It seems more and more like the Suns are not going to find the chemistry that they need in order to be competitive and challenge for a championship. Shaq is dragging everything down, its almost time to say that the experiment has failed. The Suns' weak-side defense is atrocious. The Spurs have the perfect strategy against them. All they did was bring Duncan and Bonner out beyond the free throw line. Unfortunately, you have to respect Duncan and Bonner's outside shot, which would bring Amare and Shaq out of the paint. This would open up the lanes and Parker and Ginobli would just drive inside and go to work. Ginobli got to the line 18 times, an easy example of bad defense and late switches. Terry Porter has got to be on the hot seat at this point. He was brought in to bolster the defense and hold Amare accountable. Neither of those things have happened. The Hack-a-Bowen was god awful. We were tied, and by the end of the 3rd we were down by 5. The Suns never recovered. It was a shame because they actually played well and didn't turn it over much for once.
Steve Kerr has tough decisions to make. I don't think another trade is going to change anything. Chemistry takes time to build. Steve Nash sounded like he was tired of managing everyones ego's in that interview where he said he has a lot of mouth's to feed. He's getting like 15 dimes a night in the last 5 games or so, it still doesn't matter. Anything can happen before the trade deadline and its scary.
Also, could you imagine of Kerr had traded Marion for Camby, and then Diaw/Bell for Jason Richardson? How ridiculously scary would that team have been under D'Antoni? (I don't know why I torture myself with such thoughts)
By the way. Why isn't anyone mentioning the Suns as major contenders for one of the big-time free agents in 2010? The only people that are signed past 2010 are Barbosa, Amare, J-Rich, and our recent draft picks. If Amare opts out, our salary will be $23.5 million instead of $41.2 million. We'd have an extra $35 million to blow on free agency if Amare opts out. Crazy! The Suns are going to have as much cap space as anyone, and Sarver always finds a way to sign big time free agents.
The next season and a half are going to be wild. Anything can happen.
Photo taken from AP/Paul Connors
Guess what San Diego? LT is not going anywhere. He's not going to be released, hes not going to be traded. He has already said in an interview with FOX Sports Radio that he would take a pay cut to stay in San Diego. Spanos and AJ Smith are already buttering him up and being as nice as possible and saying all the right things to the media because they are 100% going to ask him to take a pay cut. Its the only way the Chargers will be able to resign all players that are up for free agency. If he takes the pay cut it will be the final proof of the stand-up guy that LT is. He loves San Diego, and he loves being a Charger. Time and time again he has said he wants to finish up his career here. I would honestly be shocked if he left for more money. There are also several reasons why it would be a HUGE mistake on the Chargers part to let him go.
Reason #1 - Who would take over the starting RB position? I'm sure teams would be shaking in their boots at the thought of a Sproles, Hester, Bennett platoon. Give me a break. Sproles is an amazing explosive player but everyone saw what happened in Pittsburgh. He just cant grind it out. I lost track of the amount of times he got WWE-style power slammed into the ground in the Colts playoff game. There is no way he could last a whole season and stay healthy and Sproles is a guy that absolutely has to be at or near 100% to maintain his explosiveness and be dangerous. We would have to bring in Shaun Alexander or Fred Taylor or some other washed up 30+ year old RB. Which leads me to my next point.
Reason #2 - The whole reason that there is even a discussion of LT leaving is because of the salary cap hit his contract presents. After Rivers gets his new contract and we resign the 8+ players we need to resign (Sproles being one of them), there wont be enough money left for a marquee free agent running back. AJ Smith has already publicly said that he is not willing to go through free agency to fix weak spots on the team.
Reason #3 - LT desperatly wants to win an NFL championship...but what contenders would he go to? Indy, Philly, NY Giants, Dallas, Washington, Tennessee, Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, Miami, & Minnesota all have young franchise running backs. Where is he gonna go? Arizona? New England? After the 2007 AFC Championship game we lost to New England and the comments LT made about that team and Belichick there is no way he would go there (by the way if that did happen, this will be my last blog because I would never be able to watch football again...it would be too painful). He honestly has just a good of a chance to win a Super Bowl as a Charger.
Reason #4 - Ladainian Tomlinson jerseys are by far the #1 selling Charger jersey and LT is also their most marketable player. The revenue hit that the Chargers would take would not be worth it. We are in a financial crisis after all.
Reason #5 - In an injury riddled year, LT still rushed for 1110 yards and 11 TDs and had 426 yards and 1 TD receiving. Those 1110 yards still had him as #10 overall. He only fumbled once and it wasnt even lost. In fact, in his last 7 seasons he has only lost 5 fumbles. Five! He'll never repeat his 1800 yard, 28 TD performance. But dont kid yourselves into thinking his career is over.
So to all of you negative, fair weather San Diego sports fans out there....Stop saying LT is all about the money, that he has no heart, that he does not want to be a Charger, and to tell him not to let the door hit him on the ass on the way out. And to Jordan and Earl on XX1090, stop saying root for the jersey and not for the player. Its just another cliche phrase that stereotypes sports players and its not all about the money for everyone. LT is a Charger, one of the greatest Chargers.
One final thought. How often do you as a fan get to say that you got to watch one of the greatest running backs of all time play out his entire career for your team? This stuff doesnt happen every day, it happens once in a lifetime. Dont fool yourself into thinking hes not worth keeping around. San Diego with a healthy LT and Merriman will be an extremely dangerous team next year.
So I've been wanting to write a blog for a while. This is my first one ever. I read a lot of sports news and see all these comments that people write on sports writers' articles and think to myself that I would much rather write my own stuff than react to what other people are writing. Even though there is little to no chance that anyone will read this blog I would take great pride in someone telling me I dont know what I am talking about. I'm not gonna pretend that I know everything, I am going to call things as I see them. But at least I'm going to put it out there first.
Here are a few things that future posts of blogs will consist of:
- Thoughts on the status of my favorite teams: the Phoenix Suns, San Diego Chargers, and San Diego Padres.
- Fantasy football, basketball, and hockey.
- Sports betting
- The impact of sports on mine and other people's day-to-day life.
- Occasional non sports-related things in our world (going to try to avoid this)
- Jokes, interesting/funny videos and articles
Enjoy everyone....
