Suns Hire Lon Babby

In a dramatic shift from the traditional front office management style, the Phoenix Suns have hired high profile sports agent Lon Babby as their new GM. Babby was the agent for Ray Allen, Tim Duncan, and Grant Hill. Jumping to the other side of the negotiating table, he will bring with him a unique perspective, one that owner Robert Sarver hopes proves to be beneficial.

The Suns are stuck in an awkward transition between going young and rebuilding or sticking with veterans Steve Nash and Grant Hill and maintaining championship aspirations. After losing free agent all star big man Amare Stoudemire to the New York Knicks, the Suns made a curious acquisition in Hedo Turkoglu. Turkoglu, 31, was awful last year in his first year with the Toronto Raptors, averages a meager 11 points on 40% shooting. To top things off, the Suns will inherit the 4 years and $43.8 mil left on his contract.

Although the Suns made the conference finals last year, losing PF Amare Stoudemire really hurts. They no longer have a big man who can score or dive to the hoop off of pick and rolls with Steve Nash (who is probably the most frustrated star in the league). While the Suns will probably make the playoffs for the next few years, there is no way they will compete for a title.

As currently built, the Suns have virtuoso PG Steve Nash surrounded by a superfluous amount of offensively minded 3-point shooters. Turkoglu, Channing Frye, Jared Dudley, and Jason Richardson can all score but have proven to be unable to get key defensive stops in the playoffs. The Suns do have some promising young talent... PG of the future Goran Dragic showed that he can play -- especially in game 3 of the conference semis vs. San Antonio, when he exploded for 26 points off the bench. C Robin Lopez is still improving and can create havoc on the defensive end, and enigmatic big man Earl Clark has all the tools to be a Lamar Odom type facilitator, but hasn't been able to put it together.

Thus, Lon Babby is walking into an interesting situation. The acquisition of Turkoglu really cripples his future flexibility (Babby also used to be his agent, which might be weird). At 31, he is only going to get worse (think Peja Stojakovic). On the bright side, both Grant Hill ($3.2 mil) and Jason Richardson ($14.4 mil) have expiring contracts. If the Suns stumble out of the gate and enter "sell" mode, these two players would be viewed as the final piece for a number of contenders.

Seeing as most GMs like to build their own teams, it wouldn't be surprising that at this time next year, the Suns are in a full scale rebuilding phase. While it might be painful for icon Steve Nash to play somewhere else, he simply isn't going to win a ring in the desert. As long as Mike D'Antoni disciple Alvin Gentry remains coach, the Suns will continue to play an exciting brand of basketball and be exciting to watch.