Breaking News: Shaq’s a Cav

ESPN has just reported that Cleveland and Phoenix have agreed to terms on a deal that will send Shaq to help Lebron for two contracts named Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic.  I’ll leave it up to Chris Broussard to sum it up…

The trade is a pretty strong admission by the Suns that they screwed up when they traded Shawn Marion for Shaq in February of 2007. Marion was a free agent this summer and, had they let him walk, their savings would’ve been $21 million not the $5.5 million they’re saving in this deal.

That hurts.  But hey, you live and learn, right?  Right.  They can’t take back the Marion-Shaq trade, so they’re trying to do the best they can to rectify the situation now.  Would I love for them to actually get some basketball value back in the deal?  DUH.  When I see my team make any kind of deal – trade, free agent signing, draft pick, etc. – I hope that it’s made with the intention of making the team better.  But how you define “better” is the key.  Ideally, it means that the team has a better chance of winning a championship this year.  It could also mean saving the team money to put them in a better situation to compete for a championship in the years to come.  Unfortunately, this deal obviously falls in the latter category.

Honestly, I’m a little less upset than I thought I would be.  Shoot, I just wrote a post last week ripping the Suns and Robert Sarver for this potential deal.  I guess I just came to grips with how it is right now.  At some point, you’ve got to accept it and move on.  I haven’t heard about any other potential deals out there with teams that were interested in Shaq.  Maybe this is all they could get.  Honestly, Wallace and Pavlovic were huge assets for the Cavs.  Assets that were sure to be traded.  And if this is what they chose to get, they must like it.

Now we get to see what kind of affect Shaq has on Lebron.  Besides having the challenge of coming up with a new self-proclaimed nickname, Shaq now can win championships with three of the biggest stars of this era (Kobe, D-Wade, and Lebron).  As a Lebron fan, I’m a little scared of what Shaq will do to the clubhouse, but he usually likes being on a new team for about a year.  He’s got the motivation, and now Shaq can do in Cleveland what he promised to do in Phoenix – win a championship.

UPDATE :: Word comes now that Phoenix will get the 46th pick and $500,000 cash.  I hope the summer home Robert Sarver buys with that $500k is nice, and I hope the Suns can turn that 46th pick into something useful – like they did in 1986 when they drafted future All-Star Jeff Hornacek.

Tags: Ben Wallace, Contracts with names, Jeff Hornacek, Robert Sarver is cheap, Sasha Pavlovic, Shaq, Suns, Transactions