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Suns Set
As so loquaciously chronicled (somewhat) on this web site, I follow professional basketball fanatically - that is to say, from the standpoint of a fan. As with many transplants across the country, the situation is this: There is the home team, and then there's the home team. I reside in Phoenix, so the home team would clearly have to be the Phoenix Suns. But the home team will always be the Detroit Pistons, because we understand each other so well. In 2004, I was fortunate to watch my home team win the NBA championship. This past season, everyone in Phoenix was blessed to have a unique squad that came just a few plays away from advancing to the Finals. Whatever else we've seen, whatever else is on its way, the Suns weren't just great, they were amazing. And not the usual amazing, but eye-popping, jaw-dropping amazing. Whatever else has been, whatever is to come, we will never see that kind of basketball again. Why not? Because it's over. Instead of pursuing the ring, the consortium of cowards and chiselers that runs the Suns chose to shrink away from being great, from being amazing, from being champions. As soon as the season ended, they took Man o' War and sawed off his back legs. Without pouring in too much detail, these are the girders and panels of the home team's calamitous offseason thus far: Richardson's trade was questionable, giving up a lot of offensive firepower for some stout defense and rebounding. But as it was explained by majority owner Robert Sarver, this deal cleared up cash to sign Johnson. They said they were giving up a piece of the team's core to keep the rest of it together. However, the Johnson trade belies that intent, and destroys what the Suns had. Without those two gunners on the outside, teams will collapse on scoring machine Amare Stoudemire in the paint. They were doing that anyway, but due to the pinpoint passing of Steve Nash, those departed guards would wipe out the opposition with three-point rainbows. That element made the Suns indefensible. Had they kept it going, it would have panned gold. Instead, management gets to crow about how much money it saved. Of the team that carved such a niche in the basketball world last season, only five players remain. They would be Nash, Stoudemire, Shawn Marion (who could be the next player clotheslined by the purse strings), Jim Jackson and some poor kid named Leandro Barbosa, who wants to be a point guard when he grows up. The rest of the cast includes recently-signed Brian Grant, yet another thirty-something plodder who will find himself choking for air as coach Mike D'Antoni screams at him to RUN, RUN because that's how he coaches. It's the only way he knows. Is there a bright side? Well, the Suns will have more depth, but we have a coach who said he doesn't need a bench, and didn't play the one he had. They may rebound better, but they won't have the screaming jet fighters going downcourt for the outlet passes, diluting Nash's effectiveness. They'll play better defense, but they said all last season that defense didn't matter, because they averaged almost 110 points a game. They were so close. Had it been any other team, like the Pistons, ownership would have recognized the rarity of the beast in their arena. They should have paid any price to preserve the fast-flowing, high-octane offense that lit up the league like none since Magic Johnson's Showtime Lakers. Whatever the new Suns bring to the table - Boris and Pat and Dijon and Scott and Raja and Brian and Kurt - they won't bring that. Even if they sign Gary Payton and give him a lobotomy, it can never be the same. It's a shame that it is over now, the most exciting type of basketball ever played, the kind that had fans doing calisthenics, jumping up out of their seats with excitement on every other play. It is a far greater shame, an amazing shame that makes eyes pop and jaws drop, that the party was broken up by the host just as it was getting started. Paul Heller 8/16/05 << back to the archives |
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All site contents © 2005, Paul F. Heller |
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