SHAQ...AGAIN

I know I'm getting a little obsessed with this, but I personally think Shaq going to the Suns is one of the most compelling story lines in NBA history. How do you fit the ultimate round peg into the ultimate square hole?

The verdict in the early going? Not well.

(BTW, I do realize I keep going back and forth on this. Hey, new information keeps rolling in--I'll probably do a couple more flip-flops before it's all said and done.)

The Suns followed up a strong offensive performance against the Lakers, not exactly a clamp-down defensive team, with back-to-back clunkers against Eastern elites Boston (who was even clunkier) and Detroit (who wasn't). They've scored 86 and 85 in their last two games; in their previous 54 games, they scored under 87 only twice.

I know it's way early and the Suns have all the time in the world to figure this thing out, but they do have some major issues to address. They can still run, even when Shaq's in the game, but where they're getting bogged down is in the half court--which is where playoff games are won and lost. The way I see it, they have two big issues:

1. Shaq clogs things up in the middle, which is exactly what I predicted. They have terrible spacing and just aren't getting good open looks. Amare Stoudemire has gone wild since the trade, but I think most of that is due to his own individual brilliance--he's beating his man off the dribble, he's hitting 17-foot jumpers like the second coming of The Mailman, he's getting to the foul line like crazy, and is shooting a ridiculous 90% when he gets there.

But nobody else had anything going in those two games. I think it's pretty striking that Steve Nash's 5 and 6 assists in those games mark his second and third lowest assist totals of the year--and he only had 8 assists in the Laker game in which Phoenix scored 124 points. There's a lot of one-on-one play going on with Phoenix, which is a complete turnaround from the pre-Shaq days. In 3 games with Shaq, Nash has 19 assists and 10 turnovers. Those are Sebastian Telfair numbers.

The bottom line is this: there's no place for Nash to go. Amare and Shaq demand a lot of attention in the lane and between Hill and Diaw, you have two guys that you can leave off to help out inside (more on this later). The lane is getting a lot of traffic, and it's hurting Nash's killer penetration game.

2. Jeff Van Gundy, the best analyst in all of sports, made a good point during the Pistons game: nobody fears the Suns' 3-point shooting any more. They still have Nash, of course, but you're never, never, ever leaving off him to double Shaq or Amare anyway. Their problem is more Hill and Diaw. They're both really good players, they do a lot of valuable things, but nobody is afraid of their jumper. Both of them do most of their damage in the mid-range game and closer to the basket, and that's exactly where your defense has sagged in to account for Shaq & Amare.

In short, their spacing in the two games was just awful, and they couldn't make Boston and Detroit pay for focusing their defense in the paint.

I think they'll probably end up figuring something out. There's a lot of talent there, and if anyone can work up an offense that takes advantage of everyone's skills, it's Mike D'Antoni. But I don't know if that end product is going to be nearly as good as Suns' offenses in years past--so Shaq better make a big difference on D, which is far from a slam dunk.

I think the key to this team might end up being Leandro Barbosa. Raja Bell can shoot, but he's not going to just bury you--if your defense makes him the key man in the Suns' offense, I think you're way ahead of the game. But Barbosa is a different story, Barbosa is a cold-blooder scorer who can drop 30 on you before you blink. He's a 41% career 3-point shooter so he forces you to respect his perimeter game, and he can blow past anyone in the league. He's basically unguardable. Unlike Bell, Diaw, and to a lesser extent, Hill, he's someone that you have to account for defensively every minute of the game, you can't play off Barbosa to sag down on Shaq/Amare without paying a major price. I think he could potentially open things up for the Suns and they can get back to some semblance of what they do best--Nash penetrating and kicking out, and the Nash/Amare pick-and-roll.

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Now on to the Cavs-Bulls trade. I don't really care about it from a Bulls standpoint, they're pretty much where they were before the trade--a crappy team waiting to see how Thomas-Noah-Sefalosha turn out. I do think this means one of Gordon, Deng & Hughes are going to be traded in the offseason.

As for the Cavs, I think they solidly improved themselves, but not enough to keep pace with Boston, Detroit and the western powers. They're definitely deeper now (with Joe Smith and Delonte West), they're definitely better defensively (Ben Wallace), and they swapped in a shooter (Wally Szczerbiak) for the horribly-out-of-place Larry Hughes, but at the end of the day, it's trading 2 so-so players for 4 so-so players. A net gain of 2 so-so players isn't quite the same as adding Gasol, Kidd, or Shaq.

I will say those 4 players are a better fit for Cleveland than the guys they got rid of, Hughes and Drew Gooden (whose production will be easily replaced by Varejao getting more minutes and the addition of Wallace/Smith). There's some hope, but it probably won't be the miracle Cleveland needs to compete with the league's big dogs. I mean, I can certainly see why they made the deal, they were going nowhere with the current roster and everyone in the state of Ohio is scared shitless (understandably) about Lebron bolting in the summer of 2010. But you better damn well think it's going to work, because LBJ isn't going to be fooled into thinking the Cavs are right there if they get handled easily by Detroit or Boston or even get slaughtered once again in the Finals.

They do have a bit of roster flexibility in that year James becomes a free agent, so maybe they're thinking they can make their run with this roster and if it's not working--which it probably won't--you can either trade Wallace's expiring deal for a disgruntled star during that 2009-2010 season, or you can have a ton of cap space the summer of 2010 when LBJ opts out of his deal. He might be really pissed off at Cleveland management, but what if returning means he gets to play with Dwyane Wade? I think he'll come around.