The Suns' Big Compromise

Shaquille O'Neal, by design, will be spending some games in street clothes and others in uniform this season. AP; John W. McDonough (SI) Related Links ROUNDTABLE: Suns handling Shaq the right way? Steve Aschburner's Mailbag Submit a comment or question for Steve. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND

What made the Phoenix Suns so much fun, such an ideal to the basketball purists and a delight to the casual fans, was that for three and a half NBA seasons (and three postseasons), they were without compromise. They came, they saw, they scored. Seven seconds or less. Energy meets basketball, or vice versa.

From coach Mike D'Antoni's unblinking green light to attack to Steve Nash's skating like Gretzky through and behind defenses, from Shawn Marion's filling the lane to make his counterparts at "power forward'' look old and earthbound to Amaré Stoudemire's romping and throwing down hammer dunks, the Suns were what they were. Sure, sometimes it was ready-fire-aim. Sometimes, Phoenix paid a brutal defensive price. Always, based on the eliminations that ended each of those high-octane seasons, it wasn't enough. But it sure was unabashed. Unapologetic. And uncompromised.

Now there are compromises all over the place in Phoenix. D'Antoni is gone, revving up New York's offense (from 96.9 points per game last season to 102.5 so far in 2008-09), while the Suns' has drooped (110.1 to 103.3). There's the emphasis now on stopping rather than simply outscoring, a reflection of the way new coach Terry Porter likes his basketball played. It means that, instead of just beating you with their greatest strength (speed), the Suns more diligently -- and less artfully, however effective it is -- try to keep you away from yours.

Then there's the Shaq factor, actually a couple of them that demonstrate how far Phoenix has strayed from its speedily trodden path. The grinding of gears when the big guy was acquired last February was audible, with O'Neal's getting stuck between the foul lines as the end-to-end action passed him both ways. Or worse, having it all ... slow ... down ... so he could catch up.

"The way they played last year, I think [O'Neal] got lost a lot,'' Hornets coach Byron Scott said recently. "He was almost in no-man's land.''

The latest wrinkle now is that, after a half season of learning to play with (or around) O'Neal, the Suns are trying to get more used to playing without him. Porter has designated a certain number of games -- generally, the front or tail end of back-to-back games, especially when clustered as four in five nights -- in which the big man will sit and watch. It's a bummer for people who buy tickets, particularly of the 29 teams other than Phoenix, and are hoping to feel the thunder at least one more time. Now they're in the Shaq lottery, cross-checking Phoenix's schedule and praying that they won't end up like Broadway unfortunates who hear that hushed announcement shortly before curtain time. "The role of Max Bialystock, normally played by Nathan Lane, will be handled tonight by ... Robin Lopez.''

But it is Phoenix's way of coping with, or avoiding even, the inevitable 20 or 25 games that O'Neal loses to injuries (168 absences over the past eight seasons). If the Suns can't just backload his availability -- letting him show up from the All-Star break on, cherry-picking his participation like Roger Clemens near the end -- they might as well schedule some of those missed games, Porter figured, rather than passively and randomly suffer all of them.

Last weekend, implemented for the first time, the plan seemed to work fine: O'Neal sat out last Friday's game at Chicago and the Suns lost, but he played and scored 29 points 24 hours later at Milwaukee and his team won. There's the preparation part, too, given Shaq's announced intentions -- and quite possibly, his aching body's demands -- not to play at all beyond the 2009-10 season. Might as well start getting used to playing without him, eh?

The tricky part, though, is that playing with him must feel no more natural now than it did nine months ago. The Suns seem to be weaning themselves off O'Neal without ever fully weaning themselves onto him. Now they're having to flip the switch between those Shaq-friendly half-court sets and their preferred faster pace not just shift by shift or quarter by quarter, but on a night-by-night basis, too.

So far, it's hard to quibble with the results. The Suns are 6-2, including 4-1 on the road, and they have made 51.5 percent of their shots (compared to 50.0 in 2007-08). They're rebounding better -- +1.5 to this point vs. -2.4 per game -- and opponents are shooting slightly worse (45.0 vs. 45.6). But though they still have an edge in fast-break scoring (93-82), last weekend's Shaq experiment yielded an interstesting outcome: Not only were the Suns outscored on the break by the Bucks, 10-3, with Shaq participating, but they also were lapped by the Bulls the night before, 20-10, when he was inactive.

"We just don't run much anymore,'' Nash said that night in Chicago, after looking "frustrated on the floor,'' according to one Suns beat writer. "We've lost the habit of running, that tempo. It's not the end of the world when you're playing with Shaquille. But when he doesn't play, and we're getting used to gearing things toward that, we don't have the ability to push the tempo. Even when he is here, we have to find a better place.''

Not exactly the battle cry we hope to hear from what had been a throwback offense. The Phoenix Suns were one of those things in life you didn't want to see watered down, not as long as Nash was around. Hummers need to be Hummers, Porsches need to stay Porsches. No compromises.

Otherwise, we all end up driving crossover SUVs, not a one of us smiling.

Steve Aschburner covered the Minnesota Timberwolves and the NBA for 13 seasons for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He has served as president or vice president of the Professional Basketball Writers Association since 2005.