King Kaufman's Sports Daily

The Suns trade Marion to roll the dice on Shaq. It'd be cool if this were a great idea, but it doesn't look like one. Plus: Vitale's comeback question.

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Feb. 7, 2008 | Shaquille O'Neal to the Phoenix Suns for Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks. It just sounds nuts, doesn't it?

That's because it is nuts. But might it be the good kind of nuts? Is it possible that Suns general manager Steve Kerr is a gambling genius, that by rolling the dice on putting a building right smack in the middle of his team's highflying offense, he might finally bring an NBA championship to the desert?

That would be cool, because it's so off the wall. And speaking of the wall, it moved a 16th of an inch in the last year, which would make it quicker than Shaq right now.

That's the thing. It's praise for O'Neal to compare his mobility to a building's. And that's when he's even on the floor. The floor of the building, I mean. The one that he's about as mobile as.

The trade was contingent on O'Neal's passing a physical in Phoenix Wednesday, which he did. He's missed the Miami Heat's last six games and 14 of the last 18 with a hip injury. He played 59 games in the championship season two years ago, 40 games last year, and he's played 32 so far this season. It would be an upset if he ever again gets to 50, never mind 60.

But the Suns don't really need him to play a lot of "regular-season" games. What they need him to do is rebound and defend and launch outlet passes in the playoffs. The thinking here is that the Suns' run-and-gun style, so entertaining, so influential even, hasn't brought the big trophy to Phoenix.

The trade would seem to be an indictment of coach Mike D'Antoni's offense, but there were reports that he was behind the trade all the way.

What the Suns have lacked during their run of the last few years is interior defense, and they've also been limited by having to play Amare Stoudemire, who's naturally a monster power forward, as an undersized center. On top of all that, Marion, angry about not getting a contract extension, had reportedly become a big chemistry minus for the Suns.

Chemistry is bunk in baseball. Not in basketball.

Please stand by. I'm trying to talk myself into this.

So what has to happen is that the Big Diesel has to accept that he has entered the final phase of his career, the one in which he's not a focal point on offense but has to do all the blue-collar stuff underneath.

Next page: The Suns gave up on their highflying philosophy too quickly