Report: Garnett nearly traded to Suns instead of Celtics in 2007

Tall tales of trades and signings that almost were are fascinating in any sport, but particularly so in the NBA, where the league's biggest stars so powerfully sway the competitive balance.

One such shift occurred in 2007, when Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen joined fellow future Hall of Famer Paul Pierce in Boston, spurring the Celtics to the 2008 title, two Finals appearances in three years, and five straight second-round appearances with the star trio together.

But if it wasn't for Shawn Marion's determination to seek a maximum contract at the time, the Celtics' Big Three – and a future Big Three in Miami – would never have come to be.

Via the Miami Herald's Dan Le Batard:

Marion was so stubborn about wanting a max contract back in 2007 that his insistence helped blow up a three-team deal that could have sent Kevin Garnett from Minnesota to Phoenix. That deal would have prevented Garnett from ever teaming up with Paul Pierce and Ray Allen to win a championship in Boston. But Marion wouldn’t re-sign with a trading team that wasn’t offering the max, so he was instead sent to Miami for a disgruntled Shaquille O’Neal. Miami offered Marion a four-year contract that would have also kept Miami’s Big 3 from uniting, but not at the max. So Marion asked to be traded … and had to settle in Dallas for a five-year, $39 million deal that was far less than the max.

In the end, things worked out for most of the parties involved. Garnett got his championship in Boston, the Heat avoided signing Marion through 2011 (although they did trade for him at one point), which would have prevented them from clearing the requisite cap space necessary to lure both LeBron James and Chris Bosh in 2010, leading to two titles, and while Marion never got his max, he did eventually get a ring of his own in Dallas.

The one team it didn't work out for was Phoenix, who could have used Garnett's game-changing defense during their Steve Nash-led run of perennial Western Conference contention. The Suns won 55 games in 2007-08, but lost to the San Antonio Spurs in the first round, missed the playoffs with 46 wins the following year, and then lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2010 West Final.

There's no such thing as a guaranteed championship, of course, but those great Suns teams would have been a lot closer to triumph with KG than they ultimately were without him.

Instead, another near-move that could have changed the course of NBA history leaves us only with questions of what could have been.