Failure in Phoenix

I thought that the Suns put themselves into a hole ever since they traded for Shaq. Not only is he on a steep decline in his career, but he doesn't have a lot of Diesel Gas left in the tank. The Suns high-tempo style of play is just too much for Shaq to handle. His career average of 25.4 points a game has dropped to 10.9 for the Suns. In his last year at Los Angeles, he averaged 36.8 minutes a game. This season for the Suns, he is only averaging 27.5 minutes. The good thing, though is that for the last three seasons, he has averaged 9.2, 7.4, and 7.8 rebounds per game, respectively. This year, however, he is averaging 10.2 for the Suns. That's about all of the good that I found. Since acquiring Shaq, the Suns are 10-8. That is much worse than what they previously had, which was 34-13. The Heat, however, didn't do much to support their future, by getting 29 year-old Shawn Marion, who is only younger than 3 other Heat players. But that's a whole different column.  ... [link]