Friday is upon us, but it doesn’t feel the same.  I usually embrace Friday and thank my lucky stars when it finally arrives.  Breakfast tastes better.  The air seems cleaner.  The sky even looks bluer.

Not today.  Not after watching the Suns play scared last night and get absolutely dismantled by the hated Lakers.

I’m not totally surprised with a Suns loss.  The Lakers are clearly the class of the Western Conference, no shame in taking a loss against them.  However, while the final score indicated the game wasn’t a blowout, I would beg to differ.  Once the Lakers took control late in the second quarter, they never looked back, and the Suns never mustered more than a spurt here and there.

What frustrated me most was not the loss itself but the inevitability of it.  I never had the sense the Suns would pull out the win, and there’s no worse feeling than realizing your team doesn’t stand a chance.

Enough of this depressing talk.  The Briefs doing “Silver Bullet” and “Wonderboy” from the D will put me in a better mood.  Onto the links…

-pretty funny stuff from Basketbawful on nba.com’s FUBAR’d All-Star game voting.  Every day is opposite day in David Stern’s world I guess.

-if you’re going to read one piece on Pete Newell and what he meant to the game of basketball, it should be this one from Henry Abbott.  Fantastic.

-not only does Shaq anger Brian Spencer at Empty the Bench, he depresses the hell out of him as well.  I could use some Prozac after last night myself.

-Jalen Rose sees Amare as the present and future for the Suns, and believes they’ll go as far as he takes them.  Couldn’t agree more, but lets hope Bizarro Amare (21 points last night…on 21 shots,) doesn’t make many more appearances.

-it’s finally happened, the Eastern Conference is evening things out with the West.  Paul Forrester tells us the West has lost 31 of its first 46 games to the East.  The Clippers, Wolves and Thunder are dead weight.

-Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo with his review of NBA Owners Gone Wild!

-they may have stunk up the joint last night, but John Hollinger has the Suns sitting pretty come playoff time.

-Phoenix Stan from BSotS spoke with a Lakers blog.  I think this is where I’m supposed to tell him his voice sounds funny or something.

-I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the attention Shaq brings to the Suns is not something I’m a fan of.  Instead of the basketball world talking about the team and the transition they’re going through, we’re bombarded with news about Shaq that I don’t give two you know whats about.

Welcome to the club, Arash Markazi.

Note: I too took a Beatles class in college, and like Markazi, it was the easiest credits I earned in my long and illustrious college career.  Music 454: The Beatles…good class or greatest class?

-more from Hollinger.  Shaq has surprised him in a good way this year.  If Coach Porter continues force-feeding him the ball, he’ll continue to surprise. And the Suns will suffer because of it.

-a humorous look at the five scariest Shaq moments.  If his wild swing at Brad Miller’s head would have connected, he might still be in jail.

-great recaps and discussion of the carnage that was the Suns game last night by Basketbawful and Kevin Arnovitz.  The stretch Arnovitz describes in great deal was about the point my night came crashing down around me.  To call the loss disappointing is a tremendous understatement.

Well, that’s about it for the links.  I’d have a few more but Firefox was unkind this week and decided it needed to eat my bookmarks and everything else and be reinstalled.  Stupid compuers.

Let’s see if the Suns can get back on track against the Blazers on Saturday.  I hear they have this Spanis dude named Rudy something or other.  Anyone know anything about him?  No?  Me neither.

Everyone have a wonderful weekend.  If you’re drinking, don’t drive.  And if you’re driving, don’t drink.

// Click here to read the rest from Black Jesus Disciples

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