Barbosa's style of plan is easy to explain; it's all offense and no defense. This does not fit with the Bulls philosophy of defense first; then again, nor did Eddy Curry. Nor Michael Sweetney. Nor Ben Gordon. Nor Andres Nocioni. Nor Drew Gooden. And yet all were made into acceptable defenders in their time here, except Gooden.
His time in Phoenix might be drawing to an end, for two reasons; Barbosa's perpetually terrible playoff production, and the continued emergence of Goran Dragic. A three guard rotation of Steve Nash, Jason Richardson and Dragic is no worse than a three guard rotation of Nash, Richardson and Barbosa - therefore, the $7.1 million being spent on Barbosa is being spent unnecessarily. Barbosa is a good player with value to any team, but to Phoenix, his value is marginalised by the play of others. Keeping him around is a luxury more than a necessity, and there's a tax in the NBA to fight against such luxuries.
The perennially tax-paying Suns need that money. Regardless of what happens with Amare Stoudemire, the Suns need to maintain their depth if they are to maintain competitive. To that end, free agents Channing Frye and Louis Amundson need to be brought back. With Ben Wallace's deadweight contract expiring, the Suns might just have the wiggle room to do this without being tax payers: however, they've surely had enough of fighting with that enemy over the years, no doubt still haunted by the memories of the assets it has cost them over the years. If they weren't paying $7.1 million for a third string guard who could readily be a fourth string guard, they'd have the money to retain their good players and maybe add more. Who knows; with an MLE to spend for a change, maybe they could even add Anthony Morrow. A bench unit of Dragic, Morrow, Amundson, Frye and Jared Dudley is a damn fine bench unit.
Note: Non-US teams that the player
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that nation. If league or division name is expressly stated, it's not
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In the event where more than one agent is listed, this is because the
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Chicago's Last Resort Offseason Plan That Still Manages To Avoid Signing Joe Johnson
