I’ve gotten an overwhelming number of responses thus far from international Suns fans who read this blog, but there’s still time to get in your entry!
Because of the large number of replies, this will be a two-part series that will run on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week unless some incredibly pressing Suns news breaks then, and no that does not count Amare tweeting about his future again.
Responses will be taken up until Monday night Arizona time.
Please answer the following questions: How did you become a fan? How do you follow them? Are the Suns popular in your country?
This Might Be My Farewell Tour here in PHX.Fans I love the way you guys stand up for me. I love all my faithful fans.Thanks 1 love Sun Tzu!
These words were, of course, tweeted by the one and only @Amareisreal, and if you really wanted to hyper-analyze them here’s what they mean.
The first part would lead one to believe there’s a decent chance Amare is gone after this season (which we all know), but the second part makes you think he just might stay (which we also all know). The last part means he likes to repeat the nickname he gave himself a lot (which anyone who follows his Twitter feed definitely knows). Putting all that together, it means absolutely nothing.
The day before, after speaking to about 300 kids at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, Amare told The Arizona Republic, “This might be my farewell tour, huh? If so, I’m going out with a bang, baby.”
He later went on to say, “If we’re not making the playoffs, my legacy is going backwards. I’m not having it.”
This led Fanster’s Greg Esposito to rip him for the repeated use of the ‘I’ word and subsequently Phoenix Stan from Bright Side to defend him for not always meaning what he says.
My take on all this talk about what Amare said is that we shouldn’t be talking so much about what Amare said. He’s proven time and time again that he will say whatever he’s thinking at the time. Remember those, “Breaking news, Amare Stoudemire is going to the Lakers tweets” earlier this summer?
The truth is, unless Robert Sarver and Steve Kerr have come to some sort of a decision that nobody knows about, we have no idea if the Suns want to muster up a max contract for Amare, and that’s what I think it ultimately will come down to.
If they do, he’s a Sun for life, a possibility he’s seemed to embrace.
If they don’t, he will at least test the market and likely end up leaving, a possibility he’s also been eminently open to.
This really may or may not be Amare’s farewell tour in Phoenix, and to me it’s almost like you know you might be ending things with your girlfriend of seven years soon or you might be taking that next step to consummate your relationship for the long run. While you’re trying to decide if she’s the right “franchise girl” for you, she’s off flirting with every guy in the country.
Damn frustrating, isn’t it?
Every time the Suns hit the road to play a team with 2010 cap space, that team’s reporters will ask him about city such and such and every time we’re sure to hear Amare talk about how much he would potentially enjoy playing for so and so franchise.
If we’ve learned anything from Amare’s Sun Tzu rampage and StatTV Twitter follow urgings, it’s that the man loves to promote himself (as if we didn’t already know that, too).
So take out those earplugs and don’t make too much of a fuss over anything Amare says regarding 2010 until the Suns make that first offer. (Please tell me they make a first offer!)
Not much news of substance today, but lots of news without substance, starting with the artist known as J-Rich:
J-Rich the DJ — You may have seen @JaredDudley619 joking around with @JRich23 on Twitter this summer about having the aforementioned J-Rich DJ Dudley’s next party. Now we know why.
What do you guys think, does he have game?
The masked man — We know Amare will have to wear a mask this year. Which Suns.com illustration do you like best?
We love Suns dancers — The Suns have always had one of the best dance crews in the NBA. On Tuesday, the club picked the 16 women who will be performing at US Airways Center this season.
Talkin’ Robin — Robin Lopez talks about what he’s been working on this summer as well as what the Shaq trade means for him.
When the Diamondbacks fired a proven manager in Bob Melvin and replaced him with their scouting director in A.J. Hinch, many eyebrows were raised.
But the premise behind the move was that the D-backs wanted a manager who knew their young players better than anyone and thus in theory at least would be the man best suited to develop them.
That’s one of the main reasons why the Suns promoted longtime scout John Shumate to an assistant coaching position on Monday.
Shumate previously spent seven of the past eight seasons as a Suns scout, while also coaching the Phoenix Mercury in 2003. He has been in the Suns’ organization for 12 years total and has been in pro basketball for over 30, according to Suns.com.
” ‘Shu’ is a teacher at heart,” Suns GM Steve Kerr told The Arizona Republic. “He’s been great on scouting, but with Robin and Earl being a big part of our future, we felt it’s important to have him as part of the staff.”
Kerr says that because Shumate was a 6-foot-9 big man during his playing days whom the Suns picked fourth overall in the 1974 NBA Draft out of Notre Dame.
He averaged 11.3 ppg in 43 games as a rookie for the first Suns team to ever reach the Finals in 1975-76 before being moved to Buffalo in the middle of that year. In five NBA seasons he averaged 12.3 and 7.5.
Shumate, 57, then went on to a long coaching career that includes stops as a head coach at Grand Canyon College and Southern Methodist and as an assistant at Notre Dame and with the Toronto Raptors.
I’ve long wondered why the Suns have taken so long to fill out their coaching staff, just as I did when Kevin O’Neill decided to stick with just Josh Pastner and Miles Simon at Arizona when Lute Olson took his leave of absence in 2007-08 instead of at least bringing on another set of eyes in someone like former assistant Jim Rosborough.
The Suns’ coaching staff was similarly a man down after Terry Porter was let go and Gentry was promoted, and in a game with every angle of every second overanalyzed, it must be nice for Gentry to have an experienced mind like Shumate to now be able to turn to.
You really can't go wrong no matter whom you select. (Barry Gossage/NBAE Photos)
There aren’t many things in this world better than Suns cheerleaders.
But one of them happens to be getting an opportunity to vote for the Suns cheerleading squad AND getting a chance to win a pair of courtside tickets for your trouble.
The voting on Suns.com ends Monday evening, so if you’re going to do it you better do it now. As in right now.
You can also then tell your buddies that you had an ever so slight hand in narrowing the Suns’ cheerleading squad from 32 candidates down to 16 dancers, and that’s pretty cool in itself. Plus, you could find worse ways to kill time than to go through every dancer’s video, you know, just so you’re an informed voter.
Last week, the powers at TrueHoop asked every member of the TrueHoop Network to write a brief blurb about our second favorite NBA team. Our editors got an enormous response, the highlights of which will be featured in an upcoming TrueHoop post.
If you would have asked me a few years ago, the team I picked might have only been just above the Spurs and Lakers on my list of favorite NBA teams, but times have changed. A close second and third were Portland (I just love B-Roy, Rudy and, of course, Jerryd Bayless) and Oklahoma City (that Durant guy is kind of good and I’m a big fan of how they built that team).
Here goes:
I grew up hating all things New York sports and thus I never thought I’d ever type the following sentence: the New York Knicks are my second favorite professional basketball team.
Then again, I never thought a lot of things.
I never thought the Suns would go from everyone’s second favorite team to afterthoughts in about two years, I never thought Phoenix would ever trade for Shaquille O’Neal and I certainly never thought Mike D’Antoni would ever jet to New York to turn a franchise once known for bone-crushing defense into an offensive powerhouse.
But he did, and since we never got a definitive answer on whether an NBA team can win a championship in Seven Seconds or Less in Phoenix, I would love to see it happen in New York.
Granted the Knicks are still a mess and I’d ditch them immediately if they become the New York LeBrons, but if New York makes the run that Phoenix never did I’ll be cheering Mike D along every step of the way.
Looking back at offseason predictions
Anybody who has ever played in a fantasy league with me or taken my money in an NCAA Tournament pool knows how often I’m wrong when it comes to sports.
Maybe it says something about how unsurprising the Suns’ offseason was that I predicted most of it to happen at the beginning of the offseason and even called the Earl Clark pick.
Let’s just say I wasn’t so right when it came to my preseason prediction for last season or when I famously posted on a friend’s Facebook wall “I GUARANTEE it doesn’t happen,” in the hours leading up to the original Shaq trade that, of course, did indeed happen.
I missed on Matt Barnes leaving after I put too much stock into him telling the fans after the regular season finale how excited he was to play for a contender in Phoenix next season, and I also underestimated how much it would take to get a Nash extension done. But all in all, I’d be pretty happy if I’m right nearly that often in my next rendition of NCAA Tourney picks.
“Steve is a good guy and was a fantastic teammate. He has made great contributions as an Executive Producer on ‘Shaq Vs.’ and we are all excited about the show.”
That quote really doesn’t tell us anything. Were the so-called contributions the fact that it was originally his idea? That is left unsaid, and I wonder how excited Nash really is about the show.
I agree with my reader MikeF who suggests Nash and Shaq should play one-on-one in a future episode to settle this thing.
It’s still the middle of August, but the Phoenix Suns’ pick-and-roll combo made the national media rounds the past few days.
Steve Nash highlighted the week with an appearance on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” on Thursday night in prime time.
No, a few thousand bucks won’t do anything for Nash, so instead he played for his charity, The Steve Nash Foundation.
Nash was asked, “Which of these combinations of road races would require a participant to run the farthest?”
He had to choose between twenty 5K races, fifteen 10K races, ten half-marathons and four marathons. Nash correctly selected ten half-marathons to win $50,000 instead of $25,000 for his charity. Regis then donned a road Nash jersey, only he wore it backwards.
The two-time MVP also stopped by The B.S. Report on Thursday to chat with Bill Simmons about staying with the Suns and his upcoming ESPN “30 for 30″ documentary, among other issues.
Amare Stoudemire made his own ESPN appearance earlier this week when he joined Jim Rome on his TV show.
The most interesting thing Amare said had to do with how he recently spent 22 hours a day for 10 days face down as he recovered from his eye injury.
Amare also participated in his first workout since his followup operation six weeks ago on Tuesday, Paul Coro reported. Kerr told Coro that Amare had an “excellent” checkup with his doctor on Monday, and really for all the things we will end up talking about in previewing next season, nothing may be bigger than how Amare responds to this injury.
Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports also featured Amare in a story about his recovery this week.
The key points from that story:
You can’t underestimate how tough those 10 days of recovery were on Amare. He told Spears, “That was by far the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through in my life.” And this coming from a guy who recovered from microfracture surgery.
Amare stands by his statement of it being “50-50″ whether he stays in Phoenix past this season: “I was really looking forward to my entire career being in [Arizona]. It kind of put a hold on a few of my decision-making things. … If they are loyal to me, I’m loyal to them. I’m a loyal person and always have been. My word is bond. I’d love to stay; the Suns have been phenomenal so far. But anything can change.”
Amare certainly didn’t push the Shaqtus out the door: “That was tough for me to grasp. Last [season], with me and Shaq, despite the fact that I got injured, I don’t think teams wanted to see Amare and Shaq in the post in the postseason. … I don’t want to throw anybody under the bus, but I definitely felt we could’ve used Big Fella for one more [season].”
If you ask Arizona Republic columnist Paola Boivin, Nash didn’t exactly feel the same way.
Boivin reported that the Big Sidekick’s “Shaq Vs.” reality show in which the Big Cactus (can we still call him that?) competes against stars in others sports in their sport was originally a Nash idea that he told Shaq about soon after he joined the Suns.
When Shaq told his former teammates he would be doing this show, Boivin’s source heard Nash say, “You mean the idea you stole from me?”
One way or another, Nash’s name ended up on the credits of that reality show, which I did not watch.
It’s really a shame Nash did not end up doing this. We know he can compete with world-class soccer players, and I’d love to see what kind of athlete he is away from the basketball court.
Anyway, at the end of last season, Nash spoke of wanting to play for a team that had the kind of fun the old Suns teams did. He also said the Suns most needed to acquire an agile big man who can get out and defend pick-and-rolls, a major Shaq weakness.
Dumping Shaq for cash makes just a little more sense now.
Leandro Barbosa would be the key to a potential pressing Suns lineup both offensively and defensively.
A few months back, Bill Simmons and Malcolm Gladwell debated the lost art of pressing in the NBA.
Both writers wondered why no pro team is willing to take a chance with the press these days in an era in which many college teams still run it.
Sure, you can say NBA athletes are too good for the press to ever be effective, but what if the athletes they’re going up against are even better?
Simmons makes a compelling argument for the press, saying five or six guys on an athletic team could be schooled on it. They could then be utilized for the first five minutes of the second and fourth quarters against the opposition’s bench.
Simmons writes:
“Wouldn’t that be an ENORMOUS advantage? Wouldn’t that swing a few games? Wouldn’t opponents dread playing them? Wouldn’t opponents have to waste practice time preparing to break that press? Wouldn’t it be even better at home with the [players] flying around and their fans going bonkers? The key would be not putting ‘press miles’ on your top guys and your wealthiest guys.”
Simmons goes on to suggest having a team throw out one of its top five scorers with its last four guys on the bench.
I think this premise is genius, and here’s how I would make it work for the Suns:
First off, you don’t want to put “mileage” on your starters with the press, and I don’t see how effective Nash, J-Rich and Amare would be in such a system anyway. So they’re out.
I’d put Goran at the one so you can have a (semi)-ballhandler at the other end and Barbosa at the two. He’s got the length and explosiveness to be a perfect press player, plus he would be the guy who can carry this unheralded offense when he gets hot.
Having pressed at Louisville and with his length and athleticism, Earl Clark would have to figure in any pressing alignment. For his hustle and scrappiness, I feel like there also couldn’t be a pressing Suns lineup without Louuuuu Amundson.
The fifth player is where it gets tricky, and I’ve actually spent more time than I should have debating who my theoretical fifth guy would be.
You could go with Taylor Griffin for his athletic gifts. This would be great for team morale from the “everybody is contributing to this thing” standpoint, and he possesses the hunger to really give it absolutely everything during his limited court time.
At the same time, I’m not sure how much I’d like Griffin getting consistent minutes night in and night out.
Therefore, I’d rotate the final spot between Griffin, Jared Dudley and Robin Lopez. Dudley has the smarts to be an effective press player, and he’ll at least give you something on offense. I’d go with Robin against a bigger team because otherwise you’re pretty short with Lou at the five and a tweener forward next to him.
I’m also not sure if I would do this for five minutes a half. That’s almost a quarter of an entire game, which seems like just too much for me for that type of lineup.
Instead I would throw the press out for the first four minutes of every second quarter. Like Simmons points out, you’d be going against backups, which greatly increases your odds at success.
I’d love to see how opponents would react. This would become something they have to prepare for before playing the Suns, and it could cause fits in a playoff situation.
It would be the ultimate trump card to use when you’re down 15 in the middle of the third quarter and you want to inject some energy into your lifeless team, that extra wrinkle to make you just a little less predictable.
Obviously a press would work much better at home than on the road, so you wouldn’t even have to use it every game if you’re playing against a veteran team on the road that you don’t feel would be shaken much by a press.
Granted the press wouldn’t work every night. There would be nights in which it fails and you look like an idiot for running it.
But all in all, I think the Suns would be the perfect team to press four minutes at a time. They already used substitution line shifts at times last season, and with their propensity to play fast such a maneuver would play right into their hands.
The Suns have the perfect combination of athleticism and length along with a go-to scorer in their “pressing” lineup and a rookie who played this way in college who will feel right at home in the press.
It’s a style that can shift games and when you consider how close NBA games are, that four-minute stretch to start the second quarter with Nash on the bench anyway could make a huge difference for the Suns.
It won’t exactly be Nolan Richardon’s old “40 Minutes of Hell” system, but “Four Minutes of Hell” to start every second quarter could help the Suns revolutionize the NBA once again.
After Usain Bolt set another world record in the 100-meter dash on Sunday, J.E. Skeets from Ball Don’t Lie posed the question: Who is the NBA’s version of Bolt?
Through 58,397 votes at the time of this posting, the people have spoken.
In an eight-man field that includes such speedsters as LeBron James, Tony Parker, Devin Harris and Derrick Rose, the voters say the Suns’ very own Leandro Barbosa is the league’s fastest player with 21 percent of the vote.
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