Does anyone know what the probability is of Fro-pez being ready for the Conference Finals. I know he hasn't played yet- but we are really gonna need him against Bynum-Gasol tandem. Watching Boozer and Milsap getting housed is making me think about Amare and Frye/Collins- We might need to play both Lopez and Collins 10-15 a peice. I imagine that Lou's time will be cut if that happens, but that seems understandable given the Lakers' height.

Thoughts-

Continue reading this post »

IMHO there are three relatively inexpensive moves that sun could, and should, make before heading into the regular season.

1. Sasha Pavolvich

Though Steve Kerr has said that he doesn’t want to keep Sasha hanging all summer, I think it would be a good business move to do just that. Here’s why: the suns can keep Sasha into December and still only pay the 1.5 mil. Guaranteed on his contract. After the first month and half of the season, some teams that are having bad starts and are in the luxury tax might start looking for good ways to dump their salary. At this point, the Sasha contract will become Gold for the suns. Whether it be a good big, some draft picks, or even a quality shut down defender like Shane Battier, there is an increased likelihood that the Suns will be able to get a pretty good deal in this economy. This also becomes much more important if the suns start the season off well and are at or near the top of the Western conference. If the suns are seeded 2 or 3, Sarver and kerr might not be opposed to taking on an additional 3 mil or in order to compete with the Lakers. This does require that Suns pretty much screw Pavlovich. I for one think that he is getting paid 1.5 mil and that’s business. The suns have been on the raw end of a lot of crappy deals. Sometimes the players get screwed a little, but usually it’s the teams, so if I was Kerr or Sarver, I wouldn’t feel too bad.

1. Sign Zabian Dowdell and let Dragic play for a few weeks in the D-League.

I heard a lot of good things about his summer league performance. I don’t think he is a long term guy for the suns, but with Steve Nash being 35, even with the extension, it would be a good idea to have another PG. He will come cheap, that is for certain. In fact, if the Sarver and Kerr really liked what they saw, they might think about trying to sign him for a little more than the minimum and get an option on year 2. We have been pretty fortunate with some of our lower pay guys lately (Hill, Amundsun, Dudley) no reason why that couldn’t happen again with Dowdell.    

As for the Dragic thing, I want to start by saying that I like Dragic very much. I am totally drinking the Kool-aid on him being the one of the best PG of last years draft. However, Summer league showed that he is still a ways away from developing. I went to a couple of D-League games this year and I think that Dragic would benefit from running the floor for 35-40 minutes for a couple weeks. It would get him more comfortable playing extended minutes and hopefully get him more comfortable as a leader. I don’t think he should spend the whole season there, but 2 or 3 weeks might do him some good, especially come playoff time. This will also give the suns some time to see if Dowdell is any good. He is a much different player than Dragic, better scorer, so he might be the guy come playoff time.

1. Sign Drew Gooden or Tim Thomas to a vet min.

This is strictly an insurance policy on Amare. Last season, when Amare went down we had no one to start in his place. I have the bets of hopes that he will be ok, but I don’t think that having Frye start with Lopez is a good option for a scoring, run and gun team. My vote is for Tim Thomas cause he has played with Nash run n gun before.

All of these moves won’t really cost that much for the suns and keep them in a good position to compete in the west.

The Season would start with this depth chart

Nash/Dragic/Dowdell

J Rich/Barbossa/ Tucker

GHill/Dudley/Clark

Amare/ (Thomas Gooden)/ Amundsun

Frye/Hill

*Pavlovich

This puts them at 15, but it could be 14 if they just waive Sasha. Also, if they trade Sasha, at that point they can package him with someone and the suns could ship out Tucker or someone else to get a higher salary guy if it looks like they are available. The suns also have some sizable trade exceptions to use.