Who needs tickets?

The Miami Heat on Tuesday completed a trade that sent 35-year-old Shaquille O’Neal to the Phoenix Suns for Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks. Needless to say the criticism has been widespread. Most fans, league executives and radio show hosts and callers have dissed this trade and think that the Suns ended up on the losing side of the equation.

Shaq after all is past the prime of his career, injury prone and hardly mobile enough to fit the run-and-gun offense of the Suns. Nowadays when Shaq’s healthy he can at best produce occasional spells of productivity and when he is not he becomes nothing but a big liability with a huge salary contract.

But hard as it may be to believe there are those who believe that this was a good move for the Suns. Most of the arguments that I’ve heard sum up to this: The Suns were not going to win a title playing attractive, fast-paced basketball because they were a terrible defensive team that always flopped in the playoffs and now Shaq, supposedly, will change all that. 
Those in favor of the trade say that in the Playoffs the Suns never were able to display their fast-paced game because teams with big physical presence inside (meaning mainly the San Antonio Spurs and Tim Duncan) would always force them into a half-court system that would isolate Steve Nash and leave Amare Stoudamire guarding the big guys down below.   

Even though Shaq can’t run he supposedly will give the Suns a big presence in the paint and help them get the elusive championship. He will do this by getting pressure off Amare defensively and Nash offensively because he will open the floor and force the other teams to guard either Amare or Shaq one-on-one.

Shaq, again according to those favoring the trade, will give the Suns a more conventional center that will thrive playing defensive glass and starting the fast break. This will allow enable Amare Stoudamire’s to run more and move to power forward, where he would have less responsibility for the defensive boards and could increase his scoring productivity.

Now, if only life was that simple. The problem is that even though the Suns are confident that “The Diesel” has enough fuel left in him for one more run at a title the truth is that this Shaq is not anywhere close to being the same Shaq that helped the Miami Heat win it all two years ago.

The truth is that Shaq will actually hurt Nash both offensively and defensively. Offensively the Suns won’t have as many opportunities to run, thus limiting Nash’s fast break abilities.

Actually, the Suns will have to slow down to wait for Shaq to get involved at the offensive end. Furthermore, Nash will not have the luxury of running with someone as versatile and agile as Marion something that may mean less assists and scoring opportunities for the Canadian point guard.

Defensively, since their game will slow down the Suns will have to defend the half court and Nash is not the best one for that job. Besides, Shaq is not as dominant in the paint as he once was. Now he’s so old that when he jumps up after a rebound he has to gather himself and look up court, thus slowing down the process of kicking it out to those responsible of running the floor.

Now, it is true that Marion will make $16.4 million this year and could opt out of the 17 million final year of his contract after this season, thus losing him to free agency, but if that is the case why wait until now to deal him?

Even more perplexing is the fact that Phoenix has to deal with Shaq’s huge salary cap contract which pays him $20 million this season and $20 million more in each of the next two further limiting the Suns activity in the free agency market.

Why didn’t they trade for Kevin Garnett in the offseason? There is no way that an-oft injured center was the best the Suns could get for a guy that could be considered one of the top three forwards of the NBA.

This looks to me more and more like the Dikembe Mutombo trade to Philadelphia of a few years ago when the fans of the 76ers were told that the team was acquiring a player that would give them a special defensive edge and allow them to compete with the powerhouses of the West, and we all remember how that ended up, don’t we?