The King and the Philosopher
One of the big rumors near the trade deadline this season was the Phoenix Suns sending Shaquille O’Neal to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic.
“The Phoenix Suns discussed a potential trade with the Cleveland Cavaliers which would have paired Shaquille O’Neal with LeBron James for a run at the NBA title, two NBA executives familiar with the talks said Thursday morning. A Cavs official, however, said any talks regarding O’Neal have since ended.
One agent said the Suns told him they weren’t doing a deal. The Cavs’ discussions with Phoenix centered on sending Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic to the Suns.”
Source: Yahoo! Sports
Anyone think the Cavs would want a take-back on this one?
After watching them get man-handled by Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic, do you think the Cavs brass are dying to hit reset? Shaq is one of the few centers that can guard Howard one-on-one without getting annihilated. He also can get into Howard’s head, causing him to make poor decisions and to get into foul trouble (using that all important ‘veteran saavy’).
Wallace does a decent enough job guarding Howard, but is such an assent on the offensive end that the Magic don’t really have to guard him. This allows his man to act as a help defender or weak-side shot blocker. When guarding Wallace, Howard doesn’t get into foul trouble as much, which is critical to slowing down the Magic (although Marcin Gortat has proven to be a force off the bench as well).
With Lebron James, Shaq and Mo Williams the Cavaliers would have three players in the starting lineup capable of dropping twenty points on any given night. Even if they had to throw Wally Szczerbiak into the deal to make it sweet enough for the Suns, the Cavs would still be in much better shape and would probably not be facing elimination at the hands of the Magic in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Hindsight is 20/20 — which coincidentally is what the Cavs need to avoid elimination (20 points and 20 boards from the center position).
