The Suns should have won in Game 3, and should have had a very significant shot to win Game 5. If the Suns did win that series, they would have played the Utah Jazz, and there is no doubt in my mind they would have lost that series. Going to the NBA Finals to play the fairly empty Cleveland Cavaliers roster would have been easy to claim their first NBA title.





If they had won that title, it would have had an everlasting footprint on the rest of the league. It would have changed the way GM's would build teams. They would try to model after the Suns to deviate to offensive based teams. Of course, defensive teams like the Spurs would never have gone extinct, which means there would have been way more variety in the association.





So...





What if Game 3 was officiated quickly and what if Amar'e and Boris had never come off of the bench? How would that Suns team had impacted the NBA for the future?





#6. KG TO THE SUNS

Little do people know that Kevin Garnett was almost a Sun in the 2007-08 season. Let me lay the framework down for you. Back in 2007, Shawn Marion was the longest tenured Sun on the team. His contributions to the team very a big part of the reason why those teams were great, but he never got the credit he really deserved by the public. Marion had always played in the shadows of Nash & Stoudemire, even though he had been a 20 point, 10 rebound guy.

Marion knew that true basketball analysts would see his true value, which they did. So one day he requested a max deal from GM Steve Kerr and owner Robert Sarver. Allegedly, Steve Kerr said to Marion that he wasn’t a max player, and that the only max power forwards in the league were Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan. This made Marion irate, causing him to demand a trade.

Following the playoffs of 2007, trade talks heated up. Kobe wanted to leave, Kevin Garnett wanted to leave, and Marion wanted to leave. The Suns were the frontrunners in acquiring KG for the days up to the draft until he was traded to the Celtics. His first choice was the Suns, and he refused to play for the Celtics (until they got Ray Allen). As you’ll see in the article, the Celtics were going to get Marion, the Suns were going to get Garnett, and the Wolves were going to get the #5 pick in the 2007 draft along with multiple trade sweeteners. Later, the deal reportedly simmered down to just a two-team deal, with just Marion and sweeteners to the Wolves for KG.

Eventually, the trade never happened because of Marion’s reluctance to play for the Wolves or the Celtics, and Garnett was then traded to the Celtics a month later.

Midway through the 2007-08 season, Marion was traded to the Miami Heat in exchange for an extremely worn out Shaquille O’Neal.

There are two elements to this deal: the Heat’s future, and the Suns’ future. Minnesota’s future wouldn’t have been affected that much because at that point in Marion’s career, he was about the equivalent in value as what the Wolves got in return from the Celtics.

If in fact the Suns had gotten KG, they would have been the instant favorites to win the title. You have two MVP’s on the same team in Nash and Garnett along with a superstar Amar’e at the core. We don’t know which players would be traded away as sweeteners from the Suns, but I’d assume they would have kept the revived Grant Hill, Raja Bell, and Boris Diaw. You’re looking at a probable starting lineup of:

• Steve Nash

• Raja Bell

• CONSISTENT AND HEALTHY Grant Hill

• Amar’e Stoudemire

• Kevin Garnett

with Diaw and Barbosa coming off of the bench. The Suns played an 8-man roster in the D’Antoni era. With the addition of Grant Hill that year, they had someone to guard elite scorers like Kobe, LeBron, and Tracy McGrady. With Marion playing power forward, he was a bit out of his comfort zone because Grant’s role was similar to the one he was used to playing. Marion was a good post defender; not an elite one, but an above-average one. By replacing Kevin Garnett in Marion’s role, they would improve their defense of the paint greatly, taking a lot of workload off of Amar’e. Garnett was also an offensive stud, averaging 20.5 points per game through 2007. I think this team could have won out the West because they finally had someone to match up with the likes of Duncan, Nowitzki, Yao, and Pau Gasol.

Now if the Suns had indeed gotten Garnett, Marion would have never gone to the Heat, meaning that they wouldn’t have been able to dump Shaq’s lucrative salary. Without dumping his salary, the Heat wouldn’t have been able to assemble the big three with LeBron, Wade, and Bosh when they did.