I guess you might say with Shaquille O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Neal going from Miami to the Phoenix, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stand the Heat, then stay out of Miami.\u00e2\u20ac? Or, maybe you might ask, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Will Shaq\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s career rise again with the Suns?\u00e2\u20ac?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Okay, here are some basics. If O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Neal is for real and is and can stay healthy, the guy will certainly help Phoenix. When the Suns traded Kurt Thomas earlier this season, they lost their big banger. O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Neal can help in that area. Although not as productive as he was in the past, Shaq has decent stats– grabbing 7.8 RPG and putting in 14.2 PPG. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also still able to play sound \u00e2\u20ac\u0153D,\u00e2\u20ac? averaging 0.6 turnovers and 1.7 blocks with a turnover margin of plus-2.9.<\/p>\n
The Suns, like other clubs in the Pacific Division, have tended to be a run and gun team. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s true that they average the most points per game in the NBA (109.68), but they also allow the sixth most points per game (103.76). Shaq could help reduce that second number.<\/p>\n
Of course, for O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Neal to really affect the play of his new team, the club will have to slow it down a bit. One reason for that need has to do with their new center\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s age. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not as fast as he used to be and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to take him a while to go from one end of the court to the other. But, additionally, O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Neal plays best and is most effective when the ball gets shared.<\/p>\n
Of course, the big question here is about Shaq\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s health. O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Neal has had numerous injuries over the past few years that have hampered his play, tasking him out of the line up for extended periods of time. O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Neal needs to work into the Phoenix mix and build his stamina and strength during the second half of this season, and in the playoffs, Shaq will have to be healthy and in top condition. The fact is the NBA post-season is a killer even on healthy players.<\/p>\n
Shaq has been with Phoenix for three games and has not yet played. So all we have at this point is conjecture.<\/p>\n
Technorati Tags: Miami Heat<\/a>, Phoenix Suns<\/a>, Shaquille O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Neal<\/a>, NBA<\/a>, Pacific Division <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I guess you might say with Shaquille O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Neal going from Miami to the Phoenix, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stand the Heat, then stay out of Miami.\u00e2\u20ac? Or, maybe you might ask, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Will Shaq\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s career rise again with the Suns?\u00e2\u20ac?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nba-handicapping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}