Any Way You Look

It occurred to me that maybe Dave Berri has some counterintuitive argument as to why the Shaq-Matrix trade makes sense for Phoenix. The answer is no. Instead, he has a counterintuitive argument that even if Shaq were to return to his 2004-2005 season level of production the trade still wouldn't help Phoenix. And, of course, that's not going to happen.

Meanwhile, an additional consideration here is that Shawn Marion is not only better, cheaper, and younger than Shaq, but he logs more minutes per game. Indeed, he plays more minutes per game than anyone else on the Phoenix roster. So expect to see more Brian Skinner and Boris Diaw in the future. The (rare) defenses of this trade, meanwhile, don't seem to grasp that just because Phoenix was relatively unlikely to win a championship pre-trade hardly justifies doing a deal that makes the team worse. The Wizards aren't going to win as presently constituted, either, but that doesn't mean Ernie Grunfeld should go do something ridiculous. Maybe if Phoenix hadn't sold those draft picks they could have struck gold. Anything but this.