Kerr and Barkley on the Suns trade

Ex-Suns GM Steve Kerr commented on the Suns trade in his new role as an analyst for TNT: "I like the trade. Phoenix has had such a lack of big men over the years. Gortat is a potential starting center. Minimum, he's a 25-minute-a-night guy. He and Lopez will always split time, which will always give Phoenix a nice defensive presence ... The Suns will miss Jason Richardson's scoring but Pietrus is a better defender and now they've got a guy they can throw in there with Grant Hill to cover the LeBron Jameses of the world."

Kerr on Carter: "The interesting thing with Vince is that he's 33 years old. You think about the Suns much-heralded training staff that has helped turn around the career of Grant Hill and before that, Antonio McDyess, Shaquille O'Neal, and they've helped Steve Nash immensely. I think Vince is coming here at the perfect time in his career because they can really help him get right physically."

Kerr on Nash and Hill: "Nash and Hill have such a great synergy and they always know what the other one is doing. Nash is as good as anyone at finding a player in transition ... What I love about Nash is that normally in games, he just waits to see what is needed. If it's passing and creating, he does that. If it's scoring, he'll go that route."

Suns Ring of Honor member and TNT commentator Charles Barkley on the Suns: "Can I chastise the Phoenix Suns a little bit? I like the trade for both teams but if they're going to play defense the same way, the trade become irrelevant. That thing they've done the last few years that I thought would never win and never did win, they can't play like that. They've got some big guys now with Gortat and Lopez. I love Mickael Pietrus but the Suns have got to change their mentality instead of running up and down the court not playing any defense ... The way they were playing, they were not going to win. You can't outscore people. The three most important stats in basketball are defense, rebounding and turnovers. They don't play any defense. They do a terrible job on the boards and they are one of the worst teams in the league on turnovers. When they had a bunch of small forwards, I could see them trying to outscore people. They had their best 6-7 and under team the last 10 years. Now they have legitimate big guys and you adjust to the system of the players you have."