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…Or
maybe that Shaquille O’Neal deal really wasn’t such a
good idea.
Not that
all us skeptics were saying that when they won 15 of
their last 20 and ran over the Spurs in San Antonio and
coach Gregg Popovich said they were the hottest team in
the West.
The wily
Popovich just pulled off the magic trick of a career
that includes four titles, but he wasn’t lying in the
weeds.
Even as
the Spurs finished off the Suns on Tuesday, he continued
to show the toll the season took on him, giving TNT
sideline reporter David Aldridge a withering look for
asking who would get it done if struggling Manu Ginobili
couldn’t.
“Somebody, I hope,” said Popovich, turning on his heel
to rejoin his team, shaking his head.
Here’s
the bottom line:
The
trade did work as the Suns proved again, leading by 16
points in Game One and by 14 in Game Two in
San Antonio…before
the Spurs stole both back.
(They
did it by hacking Shaq, who went 32-for-64 from the
free-throw line, but that’s an abomination for another
day.)
The
problem was, the trade just didn’t work well enough.
That was
the real quandary. O’Neal could make them bigger, better
defensively (which was a long way from good with O’Neal
letting Tony Parker turn the corner on 100 percent of
the 50 or so pick-and-rolls they ran at him nightly) and
bring Amare Stoudemire in line…
And with
all O’Neal did, it still might not get the Suns over the
top in the West.
As it
turned out, it didn’t even get them out of the first
round in the West.
Worst of
all, with so many young powers on the rise (Lakers,
Hornets, Jazz, Trail Blazers), the Suns, like the
Mavericks who traded for Jason Kidd, just got a lot
older.
Oh, and
there goes the neighborhood.
SI.com’s
Jack McCallum, who spent a year with the Suns writing a
book, just reported that Mike D’Antoni is leaving on his
own initiative.
Another
D’Antoni intimate says the entire staff will be
Toronto-bound to work for their old GM, Bryan Colangelo,
if he can get ownership to fire Sam Mitchell, who has
$10 million coming.
Choice
No. 2: Chicago, which is desperate and has a Suns-style
roster (well, if you squint enough for Kirk Hinrich and
Luol Deng to look like Steve Nash and Stoudemire.)
Then
there are the Knicks, taking their coach search slowly
to see if D’Antoni, Mitchell or Detroit’s Flip Saunders
become available. Dallas’ Avery Johnson was made
available Tuesday when the Mavericks fired him.
It has
been apparent all along that the Suns’ new president,
Steve Kerr, and D’Antoni have never been on the same
page.
However,
this was only the last act in the split between the old
owner, Jerry Colangelo, and the new owner, Robert
Sarver, who let Colangelo’s son Bryan leave and won’t
hold a wake to grieve for D’Antoni.
On the
other hand, no matter what it looks like, this was not
about Kerr and D’Antoni splitting over O’Neal.
Like
many people, I speculated that D’Antoni opposed the
trade behind the scenes. Aside from the fact that a
Phoenix
insider said that was the case, D’Antoni had created the
fast-paced offense they were abandoning and kept saying
that they might have won a title with it.
It just
wasn’t true. D’Antoni wasn’t faking his enthusiasm. He
not only didn’t oppose the move, he was all for it.
The
proposal originally came in through Sarver, who got a
call from Miami owner Mickey Arison, and was all in
favor of it.
However,
I later learned D’Antoni was even more in favor than
Kerr, who had watched all the video he could find of
O’Neal in Miami, which wasn’t inspiring.
D’Antoni
and Nash were both up to here with Shawn Marion’s
attitude, which was affecting Stoudemire’s attitude.
Also, in
retrospect, it’s possible that with D’Antoni already
leery of the way things were going—it was his job as
head of the basketball operation that Kerr had
assumed—he figured, why not take a shot?
For the
answer to that question, just look around.
The
franchise is still there, but the game’s fastest-paced,
highest-scoring, most entertaining team is no more. |
