Go Away Amare

So, Phoenix finally fired Terry Porter. Assistant coach Alvin Gentry will be named interm head coach and rumor says that he will be reinstalling D'Antoni's famed "seven second or less" offense. His first game will be a cushy home game against the Clippers, so it should good times in PHX, at least for another night.

Despite that, there's still heavy rumors that Amare will be traded by Thursday's trade deadline. The biggest rumor is to Chicago for Drew Gooden (expiring), Tyrus Thomas, and Thabo Sefolosha. The Suns front office has always been very high on Sefolosha and obviously they're thinking that Nash and SSOL will turn Tyrus into Amare-lite. Chicago is also (rumored) to be willing to do a secondary trade where they take back some contracts with a $4+ million trade exception. I'm guessing that would be Dudley and Tucker. While the talent might not be that great... overall, the deals represent a $4.4 million savings THIS season. If you factor in the lux tax, that's over $8 million saved for cheap ass PHX owner Robert Sarver. Add in the cash reimbursements from teams over the lux (~$3 mil) and it's probably closer to $11 million in savings THIS year. Then next year we would be at $66 million with 11 players (assuming a late 1st rookie and a minimum contract as well as picking up options on Nash and Amundson). Even if we use the MLE on a free agent (YAY!) we'd still save around ~$8 million in lux tax payments + reimbursement. Overall, we're looking at $16-20 million in savings over two years for Sarver... depending on the size of the reimbursements and if we spend the full MLE next year. Anyhoo, with that much money saved and his history of penny pinching, I'm betting he bites. For a look at my math, see here, contract numbers courtesy of hoopshype.

Normally I would be angry at Sarver for being cheap, but in this case, I have to agree with him. If you couldn't tell already, I'm staunchly anti-Amare. For all of his gaudy stats, the Suns have proven that they can win WITHOUT him (see: '05-06 Suns). If Nash can get Boris Diaw and a 1/2 season of Tim Thomas to replace Amare's production, he can do the same with Tyrus Thomas and a 1/2 season of Drew Gooden. I know Amare's having a down year, but you can't blame Shaq for that. Nobody is telling Amare not to rebound or play defense. I don't care who's playing next to you, there's no reason for Amare to grab just 1 rebound in a game and it's happened twice this season! (@OKC and @BOS). That's just a lack of heart and effort. If that's how Amare is gonna play when he doesn't get to be "the man" then I say good riddance because that means you can never pair Amare with a non-pg superstar player. Better get what value you can from him now and keep the boat afloat then rebuild properly in 2010.