Can new-look Suns reheat rivalry with Spurs?

The Phoenix Suns are undergoing a drastic facelift. Actually, they’re going with theLuis Scola facelift, tummy tuck, liposuction on the arms and throwing in a boob job.

After letting their 2-time MVP point guard Steve Nash go to the Lakers, the Suns have been throwing around money to bring in some replacements.

They’ve already signed Michael Beasley and Goran Dragic. They lost the contest for Eric Gordon when the Hornets matched their offer sheet, but that didn’t stop them.

The Suns won the bidding war for amnestied Rockets forward Luis Scola and now he’ll join the team as well. The Suns may not even be done yet, rumored to be going after Grizzlies guard O.J. Mayo, but that’s still way up in the air.

It’s kind of funny how Steve Nash has encouraged the Suns for years to spend some money and go get some talent for him to play with and they wait until he leaves to do it.

Now I’m not going to go crazy and say this Suns team is ready to rise back to the top of the Western Conference and compete with the likes of the Spurs like they once did. But there’s some potential here. They still have more work to do this offseason. I think the bid for Scola was the best move they’ve made so far, but their team is now overloaded with big men.

They have Scola, Beasley, Marcin Gortat, Channing Frye, Hakim Warrick, Markieff Morris and possibly Robin Lopez. To me, that’s a lot of average post players that they can find a better use for than keeping them all on the roster.

In the age of dominating trios in the NBA, the Suns are doing what they can with what they have. They haven’t pulled in any real superstars, but they’re starting to build a talented roster. The Suns will have to be all about the “team dynamic.” They have been for years, but that was with Steve Nash running the show, a guy who makes everyone around him better. They don’t have that anymore and while Dragic was Nash’s understudy for many years, he doesn’t have nearly the same level of talent. Rookie point guard Kendall Marshall could be something special, but that remains to be seen.

This new Suns roster has a lot of question marks. They haven’t had this level of talent since the days of Nash and Amar’e Stoudemire, but they’ll all have to play well together if they want to succeed. We’ll quickly find out if this is a real team or just a bunch of misfits.

(Photo illustration by RealGM) 

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