# Don't Panic!



## tempe85 (Jan 7, 2005)

This trade isn't the end of the world... far from it. 

First off the player we got from Atlanta is a very underrated player. The guy is very athletic, is a good ballhandler, can play 4 positions, and good defender. Which pretty much means he'll work well in our system. To add he's only 23 and has only been in the NBA for 2 years so it's not like he's had his potential tapped yet.

This also opens the floodgates for us to sign Micheal Finley. And while he's not as good as Johnson... he'll cost us about 19 million dollars less this comming season which is pretty freaking good. With Johnson gone I'm sure Finley won't hesitate to sign with the Suns. 

Also we now have a lovely exception (don't undervalue it's worth)! Which could mean a couple of things. For one we might have the money to resign Hunter as well as Gary Payton. Payton is not an unlikely choice considering he wants to go to a contender and has expressed interest in the Suns. 

Finally... let's all admit that Joe is being overpaid by quite a bit. The Hawks better pray that he works in a slow paced system or else they might be in for a rude awakening. Joe has had 1 1/2 good seasons which is hardly anything to get excited about... especially enough to consider throwing a MAX deal at. And remember overpaying a player can really hurt a team! Just see what happened with the Texas Rangers with A-Rod (among other instances). You need to spread out your money a little bit more ratherthan banking on 4 players which is what the Suns would have done. 

In the end the trade could pretty much look like this:

Joe Johnson

for

Boris Diaw
Gary Payton
Stephen Hunter
Micheal Finley
2 first round picks
14 million dollars (the money we saved by not signing Joe minus the money for the players we recieved)

That trade doesn't look too shabby now does it? 


Check out this rotation:

Nash/Payton/Barbosa/Diaw
Finley/Jackson/Bell/Diaw/Thompson
Marion/Bell/Padget/Diaw
Stoudemire/Thomas/Padget/Diaw
Thomas/Hunter/Stoudemire

Quite a bit deeper than last year


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## Sedd (Sep 1, 2003)

Good post man. I like your logic, it's just hard right now. I hope they offer Hunter a 3 year deal to make him happy and get Finley.


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## tempe85 (Jan 7, 2005)

Also I forgot to mention that by trading Johnson we get to keep Marion, who is worth more to us than Johnson would have ever been. With Joe we would have for sure had to trade Marion next year which would have hurt us pretty bad seeing as Marion is one of the greatest rebounding SF's in league history and fits our system to the letter T, along with being our best defender. Wouldn't you rather keep Marion, who has proved himself year after year, rather than Johnson who has had 1 1/2 good years? 

And just imagine this... what if Johnson had a bad season next year... and we couldn't move him. That means we'd still have to trade Marion and would be stuck with an awful contract for JJ. We pretty much would have been screwed over for years to come.


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## THE MATRIX 31 (Jul 22, 2005)

i dont blame Sarver for trading Joe, cuz he kinda made it clear hed rather be a Hawk. Wat im hating on is what they coulda got in return for JJ. If they got Harrington and Childress which wouldnt be that hard to do, id be a happy camper right now. If they didnt want to give that up for Joe, then we keep him. Either way it coulda worked out, but instead we ****ed up even if we get old *** payton and finley.

But good post tempe


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## Ezmo (May 11, 2003)

tempe, thanks for the damage control...your post has helped raise my spirits about this trade a bit...when i first heard about it and realized the cap space we have now, gp and finley came into my mind...if we get some of them, and manage to get this team deeper, i will be content...i just need to see the clear blue...beyond the grey skyyyyyyyyyyyy *sorry, 311 reference*


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## 1 Penny (Jul 11, 2003)

The only thing Im really pissed off on is that some of the people pointing this out to suns fans earlier are laughing hard and proud of themselves. Basically, the Suns fans underestimated the stinginess of the Suns owner.

Anyways, to be honest, if the Suns did sign JJ, he is definitely a good contributor to the Suns. But many were saying get rid of Marion after this season. Thats one thing I was always sure of that I wouldn't want the Suns to do. 

Marion is more important than JJ period.... to the Suns atleast. I see a lot of fans losing confidence on Marion after 1 bad series against the best defensive team and highly regarded defender (Bowen). All of a sudden, Marion became expendible. After a terrific year of clutch defensive plays, after a year where he finished 3rd in rebounds and 5th in steals.... scoring 19 points a game without taking any plays away from Amare. Marion, probably one of the best and loyal suns players since he came.... the fans lost faith after 1 series.

Now that JJ seems to be out, Marion is staying... or atleast until Sarver finds another cheap way to get rid of him. So Im a bit relieved.


As good as JJ is or potentially be, under the Suns system, anyone who can nail an open shot from the arc will be important and will get plays drawn for them. Thats D'Antoni's system for you. Diaw, Bell and as he already proven Jimmy Jax. Can step up to the plate and contribute by hitting open shots freeing the interior from being clogged. Instead of having one volume 3 pointer, I think Bell/Jimmy/Nash will share the perimeter shooting a lot next season... not to mention Amare will atleast get 3-4 extra shots a game. He could really average 30 points a game.


The running game?

The running game and uptempo style was not heavy reliant on JJ and Q, they thrived and contributed yes I agree... but the Main catalysts of the run and gun are Marion and Amare... playing out of position and just flat outrunning their men. So The running game shouldnt be that much affected. The one thing that other teams will target is the inside. Amare will be forced to pass off double teams... he needs to learn that aspect next season, because the perimeter just got less talented... offense wise, so he needs to find the open men a lot more.


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## Dissonance (Jul 21, 2004)

Meh, you're right though. But JJ was so young. I can't believe we're getting rid of someone who is the future.

And, Amare is playing center not PF.

And I hope we can come up with something better than Hunter and Payton. Finley is nice though.


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## ShuHanGuanYu (Feb 3, 2005)

Yeah, this trade is definitely not the end of the world. The Suns as it stands, without Dijon/Lucas/Scott's salaries added in, have a salary of around $43. Not sure if Scott got the LLE or not either. Lucas and Dijon are probably making around $2 total put together. That's probably around $4.5 or $5 to spend out of just salary cap money. A chunk of that can compete for Finley if he truly wants MLE type salary. The luxury tax threshold is pretty high, so there's no reason the Suns shouldn't be able to use that money (especially if they buy out Eisley). Then there's the trade exception the Suns can use for someone to give PG minutes behind Nash (Jaric S&T, Earl Watson S&T, etc.) or even a combo of roleplayers. They have the remainder of the mid level exception ($1-$2mil) and possibly the LLE (1.7mil). They will have used JJ's departure as an opportunity to fill out their bench for the playoffs. Injuries will happen (ahem, JJ), and we need to prepare for them. I'd hate to have another year where the Suns miss a chance and leave a bunch of questions due to one injury. 

As much as I LOVE JJ's game...I think Marion is more important to the Suns. There just aren't many like Marion anymore. I don't think the Suns have a better chance without Marion than they do without Joe. At least JJ's conribution can be somewhat replaced. You cannot replace the conribution a Shawn Marion gives you. Yeah, I know the response..."JJ is a future AllStar!" Yeah, well Amare/Marion/Nash are current all-stars. Our owner doesn't have the cash to pay all 4 of them all-star money. That's called reality. Choose to hate it or not, one of the four had to go. 

Now, if they match JJ...I'll still be a happy camper. I'm not gonna cry either way. I'll be watching the Suns play basketball while a few select fans around here are sitting in their mommy's basement and polishing their AK's to kill Robert Sarver. Just remember, if the Suns end up winning something without JJ, you weren't a part of it in my book.


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## tempe85 (Jan 7, 2005)

I wouldn't really call Sarver stingy. I mean paying out 20 million to JJ next season is A LOT of money for any player. Much less having to shell out 70 million over 5 years. Heck Billionaire Mark Cuban wouldn't pay Nash his contract last year... and guess what the Mavs got in return for Nash? Absolutely nothing. Exactly. 

I also agree somewhat with what was said previously... we don't have to get Payton and Hunter... Though we better get Finley. Obviously there are still other options available now that we have about 18 million dollars extra money lieing around in JJ's wake....

One guy I'm interested in is Dan Dickau... which I might be slightly biased since I'm a big Gonzaga fan as well. But there's no denying the guy can run the point extremely well and some have even said he's sort of a younger version of Nash (same bad defense though sadly). I'd also like to see another Gonzaga Grad, Richie Frahm get signed by us. He's a 3point marksman which we could use after we lost JJ and Q. 

Marko Jeric is also available.. though with Finley I don't see us getting him. 

There are quite a few options... we'll just have to sit and wait.


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## Carbo04 (Apr 15, 2005)

This is a great post. I needed it to calm down. Thank you.


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## Drk Element (Nov 10, 2004)

im not sure about this.


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## Tiz (May 9, 2005)

It makes alot of sense and I think after the inital shock wore off this is what alot of Suns fans were starting to think about, myself included. It finaly clicked last night. Thanks to Tempe for putting into words what I was thinking about last night.

This leaves the Suns in a great place financially to round out the team and to make some improvements in next years FA market as well. If we could go out and get Finely now or even another decent GF or backup PG we would be in great shape. I think there are a few good finds left out there like Gerald Wallace or Kareem Rush. For the point there is still Duhon or Knight or even Watson. I think even Boykins is still on the market, now that would be fun having Boykins, one of the fastest players in the league on the fastest team.

And that is the big thing. Not locking up the moeny leaves them able to give Amare his bigextension and still leaves the team some financial flexibility.

The downside for Atlanta will be that they now have JJ locked up to a bloated contract and are going to have to worry in a few years when Childress, Smith and Williams are all asking for max contracts.


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## Kekai (Jan 12, 2005)

tempe comes in to save the day again. haha.


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## Chalupa (Jul 20, 2005)

Tiz said:


> I think even Boykins is still on the market, now that would be fun having Boykins, one of the fastest players in the league on the fastest team.


Boykins is not FA; his contract goes through 2007/08. He is a fan favorite in Denver so it would likely cost the Suns more than they would be willing to give up.

That and I think Sebastian Telfair is faster than Boykins from the games I've watched.

Good luck in replacing JJ


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## Mike Jones (Jul 31, 2005)

I dont think this is the end of the Phoneix Suns like everyone is saying. I still expect them to get to the WCF this year. Joe Johnson wasnt the TEAM. Everybody forgets that we still have the Matrix, Steve Nash, and Amare. The trade isnt that bad either. Go Suns.


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## kamego (Dec 29, 2003)

I think next season all depends on Finley now. The Suns need him to land in PHX in order to have the offguard play to keep the high paced offense at it's best. If he goes elsewhere, thats when I would start to worry but not until then. JJ didn't want to be there and atleast they got something for him.


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## tempe85 (Jan 7, 2005)

I've always thought to myself that anyone can be traded or not resigned and we'd still be ok with the lone exception of Amare Stoudemire. There is absolutely no replacing him. He's the franchise, with him rests our hopes and dreams. Other guys like Johnson or Q are replaceable and we will continue without them.


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## PhatDaddy3100 (Jun 16, 2002)

I love the idea of Gerald Wallace, he is a very underrated player and his athletic ability would fit our system well. And heres the thing, I think Barbosa is a SG, not a pg. So we need to convert him to SG and sign a backup PG.

And Great post Tempe.


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## Chasemeifucan (Jun 27, 2003)

You better believe Mark Cuban would have paid $70 million. The reason why he didn't sign Nash is because he knew that Dallas was never going to make it to the Western Finals with Nash running the point. They tried for six years and they didn't make it once. 

Saying that Cuban wouldn't have paid for JJ after the kind of season the Suns had is a HUGE bunch of BS.

But this has been the problem with the Suns for as long as I can remember. The front office has ants in their pants and they refuse to keep a team together for more than a maximum of two years.


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## ShuHanGuanYu (Feb 3, 2005)

The problem wasn't Nash, the problem was the constant reliance on jump shooting that killed the Mavericks in the playoffs. Once the D turned up, they got smothered and basically sucked as a team...not just Nash.

As for JJ, they did want to keep the team together. They traded one piece away in Q. They were prepared to match JJ's offer until it was found that JJ wanted no part of playing here. So the Suns tried to get what they could. You don't pay a guy 70 million dollars who doesn't want to play on your team, plain and simple.


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