The Phoenix Suns have agreed to assist the Cleveland Cavaliers’ pursuit of an NBA championship by handing them Shaquille O’Neal for Sasha Pavlovic, Ben Wallace and some money. From the Phoenix perspective, this seems to be a salary-cap trade. Shaq makes like $21 million a year so bringing in Ben and Pavlovic will give them some salary relief and possibly put the Suns on course to be a player in the free-agent market in the near future. The new question is this: How much will the acquisition of Shaq help the Cleveland Cavaliers move closer to winning an NBA championship? In my mind, Cleveland was going to be maybe the third-best team in the Eastern Conference next season behind Boston (presuming they return a healthy Kevin Garnett) and Orlando. Will Shaq alter Cleveland’s up-tempo style of play? LeBron James can co-exist with pretty much any kind of player, but it will be interesting to see how Mike Brown adjusts the offense to accommodate Shaq who doesn’t run the floor the way he used to, but still is a beast in the paint.
Yahoo Sports:
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-shaq062409&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
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