Sunset As many sports fans in Arizona know, the Phoenix Suns are not a very good basketball team. Stripped of all veteran leadership in a salary-dump, they have struggled through "growing pains" this year, relying on one of the youngest rosters in the history of professional sports to get through the 82-game grind that is the regular season. Only the ownership aspects of the franchise have made any media splash, as Jerry Colangelo spoke of selling the team he has run since 1968. Last night's game against the Denver Nuggets – not exactly among pro basketball's elite – typifies everything that is wrong with the Suns. Only eight players suited up for the game. Granted, their won-loss record is so terrible that post-season play has long been out of the question, so one can understand ownership's penchant for pinching pennies, but to only suit up eight men... Imagine what "Jerry's Rent-a-Car" might be like. You would pay full price, same as with any other rental company, but when you get to the airport, you'd find a car with only three wheels and no headlights. NBA rosters are set at 12 players. This is not something new and different; it has always been this way. When players get injured, every team out there usually has a couple of prospects stashed away on their injured lists with such nebulous ailments as "back spasms" or "soreness". If those players have already been used up, teams can reach out to the minor leagues or the waiver wire. In Cleveland, for instance, Cavaliers point guard Jeff McInniss came up lame, and the team went out and signed erstwhile pro Mateen Cleaves. He scored in double figures in a victory a few nights later. For the past month or so, the Suns have been without the services of centers Jake Voskuhl (plantar fasciitis) and Jahidi White (bruised knee), as well as veteran point guard Howard Eisley (hernia). Last night, they were also missing high-flying small forward Shawn Marion (bronchitis). Not only do the Suns have nothing in reserve, they refuse to bring anyone else on board. This isn't fair to the team, to the fans, or to the rest of the NBA, which has a collective agreement with several broadcasting companies to air the games. When one team has 12 players and the other only dresses eight, that's not a game. That's a beating. They lost to Denver by 15 points, and it was never close. Now figure that three of the eight players who took the floor for the Suns were rookies, from foreign countries no less. Further saddle their potential with an idiot coach like Mike D'Antoni and the results are predictable; they could have saved the time and effort and simply forfeited the contest to the Nuggets before tip-off. In essence, Colangelo's club has done this all season long. I say the coach is an idiot, by the way, because he speaks as one. Rather than breaking down the X's and 0s of the game, D'Antoni gave his usual "Dr. Phil" assessment afterward: "We hung our heads in the first half and got ourselves in a hole," he said. "We didn't have our attitude right. We felt sorry for ourselves and we paid for it. I don't think we thought we could win from the beginning." No kidding? If Jerry Colangelo sells the Suns, it would be the first positive thing he has done for the team (and for the fans) in ten years. In the meantime, he will continue to rob the customers and the NBA alike. With all the promise these talented young players have (and another lottery pick on the way), it is a crying shame that management could screw up their heads by inflicting such a disastrous season upon them. It's like something the Clippers would do, and it smacks of the culture of losing. At the end of last season, the Suns had a promising future. They had just given the eventual NBA champion San Antonio Spurs all they wanted in the playoffs before bowing to superior talent. They had veterans who had been there before and wanted to be there again, like Bo Outlaw and Penny Hardaway. Their floor leader, Stephon Marbury, was a perennial All-Star. They traded him away for peanuts, and then gave the peanuts away to get Utah to take on Tom Gugliotta's bloated salary (gee... who was stupid enough to pay him that much in the first place?). Despite the fact that he has wiped away a perfectly good basketball team, Colangelo was recently inducted into the NBA's Hall of Fame. Whatever his past accomplishments may have been – all that stands out in my mind is one drug scandal and zero championship banners – this man does not deserve to have a bust in his image. This season, he's already made his own. Paul Heller 04/08/04 << back to the archives
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