With apologies to Simmons, I work the heck out of the trade machine from time to time. Responding to a post from elsewhere, would this make everyone barf? http://games.espn.go.com/nba/featur...2015~682&teams=22~22~21~21~21~21~21&te=&cash= Consolidation. Win Now. Outlaw, Bayless or Blake, Przybilla (w/Diogu and Raef to make salaries match) for Nash and Shaq. Nash/Roy/Batum/LMA/Oden with Sergio/Blake or Bayless/Rudy/Frye/Shaq (Webs taking Batum's place when he comes back) filling out the rotation. PHX is cheap enough to take Raef's contract for Shaq, and the rest of the "talent" should come close to equaling Nash. Having a veteran PG (even if he's only in 20-25 minutes a game, it's still an awesome 20 minutes) who shoots 45% from 3, has amazing court vision, and mentors Sergio is worth the price to me. Shaq backs up Oden (playing relatively equal minutes to start, Oden gradually taking over).
I love Nash, but Roy is best when he's the guard running the show. I actually like the other end of the deal for some reason. If we're mainly a half-court team, Shaq would be an awesome backup for Oden.
I would do this in a heartbeat. Nash on this team would make them contenders for a championship as he would run the show and get the ball to the right people for easy scores. But no way Phx does this, Nash is the face of the franchise. I watched part of that out door game with Phx and at the time they were talking about Nash and his last few years at a chance for the title. No talk of Nash being disgruntled, wanting to be traded or Phx looking to get value for him. Maybe if Phx plays terrible in the first half of the season . . . but again the talk was about how far nash would take them in the playoffs. Also i don't know if anybody else watched that game but there was a lot of Blazer love going around.
That trade is balls. Why on earth would we want Shaq? The dude is more than washed up, and he's almost certainly done playing in a year, which means we give up Joel Przybilla and a bunch of other guys for two that are past their prime and we have to go out and start looking for a decent backup center, and will probably have to go point guard shopping sooner rather than later. In my world consolidation trades should theoretically make us a better team in the long run, not mortgage our future on the hope for a single season of glory.
I wouldn't do it with Bayless, period. I'd only do it with Blake if both Nash and Shaq have expiring contracts or team options.
I'm really excited to see how much of an impact player Bayless could end up being and I think that Joel is the perfect back up power forward / veteran presence for this team. Given that Nash's window is very short and Shaq's is considerably less, I say HELL no.
