If Suns Have Shut Down Amare Talk ...

    I’m about ready to paste some sort of “buyer-beware’’ label on every story I write between now and Thursday’s midday trade deadline. Teams are talking while they’re not talking. Teams are trading while they’re not trading. And every report is easy to shoot down with a blanket “that’s unlikely to happen’’ – because every proposal discussion is, by definition, “unlikely to happen.’’

   A great general example from this website, which asserts that regarding not dealing Chris Bosh, the Raptors are "fairly adamant.''

   "Fairly adamant.'' Like "jumbo shrimp'' and "a little bit pregnant.''

   I believe the Suns are "fairly adamant'' that they won't trade Amare. Which simply means that they won't. ... unless they do. (I also believe, as DB.com's new best friend Peter Vecsey establishes here in this venomous piece, that the Phoenix Suns can lie with the best of 'em.)

   Meanwhile, I take it as fact that Phoenix and Sacto talked yesterday. And I personally know as fact that Chicago is weighing its Amare options. .. or at least what it thinks are its options.

   First to the Bulls. DB.com has been told that coach Vinny Del Negro is convinced that he “knows’’ Amare Stoudemire and that STAT is well worth forfeiting Tyrus Thomas, Drew Gooden’s expiring ($7.2 mil) and another player. Ownership, on the other hand, has to be convinced that Stoudemire would greatly increase the Bulls’ chances of true contention in the East. The Bulls are engaging in this in-house debate while also reportedly considering Bosh of those "fairly-adamant'' Raptors. (Maybe in an Amare-Bosh three-way?)

   Now to the Kings: The reliable Sam Amick of the Sacramento Bee reports that the Kings engaged the Suns in conversation on Monday, and that the topic of conversation was Stoudemire.

   I believe the very connected ESPN’s Marc Stein when he takes the pulse of the Amare situation and says the Suns “want to stand pat.’’ But I also believe and agree with Marc when he carefully inserts his own “buyer-beware’’ caveat into all of his stories.

   “The Suns' stance could conceivably change again,’’ Stein notes.

   Yessir. In fact, it sounds like their stance is so fluid that it is no stance at all. Because even as they’re talking about not talking, they’re talking.