Every time they lose a few games — as the Suns recently did in dropping five straight — the Nash whispers will grow a little louder. When the Suns are winning games (especially if they rejoin the playoff race), we won’t hear a peep (well, hardly a peep).

We’ve been through this song and dance enough to know where everybody stands. Nash is the “sun, moon and stars” of the franchise and the Suns won’t trade him unless he makes a request. Nash, meanwhile, has remained resolute in his stance that all his effort is going toward the season and that he does not plan on making such a request.

To me so long as the Suns have a shot at the playoffs, this is a non-issue. I don’t see any way that Phoenix moves him in such a situation.

However, if the bottom falls out and the Suns become a definite lottery team before the trade deadline it would not surprise me if those stances are softened. That’s because all along the Suns’ plan has been to rebuild while staying competitive with veterans like Nash and Grant Hill who can set a fabulous example for the younger Suns. But if the “staying competitive” part of that goes out the window, it would make sense for the Suns to skip right to Step 2.

For the first time I can remember, Suns president of basketball operations Lon Babby seemed to acknowledge that possibility last week on the Doug and Wolf show, as Adam Green reports.

“Sometimes you do have to go through a cycle in this league, and that’s the reality of it,” Babby said.

Such a cycle would involve the natural phase of being bad to be good, a scary proposition since franchises like the Timberwolves and Clippers are just starting to get good after years of doing just that. Yet with enough cap space to potentially offer two max contracts and a potential high lottery pick if Nash is dealt, the Suns would have assets to make a quicker rebuild possible.

John Gambadoro wrote that a Nash trade won’t be easy because some of the most logical trade partners don’t have the kind of assets to deal for him, but a Nash deal would not be about an equal swap of talent, it would be about officially starting the rebuilding process by hopefully obtaining at least a decent future asset or two along with likely improving their own draft pick without Two Time.

If that were to happen, CBS Sports’ Ken Berger reports that the Magic would have serious interest in Nash, but this time around they don’t have a Gortat to offer in return. I think Indiana (Collison/filler/pick?) could be a possibility as well.

The speculation is only beginning as (barring a Howard/D-Will trade) Nash will be one of the few players potentially available who could swing a conference race.

To me it’s time to start thinking about the future and the bounty this draft could provide because the Suns need more young top end talent to contend, but with the scarcity of legitimate trade offers and due to what Nash means to this franchise it’s understandable that the front office would only take that viewpoint if the Suns fall completely out of the race.

A sprint of a schedule

This week the Suns received a large dose of scheduling hell, darting around the country to play games in seemingly every region of the nation.

But every team will feel that travel pain (as Suns fans know after previous visits from exhausted Portland and Milwaukee clubs), and NBAStuffer.com did a nice job of breaking down the schedule to see who really has it worst.

According to the site, the Suns will not play five games in six days as 19 unlucky teams will have to do. They also luck out in that they will only play four games in five nights on six separate occasions, which may be more than a usual season but is half as many as Charlotte must play.

Phoenix has 21 back-to-backs, which is about middle of the pack, and 14 three in fours, which is near the league average as well.

As far as the opponent rest breakdown goes, the Suns will face seven teams playing their fourth game in five nights, and they will get 17 games against teams playing on a back-to-back. There’s a wide range of teams playing opponents on a back-to-back as the Bobcats will get 28 of them but the Heat just 11.

What’s wrong with Amare?

Mike Schmitz broke down how the Suns shut down Amare Stoudemire on Wednesday night, but these days everybody is having success limiting the artist known as STAT.

During the Knicks’ six-game losing streak, Amare is averaging 13.3 points and 6.7 boards on 37.6 percent shooting, and for the season he’s going for just 17.6 and 8.0 on 41.3 percent marksmanship, which aren’t exactly max contract numbers.

We won’t be able to fully evaluate the Suns’ decision not to offer Amare a fully guaranteed max deal for another few seasons, but the early returns this year are that it was a good one. Amare was a beast last season so perhaps this is just an early season slump and his numbers will revert to normal, but watching the Suns-Knicks game STAT didn’t exactly resemble a max player with three years left on his deal.

Of course, the Suns definitely botched the aftermath of that summer, but those errors can be rectified much easier than whiffing on a max player since Hedo has already been banished and Childress likely will be as well via the amnesty clause next offseason.

This season it seems like we’re beginning to see why the Suns did not offer Amare a fully guaranteed max deal as much as it would have helped in the short term.

And 1

• Entering Saturday, Nash led the league in assists (10.0) and Gortat in field goal percentage (59.9 percent).
• The Suns’ ranked 15th in offensive efficiency (99.8) and 21st in defensive efficiency (101.0) despite a season-best defensive effort in Boston. The Suns limited the Celtics to an efficiency of 78.9 and were downright defensive in New York as well, holding the Knicks to 89.8.
• Nash somehow ranks poorly in adjusted plus minus, with a minus 9.15. He annually ranks among the league’s top players in this stat. Grant Hill (13.94), Markieff Morris (10.36) and Robin Lopez (9.20) lead the team.
• Morris has dropped to ninth in David Thorpe’s rookie rankings.

No such charges can be levied against the Suns’ front office this offseason as all moves have been made with one goal in mind: maintaining 2012 cap space.

That’s why the Suns plan to sign Shannon Brown and Sebastian Telfair to one-year deals on Friday, and it’s why they have offered Grant Hill a one-year deal for $5.5 million but are hesitant to go to two. Brown will make $3.5 mil for his year of service and Telfair $1.5 mil, although Paul Coro reports he also has a partial guarantee for the following campaign.

This part of the plan makes sense. Even if the Suns don’t have a chance at the Big Three free agents Dwight Howard, Chris Paul and Deron Williams — and I don’t think they do — cap space under the new CBA is still so valuable.

The fear is the Suns spend just to spend and once again waste it all on role players like they did last year, but aside from the shot at landing elite talent it opens up opportunities to post a winning bid for a talented amnesty player or perhaps take on a crummy contract in return for a king’s ransom in draft picks (a la the Kurt Thomas trade, just in reverse). Cap space, if employed correctly, is one of the best ways the Suns can rebuild.

Therefore, it should be considered holy and as much as everyone in this city would like to see Grant Hill back, they just can’t afford to up their offer in years.

However, today’s deals effectively end the Suns’ offseason pending Hill’s decision and any potential minimum additions. Our ValleyoftheSuns writers in today’s 3-on-3 were unanimous concerning the Suns’ need for a go-to scorer but as I figured it just wasn’t going to happen when the best you can offer is one year and $5 million and you lack trade assets.

Now we know for sure that the closest thing the Suns will get to acquiring a go-to scorer this offseason is Shannon Brown, which is to say they aren’t acquiring one.

That should not be seen as a criticism of the signing. I was going to be at least moderately pleased with any deal that starts out with the words “one year,” and to grab Brown for $3.5 million is solid value. He will provide energy and excitement and his game fits the Suns’ style. He is no go-to player, but he is a savvy pickup.

Same goes with Telfair. Not much risk when you sign for less than two million dollars, and the Suns were not going to find anyone too much better for the salary they had to offer.

But now that we know what the Suns will look like this season I wonder why they don’t decide to start the rebuilding process a year early. Sure, this team can be fun and exciting and if things break right they very well might be a playoff team or at least push for a berth. It would be fun to watch Nash lead such an unheralded squad to an underdog playoff berth, but why play for a No. 7 or 8 seed at best in the loaded West when rebuilding is right around the corner?

The Suns’ brutal January schedule could crystallize the scenario. Do you see more than one or two wins the second half of the month? If the Suns fall behind big by February, the team could reverse course on a Nash trade and prepare for the 2012 rebuild early.

I like the moves the Suns made today. They needed wing scoring and a backup point guard, and they acquired both at a cost that will not affect their future. It also eliminates any need for Aaron Brooks this season and should put his rights firmly on the trading block when he returns to the country.

But, assuming the Suns don’t have a blockbuster up their sleeve that nobody sees, this squad is no better than a low-tier West playoff team.

Today’s moves show how serious the Suns are about waiting until 2012 to make their move. So long as that’s the case, why not just go all in for 2012 by initiating the rebuilding process now?

With the lockout all but over, those poor general managers now have a road map by which to base future decisions.

Now it’s time to make sense of the post-lockout landscape both on a team level and an individual player/executive level, as I do below by analyzing 10 important questions surrounding the Suns in light of the new labor agreement:

1.  Did the Suns benefit from the new rules imposed by the lockout?

The Suns were among the teams hoping for widespread change to the rules of the NBA system. They did not get that, but at least the stiffer luxury tax penalties should dissuade more teams from becoming tax payers or at least from going deep into the tax.

These penalties likely ensure the Suns won’t go more than a few million over the luxury tax ever, if that, but if it ends up reducing the Lakers’ payroll down the road and preventing other teams from spending wildly it could end up leveling the playing field a bit.

The rules also allows non-taxpayers to offer a more lucrative mid-level exception (starting at $5 million over four years with 3 percent raises after the first two years as opposed to a three-year deal starting at $3 million), so a Suns team that stays under the luxury tax would have another added advantage over the tax teams.

However, a hard cap or at least a tax that works as a hard cap, would have been better for Phoenix.

In addition, the shorter extend-and-trade rules won’t affect the Suns at the beginning at least since they don’t have any such player to deal nor the assets to bring home a major extend-and-trade candidate.

2.  How does the deal impact the Suns’ summer of 2012 plans?

Seth Pollack feels the the new CBA throws a wrench in the Suns’ future plans. I’m not so sure.

Yes, it is now even more difficult for the Suns to land one of the Big Three of Dwight, CP3 or D-Will, as Seth explains, but that was very unlikely to happen anyway. They always would have had to take less money to come to the desert and there always were better options for them.

Seth notes that it’s never good to have lots of cap space to spend but no big name player to use it on because teams often are “prone to overspend on lesser players” in such cases as we saw in 2010 with the Suns, but I’m optimistic the Suns will have learned that lesson.

Cap space is always valuable, and there are certainly attractive players beyond the top three, particularly in the restricted free agent realm. With teams potentially fearing the adverse affects of the new luxury tax, talent could be available in trades in return for cap space as well.

To me the plan should always have been to build through the draft and supplement with that cap space, and I don’t see this deal changing that in any significant way.

3.  What will the deal do for the Suns’ free agency plans this year?

It shouldn’t do much. Aside from re-signing Grant Hill and shopping for a wing scorer perhaps, the Suns would be wise to save their money for next year, which seems to be the plan if Hill is their top priority.

They don’t have much cap space this year, so regardless of the rules the Suns weren’t likely to be players in any system.

4. How does the new CBA affect Steve Nash’s situation?

It could make him easier to trade since non-taxpaying teams can now take on “up to the lesser of 150 percent plus $100,000, or 100 percent plus $5 million of the salaries they trade away,” as Larry Coon writes. Before teams over the cap, not the luxury tax, could only take on 125 percent plus $100,000. In theory this will open up some more options and will make it less complicated to match contracts to make a trade work.

The Suns could also theoretically take on more salary in any potential Vince Carter trade if they wanted to pick up a useful asset in return for providing that instant cap relief, although such a move could push them into the tax.

The new extension-and-trade rules aimed at preventing another Carmelo Anthony situation shouldn’t affect Nash much because although players can only sign for two additional years in an extend-and-trade, it’s doubtful a team would want to sign Nash for anything longer than that. After all, he will turn 40 during that second additional year.

5. What was Sarver’s involvement in the lockout?

This is a question I cannot wait to have answered by the Suns’ owner himself.

At Brad Casper’s introductory news conference, Sarver said, “I can say that eventually when it’s over the facts of my role and my involvement will come out, and I look forward to that happening. I’m prohibited from commenting about it, but as you know don’t believe everything you read.”

Sarver was vilified for being among the most hardline of the hardliners and reportedly made the strange comment of saying his “wife had asked him to bring back the middle level exception in a designer bag.”

But in recent weeks we learned that Sarver and Gilbert “have not been as hawkish in the negotiations as they have been portrayed,” courtesy of CBS Sports’ Ken Berger, and then ESPN’s Marc Stein wrote a couple days before the lockout was resolved that Phoenix along with win-now teams like the Lakers, Heat, Magic and Celtics were among the teams pushing hardest for a deal in principle.

That just doesn’t jibe with the image of Sarver that has been drawn throughout the negotiations, as one would think the Suns would be among the last teams pushing for a deal alongside big money teams like that based on Sarver’s prior portrayal.

It will be interesting to find out if the villainous reports were exaggerated or if the Suns’ owner merely experienced a change of heart near the end.

6. How will the Suns use the amnesty clause?

I have already publicized my thoughts on the amnesty clause, and they remain largely the same after we learned that the amnesty clause will remove 100 percent of a salary from a team’s cap (although of course it must still be paid in full) and that the player must currently be on that team’s roster with a contract signed under the prior CBA.

In essence it lets a team wipe out one mistake made before the current rules were put into place, and it can be pocketed for later use as well. This is too bad for teams that have managed their caps well (although I’m glad it can only be used on current players so a big market team can’t buy talent in return for wiping out a small market team’s mistake), but should eventually be put into play by the Suns, who have three potential candidates.

Mickael Pietrus seems like a poor choice unless some compelling immediate benefit can be derived from waiving his $5.3 million expiring contract. Otherwise, he could be traded for an asset to a team needing cap space or just play out this season before providing that cap space to Phoenix.

For me, therefore, it comes down to Hakim Warrick and Josh Childress. Warrick has two years and $8 million of guaranteed money left (and a team option for $4 mil the year after), and Childress four years and $27 million.

It makes sense to keep both guys this season and make the decision next year when every cent of cap space will be at a premium. If Childress proves to be an effective rotation player, then you shave off $4 million of Warrick’s money. If Childress is a bust, then you kiss his final three years and $21 million goodbye. Either way the Suns will be able to reverse one of their 2010 mistakes (if Childress indeed ends up being a mistake), to accrue more cap space for their big summer of 2012.

The other interesting aspect of the amnesty rule that is that any team with salary cap (not luxury tax) space can submit an offer consisting of as much room as they have under the cap for a waived amnesty player. The winning bidder will then take on the player’s contract for the amount bid, and the waiving team will be on the hook for remainder of the contract.

This likely won’t be an option for Phoenix this season, but it definitely will be next offseason. That could be a time the Suns could nab an overpaid but productive player at an affordable price with some of their cap space.

7. Will Lon Babby find any loopholes?

One of the reasons the Suns hired Lon Babby as their president of basketball operations is because he is a long-time lawyer and agent adept at analyzing complicated contracts, which is exactly what this new CBA is.

Babby has now had a year on the job to get his feet wet, and the Suns will expect him to take advantage of some of these new rules to give them some sort of a competitive advantage. We will soon find out if this lawyer can help the Suns see something that the average GM glosses over.

8.  What happens to Aaron Brooks now?

Aaron Brooks could not have worse timing. A week after signing a one-year deal with a Chinese team that includes no escape clause, the league is back in action.

What we know is that Brooks is likely gone until at least March, when the CBA playoffs end.

I’m not quite sure what will happen at that point. For now the Suns have a $5,041,730 cap hold on their cap for Brooks, which is 250 percent of his previous salary, and have extended a $2,976,636 qualifying offer. The Suns could always renounce his rights if they needed the cap space (which they won’t if they indeed are not players).

To me the most logical scenario would be for Brooks to re-sign with the Suns for the rest of the year when he returns to the States and then for the Suns to make any long-term determination on him next summer.

For now Brooks can lament his lost shot at restricted free agency for the time being as he will toil away in China for a few months instead of playing in the NBA.

9. How does Dudley’s extension look in light of the new CBA?

Jared Dudley signed a five-year, $21.25 million extension that could be worth as much as $22.5 mil with incentives at the start of last season, a contract that seemed like a sweetheart deal for the Suns at the time.

But JD was cognizant of the changing labor landscape and the fact that role players like him just weren’t going to get paid like they used to.

If Dudley was going to test the restricted free agency market this offseason instead of awaiting the first year of that extension he could have taken a four-year deal for $20.45 mil from a non-taxpayer or a three-year deal for $9.27 million from a taxpayer (or more if a team felt he deserved better than a mid-level salary).

Dudley may have left a few dollars on the table in terms of average salary, but if he was concerned with long-term security he could not have done any better. With teams likely to be cautious when spending on role players anyway, perhaps Dudley took one look at this potential new labor landscape, considered his happiness in Phoenix and then decided to sign on the bottom line on a deal that looks as fair as ever now.

That’s because the deal looks good from the Suns side as well, assuming Dudley continues to produce at the clip he has the past few years. Locking up players long term is only bad if they underperform, and Dudley should be able to outproduce the $4 million plus he’s owed on a contract that gives the Suns an important piece of their future at less than the average annual (non tax) mid-level price.

10. Would the new max rules have kept Amare in Phoenix?

It certainly won’t help the Suns now, but they would have had a better shot at keeping Amare Stoudemire last summer because the New York Knicks would have only been able to offer him a four-year deal with 4.5 percent raises rather than a five-year deal with eight percent raises as was the case under the old CBA, according to Coon’s breakdown.

The Suns were only comfortable guaranteeing the first three seasons of Stoudemire’s contract, but they could have offered a more lucrative first three years than the Knicks. Perhaps at that point they could have gotten creative with that fourth year and STAT would have been more amenable to it since there wouldn’t have been $100 million sitting on the table in front of him in the Big Apple. That is, assuming he was genuinely interested in returning in the first place.

It won’t help the Suns now with nobody even close to worthy of a max deal, but if the Suns luck into a star in the draft down the road the new rules should make him easier to re-sign than Amare was.

And 1

ESPN’s Chad Ford and John Hollinger broke down how the new CBA affects each and every NBA team. Their analysis of the Suns is below:

How it helps: The amnesty rule will give Lon Babby a chance to undo a disastrous summer that saw owner Robert Sarver throwing away money on free agents like Josh Childress and Hakim Warrick.

How it hurts: The Suns were another team pushing hard for major changes to the CBA. They didn’t get them, and now it looks like there will be a long rebuilding process ahead in Phoenix.

The lockout also cost them Aaron Brooks, who inexplicably signed a deal in China with no NBA out just a week before players and owners reached a tentative agreement.

Immediate impact (this season): No CBA can undo the damage Sarver has done to the team in the past few years. In an attempt to save money, he gutted one of the most exciting teams in the league and is left with a roster of middling, overpaid players and Steve Nash. Nash is leaving sooner or later and the Suns will have to seriously consider moving him now if they want anything back.

Long-term impact (future seasons): Ehhhh. The Suns have Marcin Gortat going forward. But the rest of the team? It’s going to be a frustrating few years for fans.

It made sense, as they were 27 games behind San Francisco in 2010 and 25 back of the Dodgers in 2009, and their offseason was more of an under the radar success than a free agency spending bonanza a la the Red Sox or Yankees.

That’s why you can’t exactly fault all 45 of ESPN’s baseball experts and 12 from Sports Illustrated from failing to see the D-backs had playoff potential.

Yet here they are, six games up on the defending World Series champs and threatening to run away with the division after ripping off eight wins in a row following a seven-game win streak earlier this month (sandwiched around a six-game losing streak).

I thought of the D-backs when reading the responses from the rest of the participants in this month’s 5-on-5 segment on the Suns in which everybody but me pegged Phoenix for a 2015 or 2016 playoff return.

The D-backs are just the latest piece of evidence that surprise seasons can materialize when all the pieces fit (along with just a touch of luck).

Everything important (save for Stephen Drew’s ankle) has gone right for the D-backs this season. One of the worst bullpens in baseball history now boasts five relievers with an ERA around 3, Ian Kennedy and Daniel Hudson have pitched like aces, Justin Upton has turned into an MVP candidate and surprises like Josh Collmenter, Ryan Roberts and Micah Owings have sprouted up all season.

In that way the D-backs kind of remind me of the 2009-10 Suns. After the Suns missed the playoffs in 2008-09 and then swapped out Shaq for Channing Frye, nobody really expected them to be anything more than a No. 7 or 8 seed.

But like these D-backs that Suns squad enjoyed a torrid second half of the season behind a team that was exactly that in every sense of the word with its 10-man rotation and the way everybody pitched in throughout the year.

We could debate all day whether winning begets chemistry or chemistry begets winnings, but both of those squads seem to have that extra intangible factor that often leads to overachievement.

We knew the Phillies, Yankees and Red Sox would be there at the end of the season. In the NBA, we know the Heat, Lakers and Celtics will be in the championship mix as well. Those teams all have enough talent that something would have to go pretty wrong for them not to have a shot in the playoffs.

In Arizona where teams don’t often lead the league in payroll, it typically comes down to chemistry.

The 2007 D-backs enjoyed that same special chemistry this squad has where Hudson tries to match Kennedy every time he throws a gem.

Sure, the 2004-05 Suns were loaded with talent, but the only other two Western Conference finalists of the Nash era (2005-06 and 2009-10) were plucky squads that came within a sniff of NBA Finals’ that few thought they had a chance at when the season tipped off.

This all isn’t to say chemistry will get the Suns back to the Finals anytime soon. There’s a reason that many doubt the Suns will return to even the playoffs for a good couple years if Nash cannot coax out another playoff run next season.

But as we saw in 2004 when the Suns staged a 33-game turnaround and are seeing with the worst-to-first D-backs this year, if you put the right pieces together with the right mentality in the right system, what appears to be a glacially slow rebuild can turn into the kind of special year where players take advantage of the most powerful motivator in sports, wondering why nobody believed in them.

ESPN’s 5-on-5 series featured a look at the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday that will depress most any Suns fan.

I was joined by Scout Inc’s David Thorpe and TrueHoop Network colleagues Rahat Huq, Beckley Mason and Rob Mahoney for a five-pack of questions on the immediate and distant future on Planet Orange. They are as follows:

1. Fact or Fiction: Phoenix should trade Steve Nash.

All of us but Beckley agreed that the Suns should make a Steve Nash trade.

Beckley countered: “It’s not like owner Robert Sarver tricked him into re-signing; Nash knew management was cheap. He’s still a top-15 player — you don’t give him away for pretty good parts.”

Thorpe would switch to the fiction side if the Suns add star talent, and I’m with him in that regard.

Otherwise, as I argue in the above video, it just makes more sense to start playing for a quick rebuild with 2012 cap space and the potential of the 2012 draft class. Rahat agrees with that line of thinking as he’s “a firm believer that a team must first hit rock bottom before again reclaiming a place near the top.”

2. Should Marcin Gortat or Robin Lopez start at center?

This was the easiest question for me to answer, and Gortat rightly won in a landslide. Only Rahat went with Lopez, and even that was part of a grand plan to deal Marcin for prospects.

Thorpe feels The Polish Hammer is one of the league’s most underrated players and Beckley lauded him for being an “athletic finisher” and “active rebounder” whereas “Lopez has a well-earned reputation for being tall and having likable hair, but he’s really not that good.”

I feel Gortat is the most promising piece in the post-Nash future whereas unless Lopez proves 2010-11 was an aberration I’m not sure if he’s part of the future at all.

3. Fact or Fiction: Aaron Brooks is the PG of the future.

Another easy question for me that was unanimous across the board as we all agree Aaron Brooks should not be the Suns’ point guard of the future.

Thorpe sees AB as a mini version of Bobby Jackson in the “supersonic scoring combo guard” mold. Mahoney writes that “he’s a solid piece in a complementary role, but a building block he is not.” Beckley notes that “Brooks looks and runs like he could be from a distant future in which man has evolved to move at incredible speeds and bear giant heads designed for increased brain size” before saying that Brooks is too small for starter minutes. Rahat concurs unless he’s playing aside 1995 Scottie Pippen.

I am fully in agreement. I like Brooks as instant offense off the bench this year but hope he eventually gets dealt for a future asset.

4. Which wing will contribute the most going forward?

To me Jared Dudley is the no-brainer, but Grant Hill and Josh Childress also received votes from our fivesome.

Thorpe likes Childress if he were playing with better teammates because he “does a lot of things that make those players even better.”

Rahat casts a votes for the age-less Hill and observes that two of the top three picks in the 1994 draft (Hill and Jason Kidd) are still going strong whereas top pick Glenn Robinson “hasn’t been relevant since George W. Bush’s first presidency.”

Mahoney likes Dudley because “he’s a player who can contribute through spot-up shooting, rebounding and effort defense.”

Beckley failed to find anything positive about the Suns’ wing situation but spits out perhaps the funniest response of the feature: “Oh, man. A murderers (of Phoenix fans’ fortunes) row! It would surprise me if any of these guys played for Phoenix in three years. I think it’s between Hill and Dudley, and whoever does the most uplifting, socially important PSAs in the next two years wins.”

I disagree with that, I see Dudley playing in Phoenix for quite some time on his very reasonable five-year deal. He’s improved every season and is the type of player winning teams must have.

5. When will the Suns make the playoffs again?

Surprise, surprise, I ended up being the homer in the bunch on this question.

If the Suns add a solid shooting guard and keep the rest of the team together I could see them competing for the eighth seed this season, but I went with the season after (2013) because of how much cap space they will possess next offseason.

Really it’s impossible to answer this question before seeing what happens with Nash and how the new CBA will impact the Suns’ future direction. I felt like 2013 was a fair compromise without that knowledge at this point.

The rest of the crew was not so optimistic with Thorpe and Mahoney pegging the Suns as a 2015 playoff team and Beckley and Rahat going with 2016.

Thorpe chose 2015 because in his mind there is “no clear plan being orchestrated by the team (yet, anyway).”

Mahoney cautions that “by the time the Suns finally see the value in trading Nash, it will be far too late.” Thus he feels they will get minimal return on a trade and “be forced to endure a slow, gradual rebuild that will finally put them back in the playoffs halfway through the decade.”

Rahat’s less than bullish on Phoenix’s future as well, writing, “The team has no blue-chip prospects, and it will take years to both acquire and cultivate the kind of top-tier talent it needs.”

According to The Arizona Republic, Babby and the Suns have determined that conference finalists that tear down and launch a “massive rebuilding project” take an average of a decade to get back to that level.

Such an analysis shows why Babby seems to prefer to keep the Suns’ older core players like Steve Nash and Grant Hill while adding to that nucleus with pieces like Markieff Morris and perhaps a decent free agent shooting guard rather than starting over and building through the draft.

Babby is trying to prevent the Suns from turning into the Minnesota Timberwolves, a team that actually reached the 2003-04 West Finals but has not been a playoff team since and has won 32 games the last two years combined in Years 6 and 7. That’s why Babby keeps reiterating that the Suns won’t be trading Nash, period, exclamation point.

The downside, of course, is what if this means he is just delaying the inevitable? What happens if the Suns are forced to rebuild whenever Nash leaves but don’t face as favorable a landscape to start the project? Such a scenario could just delay the decade or so the Suns must wait before returning to their Nash era heights.

As has been the case with most things on Planet Orange the last seven years, Steve Nash is the fulcrum on which their future direction rests. I see three possibilities:

1.  Trade Nash immediately after the lockout or at the trade deadline.

2.  Sign Nash to a two-year extension.

3.  Let Nash walk at the end of the 2011-12 season.

Originally I planned on writing this article about how if the Suns would not consider Option 1 then they had to start working on Option 2 right after the lockout ends. After further examination I see merit in all three choices.

The biggest reason to trade MVSteve would be to put the team in a better rebuilding situation. I would have favored the draft day deal involving Derrick Williams that was discussed so the Suns could be bad for what may be a shortened 2011-12 season and then have D-Will and a high lottery pick in the 2012 draft to build around along with Marcin Gortat and Jared Dudley.

The 2012 draft is a huge part of this strategy. The Suns desperately need a future star, and with next year’s draft seemingly flush with those kinds of players Phoenix would be wise to start thinking of a 2012 plan that would involve a high draft choice, cap space and perhaps a quality young player from a Nash trade.

The downside is that it goes against everything the organization has said in regards to Nash over the course of the last year and directly contradicts Babby’s argument against rebuilding made at the start of this story. On paper it’s easy to figure the Suns could execute a quick rebuild with a 2012 pick, cap space and assets from a Nash deal but such quick rebuilds rarely actually come to fruition.

If Phoenix struggles out of the gates it would seem to make logical sense for the Suns to consider this scenario, but at this point they seem to be squarely focused on Option 2 (or possibly 3).

The next question that must be answered is how long do the Suns feel Nash will continue to play at a high level. Presumably the answer is past this season because if the Suns didn’t think Nash had much left in the tank then they would be trying to move him.

In that case the Suns would have to consider another two-year extension probably in the same neighborhood of the deal he’s making now. I might even recommend a two-year, $20-million deal, which is a slight pay cut but also an incredibly high salary for a player who will be 40 by the end of such a contract.

This deal would be a gamble for the Suns. If Nash performs anywhere near his current level of play this would be a supreme steal, but if he finally declines or becomes hampered by injuries that’s a lot of money to be tied up in a player nearing 40.

Re-signing Nash would accomplish Babby’s goal of staving off rebuilding since the Suns figure to at least be a decent team so long as Nash is around and it’s always possible another run could be in the cards, but continuing to employ Nash could cost the Suns a chance to find a future star in the draft.

Option 3 was reprehensible to me until analyzing the Suns’ salary situation. Without Nash in the equation, the Suns only have about $28 million committed during the Summer of 2012. Taking back players, of course, would cut into such flexibility.

In this way the Suns would enjoy the savings from Nash’s $11.7 million expiring deal without having to take the blame that would come with being the front office that traded Steve Nash away from Phoenix. If the split is amicable with the Suns rebuilding at that point and Nash going off to a contender, the Suns would avert the public relations disaster that a Nash trade would be seen as to some.

Expiring contracts that lead to cap space only become supremely valuable if they put you in position to sign a max-contract player whose true value is much higher than what an NBA max contract allows. That’s why the Knicks mortgaged so much for the opportunity to sign two max guys.

We will have to know the results of the new CBA before truly evaluating the viability of this option, and we’ll have to see if any top 2012 free agent would be interested in Phoenix so the Suns don’t just end up with a bucket full of role players once again.

Added into this calculated analysis is the emotional aspect of Steve Nash. We’re talking about one of the most beloved players in franchise history, so on top of Babby’s study warning against massive rebuilding projects it would be flat-out heartbreaking to ship away Two Time.

For now the Suns steadfastly refuse to consider Option 1 and have not commented publicly much about Options 2 and 3, but the path they eventually choose in regards to Nash will go a long way toward determining the length of the Suns’ next rebuilding project … and perhaps whether they will need to rebuild at all.

I was updating the ValleyoftheSuns salary page the other day and it made me realize just how much future financial flexibility the Phoenix Suns franchise has (after this offseason, whenever it may come, of course).

Over the next five seasons, the Phoenix Suns only owe their contracted players a total just south of $130 million (Jared Dudley’s $4.25 mil ETO is the only thing on the books in 2015-16). By contrast, Joe Johnson’s six-year deal with the Atlanta Hawks was for almost $124 mil, and the Miami Heat owe their Big Three in the neighborhood of almost $330 million over a six-year period.

Although the Suns would surely trade that future flexibility for one of Miami’s stars in a heartbeat, Phoenix would be better off than most franchises if the new CBA involves a hard cap or another means of requiring all teams to spend around the same amount of money. Not sure what the Lakers would do with over $90 million a year committed over the course of the next three years or the Heat with just three players making a combined $43.5, $48 and $52.5 million the next three years.

The league would surely have to enact some sort of amnesty clause to allow teams like the Lakers and Heat to rid themselves of certain contracts without taking a salary cap hit. This could still be disastrous for the aforementioned teams since it could lead to the Lakers parting with Pau Gasol and Miami parting with Chris Bosh (or dealing them for cap relief), but such a clause would just put Phoenix in a better position to snatch up somebody else’s high-priced star.

Josh Childress has the highest remaining contract value for the Suns with $27 million coming to him the next four years. Next is Channing Frye at $24.8 mil including a $6.8 mil player option in the final campaign of his four seasons left. After that are two contracts that are steals for Phoenix: Marcin Gortat’s remaining three years and $21.8 million (including a final year ETO) and Jared Dudley’s five-year, $22.5 million deal that kicks in next season.

The only other Sun owed double figures (assuming the Carter $4 million buyout in all these calculations) is Steve Nash’s 2011-12 salary of $11.7 million.

You might wonder why Hakim Warrick isn’t on this list, and it’s because he only has $8 million coming to him over the next two seasons with 2013-14 being a $4 million team option that the Suns will almost certainly decline at this point. Warrick’s deal is seen as one of the worst on the Suns since he’s on the fringes of the rotation, but although paying a bench warmer $4 mil a season isn’t smart Warrick is far from crippling the Suns’ future cap.

As much as I think he will be better next season, if teams can cut one contract with no cap implications Childress is the no-brainer. Such a move would put Phoenix’s 2012-13 cap at $21.5 million and its 2013-14 cap at just over $18 mil. If you can buy out a second contract with no cap hit, you go with Warrick and get down to around $18 mil for both years.

None of us have any idea what the new CBA will look like, but if the owners succeed in depressing salaries, teams paying top dollar will be forced to scramble to lop off a good portion of their roster.

With so much future salary cap space, especially if they can rid themselves of Childress’ deal, the Suns appear to be in a good position to take advantage.

Gentry on new defensive assistant

The Phoenix Suns on Thursday officially announced the hiring of Elston Turner to serve as their de facto defensive coordinator, a role he previously held while working as the lead assistant in Houston.

“Elston Turner has been a player and a coach in this league and we’re confident that he will bring a new voice to our team that will help us improve,” head coach Alvin Gentry said in a statement.  “What made Elston the right candidate is his experience working alongside offensive coaches and his willingness to be creative defensively.  We have complete confidence in Bill Cartwright, Dan Majerle, Igor Kokoskov and Noel Gillespie, and adding a capable coach like Elston to our staff will make us that much better.”

Turner did not have a job after Houston fired his long-time head coach Rick Adelman. According to The Arizona Republic, no other coach received an offer for this position although talks progressed with Jim Boylan.

Pietrus to undergo minor knee surgery

Suns forward Mickael Pietrus will have minor knee surgery performed on his ailing right knee on Tuesday, according to Coro.

According to Pietrus’ agent Bill McCandless, the forward took a physical before France’s camp in advance of the European Championship and the French doctors declined to certify him for national team play, recommending the surgery to remove loose cartilage. Pietrus missed the Suns’ final 12 games with a quad strain and suffered from knee discomfort even at the beginning of the season in Orlando.

Unless the doctors find more issues when they perform the surgery, this should not affect Pietrus’ availability for the start of next season.

The Big Analytical joins TNT

The NBA better get its act together and ensure the 2011-12 season isn’t wiped out for no other reason than fans should not miss a second of a TNT studio featuring Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and The Big Analytical himself, Shaquille O’Neal.

Shaq signed on with TNT this week to create perhaps the most entertaining postgame crew ever assembled. I for one can’t wait to hear these two former Suns and Smith go at it on Inside the NBA.

PHOENIX — The Phoenix Suns remain squarely in “win with Nash” mode after selecting Markieff Morris with their lottery pick in Thursday’s NBA Draft.

Morris’ toughness and rebounding provide Phoenix with critical missing pieces, and the former Jayhawk’s ability to space the floor makes him a fit offensively in a Nash-driven system.

Purely thinking about 2011-12 and however much longer Nash’s Phoenix career lasts, the Suns weren’t going to do much better than Markieff Morris sitting at No. 13 in a weak draft.

Thus Morris’ selection further signals Nash is going nowhere (as if the Lon Babby loop of “We aren’t trading Steve Nash” comments didn’t already do so). This franchise is not yet ready to rebuild and will continue its quest for one of the final Western Conference playoff spots next season.

Thinking long term I would prefer a Nash trade, a tank season after the lockout and then a top 2012 selection to go with whatever you get back for Two Time.

So long as the organization isn’t on board with that scenario, it’s time to start thinking about a Nash contract extension. It’s one thing to refuse to trade Nash, but it’s another to get nothing for him now and then watch him jet next offseason.

Back to Morris, his selection most likely represents a single or a double at best.  However, unlike many potential options at No. 13 he’s practically a guaranteed single, a safe pick, as Mike Schmitz wrote.

He’s going to rebound, he’s going to bang in the post, he’s going to bring toughness and athleticism. Markieff Morris is going to be a rotation player for a number of years.

However, unlike so many wildcards in this draft, Morris is just as unlikely to be a top-three player on an elite team anytime soon.

Of course, Morris and Blanks questioned why everybody is so sure Markieff lacks a high ceiling.

“I think he’s growing as a player,” Blanks said. “It’s really hard to predict who’s trending upward or sideways or who’s maxed out based on how they were in college because this is a totally different environment. … I think the reason why you don’t hear about people talking about his potential is he has a maturity that is rare for a young man his age.”

Added Morris, “My goal is just to win and be a winner. I’ve always been a winner. A lot of guys say I don’t have upside, but we’re going to see.”

The other question often asked about this pick is why select Markieff when his more-heralded twin Marcus and expected top-10 pick Kawhi Leonard were still on the board.

As for those two players, the obvious answer is that the Suns sought a power forward rather than more glut at the three. Leonard was enticing because he also projects to be fairly bust proof, but the Suns just could not add ANOTHER small forward. They also must have seen Marcus as more of a three and preferred the skills Markieff brings to the table as a player with a definitive position at an area of need.

Although I would have rather seen the Suns take a Justin Upton-sized swing on the pick that could have netted a superstar with a sizable possibility of striking out, was there really anybody there with star potential?

Making their first pick as a front office with the No. 13 pick in a weak draft isn’t exactly the time to obtain the franchise’s next star.

Instead Babby and Blanks filled in another crack with a player who should be another quality role player.

“It’s extremely important to get a player like Markieff,” Blanks said. “This gives us an opportunity to lay our imprint on this organization and this team. This is our first draft choice and first opportunity through the draft to do this. Very excited to have the opportunity to pick, but also a pick that reflects who we are and what we want to be about.”

The Morris pick and the Suns’ refusal to dangle Nash or Marcin Gortat for a potential young superstar in Derrick Williams proves the team will continue to attempt to rebuild on the fly, and for next year’s purposes if they find a way to replace Vince Carter with a quality shooting guard this could be a playoff team.

But one day Nash will no longer be around, and the events of tonight brought the Suns no closer to finding a potential future star. Instead Phoenix played it safe and filled a need.

Still, there are far worse fates than drafting a likely rotation player at the end of the lottery in a crummy draft even if there’s nothing sexy about selecting Markieff Morris.

What we know is that the Suns own the No. 13 pick in the draft, which begins at 4:30 p.m. Arizona time. The Suns are expected to pick around 5:30.

If they keep the selection the Suns could go in many different directions.

They want:

• An athletic power forward to provide a presence on the interior and on the boards.
• A wing who can develop into a go-to scorer.
• A backup point guard who can double as the squad’s point guard of the future.

That means they will inherently be selecting the best player available since they have so many needs across the board and ideally would like to draft a player who offers future star power.

“We felt we needed to get better up front, maybe bulkier and stronger,” said general manager Lance Blanks. “We thought some wing scoring could be helpful, and after that it’s a little bit of a sliding scale. If a player we feel is really good and plays the three then we’ll do that. It’s a difficult puzzle that you’re trying to predict, trying to make it make sense for the current roster that we have.”

Beyond the pick, a variety of trades could interest Phoenix, involving the following elements:

• Although Lon Babby has emphatically denied the availability of Steve Nash and Marcin Gortat, the Suns covet Derrick Williams and Minnesota has not done much to hide the fact that the No. 2 overall selection is available. It’s unlikely this gets done with Nash and Gortat supposedly untouchable, but such a trade would be a franchise-changer.
• Golden State has shown interest in Robin Lopez, but at what cost? Depending on who is available when the Warriors are on the clock at No. 11, perhaps these talks can be revisited.
• Vince Carter’s $18.3 million semi-expiring contract is still in play, as any team acquiring him can dump a long-term deal on the Suns and only take a $4 million hit for this season. The Suns reportedly want a 2012 first-rounder to broker such a deal.
• Mickael Pietrus’ $5.3 million expiring contract looms as bait if the Suns find anything interesting.

Unless the Suns pull off a blockbuster, the events of tonight are unlikely to change the franchise’s future trajectory although they will make a dent into those future plans.

Especially if the team eventually trades Nash and earns a top-10 pick next year, the loaded 2012 draft could be the time to select that future star, but the Suns should be able to land at least a future rotation player tonight nonetheless.

“I feel great, excited,” Blanks said. “We’ve got our staff here who’ve put in their 10,000 hours if you will, referring to Mr. [Malcolm] Gladwell, in regards to their work ethic and what they’ve done over the course of the season, and I feel excited. We’re as prepared as we can be up to this point.”

Suns tender qualifying offer to Brooks, modify Carter deadline

The Phoenix Suns extended a qualifying offer to Aaron Brooks that makes him a restricted free agent and pushed back the date on which Vince Carter’s 2011-12 salary becomes fully guaranteed on Thursday.

Brooks’ qualifying offer is for $2,976,636. The Suns now retain the right to match any offer Brooks gets on the open market as a restricted free agent if there still is restricted free agency in the new CBA. Assuming the likely Carter buyout, the Suns would have about $53.5 million committed to nine players if Brooks accepts the qualifying offer.

The Suns very well may use Brooks as a trade chip in a sign-and-trade deal. They likely would be OK with him playing out this year at the $3 million qualifying offer price as well, but it would be hard to believe they would match the kind of long-term deal Brooks will likely seek on the open market.

As for Vince, the Suns now have until the start of free agency before his deal becomes fully guaranteed rather than June 30, which allows Phoenix to decide what to do with Carter after the lockout. Perhaps a team will offer an interesting asset for his contract at that time based on what the new financial landscape will look like at that point.

“This change gives us additional time and flexibility to make a decision on Vince’s contract,”  Babby said in a release.

And 1

DraftExpress has the Suns selecting Tristan Thompson and ESPN’s Chad Ford and NBADraft.net have them going with Markieff Morris in their draft day mocks. … Bill Simmons AKA The Picasso of the Trade Machine drummed up some entertaining potential trades including three involving the Suns. None of them were particularly appealing to me, though. … Marcin Gortat will be working with Hakeem Olajuwon next week. Not a bad guy to learn post moves from. On Wednesday, Gortat teamed up with Jared Dudley and Grant Hill in Nash’s “Showdown in Chinatown” soccer game. … Blanks on running his first draft as a general manager: “This is something that you dream of.”

So many options could potentially be on the table from rolled back salaries to an amnesty clause to a hard cap to the end of cap exceptions, all of which would drastically change how teams are built.

Until we know the rules, it’s tough to say how the Suns should best follow them.

What we do know is that the Suns will be hard-pressed to find cap space for a free agent this summer but they should have flexibility next summer barring any future deals for long-term contracts.

Considering the foregone conclusion that the Suns will cut Vince Carter and only pay him the guaranteed $4 million of his $18.3 million non-guaranteed salary, the Suns will be at $45.2 million in commitments not counting what the Suns may have to pay Mickael Pietrus, who has a $5.3 million player option, or Aaron Brooks, who is a restricted free agent.

Factor in another $2 million for the lottery pick, another $3 million or so for Grant Hill’s likely return and the strong possibility that at least one of Pietrus/Brooks will be back and the Suns won’t have much money to throw at potential free agents, especially since it’s likely that the cap will be lower than the $58 million figure it was at this season.

A trade of some sorts is still possible, but it appears the Suns’ best shot at making a free agency splash will come during the summer of 2012 when they only have $28 million in commitments to the quintet of Gortat-Frye-Dudley-Childress-Warrick.

At least the first three (and likely Childress as well out of necessity) appear primed to be part of the next era of Suns basketball, and perhaps the Suns could add to that core with a Nash trade, the lottery pick and a shrewd free agency signing to put them in position to be a player in 2012.

Once the new CBA becomes official we will have a much clearer picture of the Suns’ offseason possibilities this year and beyond, but for now you can consult the ValleyoftheSuns salary page to make your own projections on how Lon Babby should rebuild this franchise.