A few months back the San Antonio Spurs found the missing element to regaining their championship swagger: Richard Jefferson. Fast-forward to January/February. Jefferson is averaging 12.5 ppg, his lowest average since his rookie season. Across the board, his numbers are bottoming out: assists, rebounds, steals. The Spurs are about where we thought they’d be, 5th in the West. Although when the season began I did not think they’d stockpile the best record, I still thought they would excel in the playoffs. Now, I might consider that.
Right now, however, the Spurs are looking to change all of that. They are in discussion with the Phoenix Suns about brokering a deal for 5-time All-Star Amar’e Stoudemire. If the Spurs trade for Stoudemire, the Spurs might really be a dangerous team. Maybe not Boston, Cleveland, or Los Angeles dangerous, but this would put them about a half-a-step behind teams like Orlando, Atlanta and possibly Denver.
The trade of Stoudemire for Manu Ginobili would be the trade of the season, comparable to the recent trades of Al Jefferson for Kevin Garnett, or Kwame Brown (and the rights to Marc Gasol) for Pau Gasol.
As a Laker fan, this trade scares me because it significantly improves our main rival of the last decade, the Spurs.
As a student of the game, the NBA in particular, I argue this: the Suns should stop selling away their valuable assets! Not only have they gotten rid of Shaquille O’Neal, Joe Johnson, Steve Nash (once), Stephon Marbury (okay, we all know that was for the best, but he was still good then), don’t get me started on their draft picks. Over the last ten years, the Suns have dealt away the rights to Rajon Rondo, Stephen Jackson (assigned to CBA), Luol Deng, Nate Robinson, and Sergio Rodriguez (“Suns Draft History”). And they’ve given up all of those players for basically nothing.
There is no way this is a good trade for the Suns. The Suns, currently 9th in the west but only by fractions of games, would be making a bad move for a number of reasons. They would be trading big for small, a power-forward/center for a guard; moreover, they’d be trading youth for age (Stoudemire is 28; Ginobili is 32). This severely weakens the Suns frontcourt; a year ago they had Shaquille O’Neil and Stoudemire. After this deal, they would have a frontcourt of Louis Amundson and Channing Frye. Hmmm. Additionally, we should not overlook that Ginobili, due to age and injury, is having his worst scoring season since his second year in the league. Stoudemire, while the last few years have been slightly up and down, he’s still a 20 ppg scorer who pulls in 8-9 boards each game.
If this trade happens, the Spurs would, again, significantly improve. Think back to when they had Robinson/Duncan; yeah, it could be something like that. Robinson was a shell of his former self at that time, though, and this time they’d have an Amar’e in his prime. The Spurs might boast a starting line-up of:
C Amar’e Stoudemire (20.6 ppg, 8.4 rpg)
PF Tim Duncan (19.9 ppg, 10.8 rpg)
SF Richard Jefferson (12.8 ppg)
SG George Hill (10.1 ppg)
PG Tony Parker (16.9 ppg, 5.8 apg)
This looks like a great deal for the Spurs, but I am wrong? What makes this a good deal for the Suns? Why should they pull-the-trigger on this trade?
R.S. De France is a College and University instructor of English Composition. He has a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Rhetoric, Composition, and Writing. One of his life-long pursuits has been writing and covering anything related to sports, specifically the NBA. Recently, De France, his wife, and another colleague started an internationally read magazine at Shwibly.com.
