The Diesel-to-the-Desert trade illustrates my theory on how directly affected Nash was by the Gasol-for-cake trade.
Nash sought the one armament capable of disarming Kobe. Now, Shaq is a poo burger, a day-old poo burger, but he's the anti-Kobe: big, slow, out of shape, hilarious, never premeditated, no true basketball skill, dominant without trying... He's perfect for disrupting the precision calculations of Kobe Bryant.
Ever see the episode of Gilligan's Island where the Harlem Globetrotters (what?) end up stranded with the crew of the SS Minnow? And, somehow, the Globetrotters have to defeat a basketball team made of robots or everyone gets syphilis or some shit. Because the Gs want to give their most supremely focused effort — remember they don't want anyone to get syphilis — they decide to play straight up, by the books, tough as they can.
But the robots kill'em up in the first half. And the Professor realizes that only the Globetrotter's true style can defeat the robots, because it is free form, silly, impetuous, pointless at times, and, best, random. So in the second half, they go back to the OG Meadowlark Lemon shit and it's ball-on-the-string, slider dribble, and alley, alley, alley-oops all around. The robots end up steaming or something ridiculous. And Harlem's finest get off the island while the crew remains stranded. Typical. No syph though.
In this throw-away episode of G.I., we can see why Kobe can't be around Shaq. He can't process him. It's not that Shaq is better than Kobe, especially in terms of technical ability, it's that Shaq is a mahogany puddle of basketball abstraction. In terms of the way a robot would be programmed to handle basketball, i.e. Kobe, talking to girls sitting on the baseline is errata. A missed dunk is not cause for laughter. "Error. Error. Cannot compute this emoticon." Then Kobe has to reboot.
This trade has Nash written all over it — him screaming in the locker room to the heavens. He knew Marion would be somewhere else next year regardless (and he still will), and Marcus Banks — Mateen Cleaves has better J than Banks. Nash gave up something big for this. Something personal. A child's ear or other equally craven talisman.
It's amazing how subtly brilliant it is. At first glance, the trade certainly appears absurd. Phoenix is one of the top three running teams in the Association, and Shaq is seemingly in direct opposition to that. Seemingly. The Suns don't want Shaq to run. He doesn't need to for their ultimate success. He just needs to be there so Kobe cannot correctly parse syntax.
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But the robots kill'em up in the first half. And the Professor realizes that only the Globetrotter's true style can defeat the robots, because it is free form, silly, impetuous, pointless at times, and, best, random. So in the second half, they go back to the OG Meadowlark Lemon shit and it's ball-on-the-string, slider dribble, and alley, alley, alley-oops all around. The robots end up steaming or something ridiculous. And Harlem's finest get off the island while the crew remains stranded. Typical. No syph though.
In this throw-away episode of G.I., we can see why Kobe can't be around Shaq. He can't process him. It's not that Shaq is better than Kobe, especially in terms of technical ability, it's that Shaq is a mahogany puddle of basketball abstraction. In terms of the way a robot would be programmed to handle basketball, i.e. Kobe, talking to girls sitting on the baseline is errata. A missed dunk is not cause for laughter. "Error. Error. Cannot compute this emoticon." Then Kobe has to reboot.
This trade has Nash written all over it — him screaming in the locker room to the heavens. He knew Marion would be somewhere else next year regardless (and he still will), and Marcus Banks — Mateen Cleaves has better J than Banks. Nash gave up something big for this. Something personal. A child's ear or other equally craven talisman.
It's amazing how subtly brilliant it is. At first glance, the trade certainly appears absurd. Phoenix is one of the top three running teams in the Association, and Shaq is seemingly in direct opposition to that. Seemingly. The Suns don't want Shaq to run. He doesn't need to for their ultimate success. He just needs to be there so Kobe cannot correctly parse syntax.
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2 comments:
"Shaq is a mahogany puddle of basketball abstraction" - wait till the Suns find that out. His physical was undoubtedly administered by Dr. Octagon. "Paging Dr. Octagon, there's a horse in the ER." Shazzam!
Shaq is planning to be held together by duct tape and herbalistic medicine. No really he said so.
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