainly not going to happen anyway.

 

Basically just semantics, along the lines of "We acquired an All Star in Jamaal Magloire."

The fact that he maybe almost made the All Star team based on New York hype is not terribly relevant. The point is that Felton has never been All Star-caliber, or all that close to it. The best he's ever been was a little above average. For his career, a tiny bit below average.

 

Remember the short-lived Terry Porter coached Suns? Remember how Nash's game tanked until they canned Terry and got Alvin Gentry to be D'Antoni-lite? It could be ugly. Thing about Nash is he's just too nice to make that much of a fuss. BUT: if Nate sticks to the push-the-ball mantra he was preaching at the beginning of the season (before it became evident how unreliable Felton was) it...might....just...work!!!!

(Nice use of cashay there, by the way. Way to raise the tone.)

 

Nash is certainly playing at a high level still, but this idea that he's going to revolutionize the way the Blazers play in 30 games seems a little far fetched to me ... especially in a year when there is so little practice time and opportunities to work out the kinks. Maybe he's enough to push us into the second round, but if you add him and remove Batum are really going to be good enough to overcome the Lakers' size, OKC's athleticism and Dallas' defense?

Fuck it, I guess if you're going to push all of your chips in there are worse players you could do it on, but this just feels so much more like desperation vs. shrewd planning to me ... all for the chance to probably top out at as a second round team for one lockout shortened season and then ... well, it's gonna get ugly when the only guy in his prime is LaMarcus surrounded by the group of geriatrics we'll have left (and that's assuming Nash even re-ups here next season).

 

That is a ridiculous bar.

That is your problem.

"If I can't be President, why bother going to college? Waste of time and waste of money."

 

I agree. McMillan will say and do all the right things at the start. As he "regressed" to his set ways, Nash will ignore him and play Nash ball. It is the only way Nash knows how to play anyway - and he has the ball in his hands. No stopping it.

 

Nash was trying to address the "no defense wins a ring" stuff and giving it a go. When it became obvious it was a disaster, Nash complained to the coach. Porter said stick with it. Nash disagreed. Coach gone. I don't think at this stage Nash would even consider a repeat performance of that. If there were trade discussion, Nash would ask about this upfront. Of course, McMillan would say he want's to run and open it up, blah, blah, blah - as he has said before and as he actually put into practice to start this season. Once McMillan agreed, there wouldn't be anything he could do if Nash came here.

 

I agree and thus would only do this deal if we don't give up LaMarcus (obviously), Batum or Camby (a surprise to some, but essential to any possible deep run).

The Suns can have: our cap space (via return of bad contracts); picks; Elliot Williams (young prospect on rookie deal); Felton (ending); Crawford (ending); Wes or Gerald (if they want either, they probably don't due to the money owed); Oden (if they want to take a flyer on that situation.

I don't think they put value on Wes or Gerald or Oden, so if we made a deal that works for us, Phoenix would get cap relief (something in the past they have put a very high value on as they have a good history of signing free agents); Elliot Williams and picks.

They can probably get better offers for Nash then that. Nash would have to insist, and as a pending free agent, he does have a lot of leverage. It is up to him.

Or, we can work 3-team deals, or multiple trades to try and get more value going to Phoenix. Need a hotshot GM for that kind of thing though.

 

This is basically my position too. Getting Nash unfortunately doesn't make a lot of sense if the team has to deal away pieces that would preclude a deep playoff run (Aldridge, Batum, Camby, maybe Wallace but he may not be quite as essential). The only way the deal can work is if the Suns really value dumping some bad contracts, draft picks and consider Williams to be intriguing. Oh, and the ubiquitous cash. They'd have to be giving up on the short-term.

I doubt Nash cares enough to demand to a trade to Portland, so this is all likely idle chatter. But idle chatter suffices when there's no basketball happening.

 

How about this:



Phoenix loses $4M immediately and $18M more at the end of the year. Camby could probably be flipped to some contender, also. We hang on to Gerald and Batum, and we also clear out space to re-sign Patty. We could throw in $3M of PAM and maybe the rights to Claver. I'm not sure I would also include Freeland, but if that was the breaking point I'd be pretty tempted (in part because we would have fucked our cap room so badly we could never sign him...)