Sign Brent Barry for outside shooting. Then add Ron Artest for scoring, defensive commitment and general swagger.

That might have been the perfect offseason for the Suns. Instead, they will have to be content with Robin Lopez, Matt Barnes and a minimum-wage point guard to be named later — while the Houston Rockets add Barry and Artest to a team that many saw as the sleeper in the West last year.

I’m not saying the Rockets should be measured for rings. Tracy McGrady has never been past the first round of the playoffs and is a constant injury concern. Yao Ming’s feet are taking more of a pounding this summer in Beijing. Then there is the matter of Artest, who has been a problem wherever he’s been and is bound to stir the pot in Clutch City.

And while the Lakers’ roster, outside of point guard, is formidable, most Suns fans were happy to see Artest go to Houston — because that meant he wasn’t going to the Lakers.

But the Rockets are now better, and the West has another powerhouse with a “Big Three” to match the Lakers, San Antonio, New Orleans, Utah and Phoenix.

So why didn’t Phoenix get into the Artest Derby? Why isn’t he coming to the desert? All you have to do is look at what the Kings asked of the Rockets — two first-round picks (Donte Green and next year’s No. 1) and an expiring contract (Bobby Jackson at $6.1 million). Draft-pick-wise, the Kurt Thomas-to-Seattle trade strikes again. And the Kings would rather have the cap space to spend next summer than Leandro Barbosa for four more years.

Had not Barnes fallen in Phoenix’s lap last week, this deal would have hurt a lot more. But there are indications that his addition has started the wheels turning in the front office again and improved the chances of at least one move outside of signing a backup point guard before training camp opens in October.

The Suns confirmed a SportingNews.com report that the Suns made inquiries about a possible sign-and-trade deal with the Atlanta Hawks for Josh Childress before he decided to leave the NBA and sign a deal to play in Greece.

The Suns had the $8 million exception from the Kurt Thomas trade with Seattle to work with (which expired on July 21), but the deal almost certainly would have included either Leandro Barbosa or Boris Diaw in an attempt to balance the contract and keep the Suns from taking a further luxury-tax hit.

But Childress was looking for a contract similar to the one he got in Greece (well in excess of even the nearly $7 million a season offered by Atlanta), which was more than the Suns had anticipated. And the Hawks appeared to have little interest in a sign-and-trade deal, figuring they were still in the power position to sign the restricted free agent with the number of NBA teams with cap space shrinking around the league.

The Suns are still waiting and hoping that Goran Dragic will be a Sun this season but could make a move involving another point guard soon. The list of free agents still out there ranges from Sam Cassell to Carlos Arroyo to Jason Williams to Shaun Livingston. Both Arroyo and Williams are said to be drawing interest from Europe, while Livingston has yet to be cleared to play basketball as he recovers from a catastrophic knee injury that has kept him sidelined for the last 17 months.

Hey, give Stephon Marbury credit for one thing: He lasted longer in New York during the Mike D’Antoni era than Renaldo Balkman — who was basically given to the Denver Nuggets for a second-round draft pick and two players bound for the waiver wire.

Balkman, you may remember, became a Knick when Isiah Thomas “stole” him from the Suns with the 20th pick in the 2006 draft — telling reporters that the Suns were poised to take Balkman at No. 21.

Hard to believe, but Zeke wasn’t even close on that one.

The Suns already had a deal in place to move No. 21 several picks before the Knicks selected. And the consensus in the draft room was that Phoenix had no interest at all in Balkman — who one insider at the time joked “might be the only player from South Carolina that (longtime area high school coach) Dan D’Antoni doesn’t want.”

So while Balkman endeared himself to Knicks fans for his hustle play over two years, the New York minute the brothers D’Antoni hit town the clock was ticking on Balkman. And with top draft pick Danilo Gallinari and new flavor of the month Wilson Chandler sharing the small forward spot (perhaps at times with ex-Sun Quentin Richardson), the Knicks were happy to find a taker and shave $2 million from the books.

The Atlanta Hawks finally made it back to the playoffs last season — just in time to deny the Suns the most valuable chip in the Joe Johnson trade, that rare lottery pick for a contending team.

Now, with Josh Childress spurning the Hawks for a long-term deal in Greece and with very few options to replace him available this late in free agency, Atlanta is way behind with only eight players under contract and what looked to be a bright future is enduring at least a partial eclipse.

It’s all too late for the Suns, who have to be content with Robin Lopez — the player they maintain they would have taken even if they were picking in the back end of the lottery. The only consolation for Suns fans are for those who still hold an unhealthy grudge against Joe Johnson and don’t want to see him succeed. Losing Childress for nothing is proof that the Hawks still don’t have their front-office ducks in a row and, like the hapless Clippers in the West, could be headed back to oblivion in a hurry.

When Tiago Splitter spurned the Spurs to stay overseas, eyebrows were raised.

When the likes of Primoz Brezec, Carlos Delfino, Bostjan Nachbar and Juan Carlos Navarro left the NBA and headed back to Europe, the grumbling started around the league.

But Josh Childress’ decision to turn down a deal with Atlanta – which smugly thought it had the restricted free agent over a barrel and low-balled him on a contract extension – proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that things are changing.

Childress is the first American to say no to the NBA, to look at a combination of a more lucrative offer, the value of the Euro over the American dollar and the more favorable tax situation and say, “Hey, why not?”

And just like that, basketball overseas took another huge step forward, and free agents and their representatives gained a huge leg up in negotiations.

Let’s keep in mind we’re talking about the Atlanta Hawks, the poster children for foolhardy, dysfunctional ownership. They figured Childress had nowhere else to go, so they waited an entire month while the rest of the teams swung trades and snatched up the best free agents. They thought they couldn’t lose.

Now Childress is gone. There is no one left in the free-agent market who can replace him. Much like Golden State in the West – which was blind-sided by the loss of Baron Davis and replaced him with Marcus Williams – one of the league’s young, exciting teams has been knocked for a loop in Atlanta.

So while the Suns continue their attempts to coax Goran Dragic toward Phoenix, it is important to note that, right now, the tug of war is going the other way.

The purple and orange brightened what has been an otherwise gloomy July with a strong signing right out the blue.

With the Suns supposedly looking at names like Devin Brown and Devean George to fill depth at the wing position, Phoenix general manager Steve Kerr produced Matt Barnes — who many figured would be far beyond the reach of a team with only a veterans minimum salary to offer.

As a player entering his sixth year in the league, Barnes will earn $998,398, and the Suns are responsible for only $797,581 of that total, with the rest paid from a league fund set up through the collective bargaining agreement. That’s less than the Suns were waving at Tyronn Lue last week for a player with the possibility of having a big impact (likely off the bench because Phoenix still likes the idea of starting Grant Hill at the small forward).

Barnes is hoping one season with the Suns will raise his value in the league. In return, Phoenix gets an athletic wing who provides insurance for Grant Hill, can run the floor and be a 3-point threat if he can duplicate the 36.6 percent shooting effort from 2006-07 that got even better in the playoffs.

Add to that Barnes’ fully earned reputation as being a pesky, hard-nosed defender who has had his fair share of cheap-shot fingers pointed in his direction over the years.

Barnes gives the Suns the flexibility of going back to a smaller, quicker lineup by playing some 4 (similar to the lineup that featured Amare Stoudemire at center and Shawn Marion at power forward) if Shaquille O’Neal is sidelined by either foul trouble or injury and defends well enough in the half court at the small forward to play with the bigger lineups as well.

In a year marked by the death of his mother, Barnes struggled with the Warriors last season and fell out of the rotation at times. But he is known as a good teammate, even if his wild play (overzealous turnovers) needs to be reined in. He is a hard worker on the court and has gone from a player known as a poor shooter to one who can knock down shots consistently enough to help the Suns with their all-important spacing issues.

As far as the Summer League goes, the Suns were pleased with the play of rookie Robin Lopez (14 points, 7.8 rebounds), although he didn’t have the impact of the player taken right before him on draft night — Golden State’s Anthony Randolph. Randolph put up 20.8 points a game, matched Lopez’s rebounding stats and was the most impressive rookie of the week this side of Jerryd Bayless’ 29.8-point, one-man-show effort.

The player taken after Lopez, Philadelphia’s Marreese Speights, was also very strong, averaging a double-double (18.2 points, 10.2 rebounds). But neither one of those guys is 7-foot or fills the defensive void that Lopez should handle well for the Suns.

Both of Phoenix’s second-year players, Alando Tucker and D.J. Strawberry, had little trouble scoring in Vegas, and they needed to score on a team with very little to offer beyond the top three players.

But they also did little to put to rest the concerns in their games — defense for Tucker and shooting and floor generalship for Strawberry. Tucker has a guaranteed deal, although the Barnes signing knocks him back a peg in the rotation, while Strawberry will have to watch and wait to see what the Suns do with the backup point position.

If Goran Dragic winds up in Phoenix — and Suns officials remain cautiously optimistic that will be the case despite his comments to the contrary to a Spanish newspaper — the team will likely have to come up with another veteran point to cover themselves. And even if Dragic stays in Europe and the Suns sign or trade for a veteran to back up Steve Nash, they could choose to sign a third pure point guard or an injury/project (like Shaun Livingston or Allan Houston), leaving Strawberry on the outside looking in.

The Suns evened their Vegas Summer League record at 1-1 Thursday night when Alando Tucker hit eight of his 10 shots from the field on his way to a 24-point night in a 98-74 win over San Antonio.

Tucker scored his 24 points in 19 minutes as the Summer Suns jumped out to a 10-point lead in the first quarter and put the game away with 34 points in the third quarter.

Robin Lopez added 14 points and nine rebounds and had a pair of blocks to continue an impressive first week as a pro. Six of his rebounds came on the offensive end. D.J. Strawberry pitched in with 12 points and three assists.

The Suns continue a run of four games in four nights to end summer league play on Friday afternoon against the Knicks.

 Well, now we know what Steve Nash was doing in Los Angeles when he was cornered by the TMZ.com dragnet at the airport this week.

 The Suns two-time MVP is ready to put on another hat and will direct his first film — a documentary on Canadian folk hero Terry Fox — that will be among a new slew of new projects under the umbrella of ESPN films.

 Fox, who lost a leg to cancer, attempted to run completely across Canada with an artificial leg in 1980. His run came to an end in Thunder Bay, when cancer hit him again. He died a year later, but had by then won over the hearts of his countrymen

 ”This a story that in many ways has been forgotten in the States,” said Nash.  “As a 6-year-old in Canada, I remember what it felt like and how proud we were when he was running across the country to raise money for cancer research. I also remember what it felt like when we found out that he couldn’t continue, going to school and everyone was so upset. Those things have stuck with me.”

 Here’s a link to the entire article: http://www.jam.canoe.ca/Television/2008/07/11/6127536-sun.html

Steve Nash was ambushed upon his arrival at LAX recently and wasn’t interested in answering the A-Rod/Madonna questions tossed at him by photographers. And when the topic turned to basketball, Nash tried to end that line of questioning by “announcing” his retirement.

As usual, TMZ.com has all the riveting action:

http://www.tmz.com/tmz_main_video?titleid=1659857590

The NBA released the new salary-cap guidelines for the 2008-09 season on Tuesday:

The salary cap has jumped from $55,63o,000 last year to $58,680,000 this season. According to hoopshype.com, 16 of the 30 NBA teams are already over that figure — with most if not all the rosters not fully filled.

More important to the Suns, who have been over the salary cap for years, the league’s luxury tax increased from $67,865,000 last year to $71,150,000 this year, about what was expected. With just nine players under contract for next season, Phoenix is less than $1 million from hitting the cap — meaning it will certainly be a taxpayer next season (barring a trade of one of their top five or six salaries) and will be limited to veteran minimum salaries when it comes to filling out the roster.

The minimum team salary for next year is just over $44 million, while the mid-level exception has been raised from $5,356,000 to $5,585,000.