<span style="font-family:Arial">Which player do you feel is more important to the Suns success? I feel like I'm the only one who thinks Marion is more valuable than Stoudemire is. Everybody knows that Shawn Marion is a great rebounder, as well as an extremely versatile defender. People seem to overlook all of the little things that Marion does as well. Diving for loose balls, tipping out rebounds to open shooters, hustling on both ends of the floor.I have to take Shawn Marion on this one, as of RIGHT NOW.</span>
I'm going to say Amare. Because he gives them a low post presence downlow and opens up the floor more for the Suns. That's needed in their open court offense to spread the floor. Also, he works well with Nash on the pick and roll, and at times provides a guy who can create on his own. Something I don't think applies as one of Marion's strength. I think Marion provides the Suns a good player but I feel Amare has a far more bigger impact overall. Without him, they have no size and defenses can focus more on Nash. Oh and with all this, Amare is younger.
S2S agrees with you. Amare is the only guy besides Nash and Barbosa(and Diaw, but he didn't show up this season) who can create for himself and he actually shows up during playoff time. Marion is great and all during the regular season, but when we play tough teams in a playoff series he really doesn't do that much at all, definitely not 17 million dollars worth. You can say he can guard 4 positions, but he doesn't really guard any of them particularly well. He's had success against Nowitzki half the time, but most players(Duncan, Parker, J.Howard, Odom) average their regular averages against him or better. Only problem with Amare is that he gets too emotional sometimes and makes bad fouls, but at least he contributes. He's far and away our 2nd best player when the real season begins. I'd much rather get rid of Marion than Amare for next year. Of course I'd rather keep both because I think they are both key to us winning it, and I'd be pissed if they let Marion go for the Celtics offer, but Amare is just a better player.
And yeah, kind of going off what Rok said, without Amare we go from being a somewhat 1-dimensional team to having a 1 dimensional offense also with no real inside scorer. His shot blocking also adds a lot to our interior D. That part of the team isn't that good yet, but it's much worse without him.
Marion is a better rebounder, a better defender, has more range, and is more versatile than Amare. However Amare can score inside better, but he needs to get better at handling the ball if he wants to dominate inside. He had so many turnovers because of fumbled basketballs. So at this point I'll go with Marion, but in the future either Amare's knees will blow out again, or he becomes a monumental superstar.
I'd rather have Marion not have any range, that 3-pointer is awful. He shoots it too much and misses unless he's have a really good game at the time. I prefer Amare's shorter range because he gets us easier points and doesn't take dumb shots. Amare's mid range shot is also MUCH more reliable than Marion's. And instead of a little floater that always misses, Amare goes for the and1. I wouldn't say Marion's a better rebounder either...neither one can box out that well, but Amare with out his usual athleticism had a slightly better year rebounding. He really has improved his whole game outside of dunking with his injury.
Like I said on AIM, you always take the star big man over the star perimeter player. Finding a quality big man nowadays is so hard to come by. I'm not saying Marion is easily replaceable, because he's not. He's an excellent all-around player, but give me the star big man over the start combo forward. Take Amare off that team, their frontcourt is putrid and they have nothing inside, they are less effective offensively. Take Marion off that team, they can still be just as effective offensively and they still have a real interior presence. Filling a SF hole is 10x easier than filling a hole at the 5.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (DTP @ Jun 21 2007, 10:31 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Well, they got to WCF without Amare so take that and run with it.</div>They also didn't have to face the Spurs in the 2nd round, to get to the WCF that year due to retarded playoff seedings. As for the question, I am with everyone else, Amare Stoudemire is the one that is more valuable to the Suns success. He provides offensive balance on the court, something that Marion doesn't provide. While Marion is better on defense, he doesn't change the game on defense very much. That is opposed to Amare who can directly change the game on offense and cause his team to be much better offensively.
