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Phoenix president on trading Stephon Marbury away to Knicks

The trade is Stephon Marbury, Penny Hardaway, Cezary Trybanski from Phoenix to New York for for Antonio McDyess, Howard Eisley, Charlie Ward, Maciej Lampe, the rights to Milos Vujanic, two future first-round draft picks and cash. See questions and answers with the Suns president.

SUNS PRESIDENT BRYAN COLANGELO: We made a fairly significant transaction. We completed the deal and I think everyone is familiar with the terms. We have effectively given a re-birth to the organization, so to speak. We’ve taken a very valuable player and a very valuable asset in Stephon Marbury, and converted that into flexibility – flexibility for the future in terms of draft picks, financial viability for the organization and a lot of things.

A lot of things went into the trade that brought Steph to Phoenix and a lot of thought and things were brought into the eventual trade that sends Stephon to New York. It also entails Penny Hardaway. Both of their contributions to the organization will be appreciated and we owe them gratitude. But you have to move on in certain cases and this was a chance to make a deal that will really set us up for the future. When you look at where we are and where this team is today, competing for last place in the division, and looking at a situation where we are likely to be in the lottery, we now have the possibility of being in the lottery twice. We have the chance to add two young players to the team that we will be able to craft and mold in a way that we desire.

Again, it’s a difficult decision to make. You are trading away two valuable players, two players that mean a lot to the organization. But taking a couple steps back today might result in a bound forward. That’s what we were looking at when we made this deal.

Given how young we are and given the opportunity that this presents to us, and our young players, I’m not sure this deal is hard to sell (to the remaining Suns players). Obviously they were sad to see a couple teammates go, actually three teammates in this case with Cezary Trybanski part of it. But I think everybody moves on; the players will move on.

We wish the best to the three players that went to New York, in particular to Steph. I’ve got a certain affinity for Steph. We’ve got a common bond and we’ve gone through a lot together. I want to see him do well in New York and I think it’s a good story for him to go back to New York City. He’s probably the best player to come out of the city or the best guard, certainly. So I’d like to see him go home and live up to all those expectations. Certainly, for the writers and for the NBA, you’ve got to love the little war across the river with that New Jersey team now. So we’ll see where that goes. But as far as our organization, we look forward and we move forward with a lot of anticipation for the future. We’re excited about that. I think the young guys here, even though there are only eight of them playing tonight, will come out and lay it all on the line, and that’s not just for tonight, it’s for the rest of the season. We have two other young guys coming back from injuries in Zarko Cabarkapa and Amaré Stoudemire, and when that all comes together and we add a couple more pieces, it makes for a nice outlook for us.

Question: What are the salary cap implications of this deal?

Colangelo: I’ll stay away from specific names and the issue of free agency, but the net effect of this deal brings us to about $35 or so million (in guaranteed salary for ’04-05). We estimate that the cap will be about $45 million next year. So, when you look at the math, we’ve got about $10 million of flexibility. Then you talk about the (costs) that are anticipated in the form of our draft pick, a lottery pick and also the Knick’ pick, which right now is also a lottery pick, and that could add another four, four and a half or five million dollars, depending on how high those picks turn out to be. Obviously, the higher they are the better for our case in terms of ultimately adding better talent… So with regard to the flexibility, you can anticipate that right now, after those draft picks are added, we’ll be anywhere in the five to seven million dollar range in terms of free agent flexibility as we speak today.

Question: What was Marbury’s reaction to the news?

Colangelo: He was surprised. Obviously it was very early this morning after a tough day of travel yesterday. We were on the tarmac in Toronto for seven hours and ultimately landed in Milwaukee, not Chicago, and drove straight to the hotel. So when the deal was consummated late last night, it was about 3 in the morning in New York and 2 in the morning in Milwaukee. I woke up Steph from a sound sleep at 8 to make sure that he didn’t hear it on the radio or from someone calling him. That’s a subject that’s been discussed before and I wanted to make sure that there was immediate contact. These players deserve that respect. I then subsequently spoke to Penny Hardaway and to Cezary Trybanski, as well.

Question: What was the Suns’ future before this trade?

Colangelo: We talk about the future all the time and we talk about what’s right moving forward. I felt like right now there was a limit to where we could go with (that) group. By taking a step back perhaps, like I said, it sets us up to move forward in a big way. While immediately stepping back somewhat, in terms of talent on paper, again we felt that this deal was about moving forward long-term with our franchise.

Question: Was there a shift in the Suns’ chemistry this season?

Colangelo: A lot of things happened over the course of the summer. A lot of guys that were in early the year before weren’t this year. I think to some degree that we got a little comfortable and we made a chemistry-changing move that altered where we were and that was the (Bo) Outlaw-(Jake) Tsakalidis trade. We also had a coaching change for obvious reasons that we’ve already stated and talked about. We decided to go in a different direction and then you look at where we are from a competitive standpoint with a $66 million payroll in a very difficult Western Conference. It became pretty clear to us that the only way out was to make a move like this, but it had to be a move of this magnitude. It’s staggering when you look at the numbers how it will affect us, not only today but in the future, and that all equates to flexibility and operating with more efficiency, and turning this thing into something we really want to turn it into. It’s crafting it and shaping it and molding it the way we want to do it. We were stuck. We had what we had and we had two players that were injured, who we like a lot and we think certainly they make us better (when they return). But we weren’t going to jump up into the top five in the West. Call us a team of the future – yesterday and today – because that is where we are looking.