ONE WAY THE SHAQ TRADE MIGHT MAKE SENSE: Riffing off this Yglesias post--if you believe the NBA to be sort of mildly fixed (mildly fixed: assigning certain refs to games when a certain outcome is desired, like when you want a playoff series to go seven games, as in the sixth game of that Lakers-Kings series a few years back; allowing refs to be influenced by star power, though this might be a problem with basketball at all levels; arbitrary enforcement of the rules, like the Horry incident from last year (Horry is one of the great on-court bastards, by the way, and he never gets enough credit for it); the general appearance of wanting certain personalities to be successful, as in the atrocious championship won by the Shaq and D-Wade Heat) as I maybe* do, and you believe the Suns sort of realize the league or the officials were never going to really reward their style of play (THE NBA IS PHYSICAL!!!! DEFENSE WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS!!!) you might as well roll the dice and get a guy who has been handed titles in the recent past and still might have some pull with the refs. And you weren't going to win in your present configuration.


*I know it's the Internet, and it's okay to be a total crank, but still, thinking the NBA is fixed is still just outside reasonable opinion. Because of and/or in spite of Simmons.