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Well I won't argue about food with a San Antonion.
The LA media(along with most other media markets) turned their back on Kobe after the rape incident. This is exactly why the media has to stop being allowed to vote for MVPs.
Shaq On Taint
After the Heat lost to Dallas on Thursday, a reporter engaged Shaq in conversation about Dirk Nowitzki's MVP candidacy. Shaq, sensing the opportunity to get some things off his chest, went off about how the award selection process and said that Steve Nash's last two MVP awards were "tainted."
It's pretty sad that they gave two MVPs to Nash...a guy that doesn't even deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. Check it out:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/.../hof_prob.html
Stastically, Nash is below players like Antoine Walker, Marbury, Francis, and Shawn Marion. Duncan, on the other hand...
17 Tim Duncan .9994
139 Steve Nash .1175
Now that's a huge gap.
Well I won't argue about food with a San Antonion.
It was a Phoenix newspaper guy who wrote the article. That's who I was referring to. Looks like its not just some (not all, as Shred foolishly and ignorantly believes) Spurs fans who can't let this go.I ain't the one starting these threads. You people can't go more than 24 hours without posting about the Suns.
Thank you. With pretty much the same core teams, SA is 12-5 in games and 3-0 in series in a 4 year span from the 2003 playoffs thru the 2007 playoffs. Frank Johnson also got 40% of those 5 wins in one series, so that makes the D'Antoni Suns even more of a joke.A "rivalry" implies both teams have won. Right now Phoenix is still working on "jealousy" and "envy". Try re-running that column once the Suns actually win a series against the Spurs.
Bill Simmons:
Put it this way: Nash was a cute choice last season, mainly because none of the other candidates stood out, and I could see why someone would have been swayed. (It was like ordering one of those fancy foreign beers at a bar, the ones in the heavy green bottles with the 13-letter name that you can't pronounce, only someone else is drinking it, so you say to yourself, "Ah, screw it, I'm tired of the beer I always drink, lemme try one of those.") But this year? I'm not saying he should be ignored, but if you actually end up picking him, either you're not watching enough basketball or you just want to see a white guy win back-to-back MVP's.
then don't argue basketball with a spurs fanWell I won't argue about food with a San Antonion.
Mine was funnier.then don't argue basketball with a spurs fan
Simmons also picked Nash over all other candidates (besides the fans) for THIS years MVP.
Gotta love the respect Nash gets.
Yes it was.Mine was funnier.
I can't relate. I always drink American.
no, both statements were true. superior mexican food = bigger waistlines, and superior basketball = championships.Mine was funnier.
you've got us in smog, though. congrats.
Yes it was.
It's not that the regular fans make excuses. It's that the whole fanbase, from the people who buy tickets to the media to the owners, think that the Suns have the best team in the league. And they do have three All-NBA talents on their team. And they are led by the ultimate offensive catalyst. But I honestly think that it all started with the Phoenix media. Some of you may have heard Charles Barkely (a former Sun) discuss how rabid and delusional the media members are in that particular region of Arizona.
Nash won two MVPs because of the overwhelming campaign put on by these guys. They kept telling everyone that the Suns had the most talent in the league, and Nash was the one making them realize their potential (despite the fact that Matrix has been doing his thing for years, Amare was destined for a breakout under a new system, and the Mavericks got better). Nash won his first MVP for being the "best player on the best team," an award that should go to the Finals MVP. The next year he won because he "didn't have Amare." Well, neither did LeBron. And he didn't have Shawn Marion, either. But apparently four more wins is enough to give it to a guy getting 18-10 over a guy getting 30-7-7. If you're going to give it to a guy on a 50-win team who plays no defense, look at LeBron, not Nash.
So while we heard these rehashed legitimizations for two years about how Nash and the Suns are the best team in the league that keeps getting jobbed, they start believing it. I've never seen the players fail to take accountability in a press conference, but its clear that everyone else has done exactly that. The organization hasn't stepped up to the plate to supplement the core. That's why they haven't been able to do what it takes to win. That's why Joe Johnson's injury hurt so much. When you play a whole year as a team without Amare, you are still a team. Whatever you do in the postseason is an indication of your merits. Having two All-NBA players should still put you in that class. But losing Raja Bell on top of it is going to kill a team with no depth. This year, the suspensions are what did it. Gee, do you think the organization should take some accountability and make some efforts to increase depth and add a post defender? No, they do exactly the opposite. They nix a chance to get fresh legs be selling their draft picks every year, and then ship out their best post defender in Kurt Thomas. The second such Thomas to leave in two offseasons.
Someone went through a breakdown of what happened with the Suns every season in the playoffs, insinuating that they've improved. Well, they've still never beaten the Spurs, and it was three years ago, with a deeper team, that they managed to dispatch the Mavericks (with a sop re Josh Howard). The team has gotten thinner and thinner while they're expected to carry the load during the regular season and still have fresh enough legs to run in the playoffs. And they've since stopped making conference Finals, even though this was their opportunity to skip past the Mavericks. This team is regressing, and they never had what it takes.
I have to laugh when people say that there's no chance an Eastern Conference team can take down the Suns. Well, what are the odds that the Suns are going to run into an Eastern Conference team who can slow the pace to a grinding halt? Pretty good. What are the odds that a decently good offensive team can shred the Suns average defense? Pretty good. What are the odds that the Suns will be able to succeed in the half-court against and ECF champ's defense? Probably not that good. What are the odds that the Suns even make the Finals? Not good, the way they're headed.
The organization knows that the media and fans are happy as long as they've got a shot at doing well in the playoffs, and they have the big three. You guys have been making excuses for them for so long that there's no accountability. The players haven't learned to play defense. D'Antoni hasn't made the adjustment to a winning style of basketball. The organization intentionally takes steps back at places which they need to improve. But the media and the fans love it. They know you'll be buying up tickets and the networks will pay bigtime to get the Suns on TV for the maximum number of games. The money's flowing and the fans are happy.
As businessmen they are thriving as a basketball team.
As a basketball team they are not taking care of business.
I prefer Simmons:
I actually went to the game in bold....it was amazing. Spurs fans have literally no idea what basketball can be like.By Bill Simmons
Page 2
Since I haven't written an NBA column in five weeks, thousands of frustrated basketball fans have been flooding me with e-mails and demanding their hoops fix. All right, maybe it hasn't been thousands, more like hundreds. Or maybe it was just six readers, my buddy House and Marc Stein. But still, it FELT like thousands of readers. That's the important thing.
Greg Oden
Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images
The Sports Guy is forced to watch the college game if he wants to root for the Celtics.
Just know that I haven't been ignoring the NBA. I'm just a little depressed because the Celtics stink again. Fortunately, we stink to the point that we're now the leading contenders for the Kevin Durant-Greg Oden Sweepstakes. (Yeah, I know I put Durant first even though Oden is the consensus No. 1. Just know that I factored in the upcoming March Madness tournament when Durant averages a 35-13 for two straight weeks and nearly wins the national le by himself, followed by three straight months of, "Wait, this guy is a rich man's KG, he might be better than Oden!" stories and features. If you don't believe me, watch Durant for a few games. He's going to be very, VERY famous some day. You can say you knew him when.) Now I'm openly rooting against the Celtics and TiVo-ing every game involving everyone on Chad Ford's top 350.
Anyway, since I'm trapped in Celtics , I needed something to carry me through the dregs of the NBA regular season. And you know what's kept me going?
The Phoenix Suns.
I watch all of their games. I rewind plays to see what they're doing and how they're doing it. I learn about basketball from them. I revel in their splendidry, and I don't even think splendidry is a word. They're the most consistently entertaining basketball team in 20 years. They have a chance to be historically good. You could be bouncing your grandkids on your lap someday and telling them that you watched the 2007 Suns.
Naturally, nobody's talking about them. Everyone's tired of hearing about Nash at this point, and since they don't have the best record in the league, there isn't any urgency to make a fuss about them. But if you care about basketball at all, if the sport has ever meant anything to you, if you remember the Magic-Bird Era fondly in any way, if you're remotely interested in watching a professional sports team peak ... then you need to follow the Suns. They're sniffing at true greatness. I'm not saying it will happen, just that it could. You never imagined that an NBA team could score 111 points a game, shoot 51 percent from the field, shoot 81 percent from the line, make 40 percent of its 3s, double as the best transition team since the Showtime Lakers and still manage to be half-decent defensively, right?
Well, it's happening. And it's an exceedingly relevant development for two reasons:
1. We're in a weird time in sports right now. There isn't a dominant football, baseball, basketball or hockey player. There isn't a dominant boxer. Our two transcendent athletes are a tennis player (Roger Federer) and a golfer (Tiger Woods). We haven't seen a dominant team since the Patriots rolled off 31 of 33 victories during their last two Super Bowl seasons ... and as much I loved that team, there was never a point where you could have definitively said, "That team is playing on a higher plane than everyone else." Ever since MJ retired (the second time) and the Yankees got old, there's been a greatness drought with team sports.
2. The last great basketball teams were the Lakers and Celtics from the mid-'80s. Both were blessed with selfless superduperstars (Bird and Magic), genuine Hall of Famers (McHale and Parish for Boston; Worthy and Kareem for the Lakers) and valuable role players (DJ, Ainge and Walton for Boston; Cooper, Scott and Green for the Lakers). And both teams reached heights that haven't been approached since. They were the last two teams that dominated in a compe ive league and routinely submitted those occasional "not only are we winning this game by 25 points, just send the tape to Springfield after it's over" games.
In a related story, the Suns are 26-2 in their last 28 games. Here were their two losses:
Dec. 22: They lose to the Wizards in OT (144-139) in a game that Arenas tied with a 3-point play in regulation, then Nash missed a wide-open 3 that could have ended it.
Dec. 28: They lose in Dallas by two (101-99) when Nowitzki made a jumper with 0.1 seconds left.
With two reasonable breaks (Nash making the 3-pointer, Nowitzki missing the jumper), the Suns could be working on a 28-game winning streak right now. I've mentioned that to three people over the last 48 hours and all of them said the same thing: "Wait a second ... whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat??????"
It's true. You can look it up.
Shawn Marion
Andrew D. Bernstein/Getty Images
Balancing the psyche of Shawn Marion is just one of the tricks up Steve Nash's sleeve.
I didn't see this one coming. When the Suns were limping along to a 1-5 mark in early November, I wrote that Amare Stoudemire's up-and-down comeback was screwing them up. Seeing them in person against the Clippers that week, they looked about as happy as the family from "Little Miss Sunshine." How can you not have fun when you're playing with Steve Nash???? It's almost un-American. Umm, un-North American.
Just when things were looking bleak enough that a major trade seemed possible, four things happened that turned Phoenix's season around. First, the Suns stopped bringing Stoudemire off the bench, started him at center and rolled the dice with his "sore" knee. And guess what? He stopped sulking and started busting his butt on both ends. (Note: Stoudemire even admitted as much in Jack McCallum's story in Sports Illustrated a few weeks ago.) Second, they won a memorable triple-OT game in Jersey that kicked them into another gear. Every season has a defining game that gets a great team going -- for the '86 Celtics, it was the Christmas Day game when they blew a 25-point lead to the Knicks on national TV, spent two days sulking about it, then went on the NBA version of a cross-country killing spree (winning 20 of their next 22, including both Lakers games). The 161-157 game did that for the Suns. Third, Mike D'Antoni buried Marcus Banks (an indefensibly bad free-agent signing) and made Barbosa the backup point, which enabled the Suns to play quality guards at all times. And fourth, Diaw and Marion conceded the high post (and all those high screens with Nash) to Stoudemire and figured out other ways to get their stats.
If there's a potential land mine, it's the Marion-Stoudemire rivalry, an ongoing problem (as McCallum described in his book about the Suns) because of Stoudemire's enormous ego and Marion's insecurities about his underappreciated career (even though his talents are indisputably essential to everything the Suns do). If this were a rock band, Marion would be the drummer -- the guy who's killing himself every night and resigning himself to a couple of solos per concert. In fact, one of the reasons I couldn't endorse Nash's previous MVP candidacies was because no Phoenix star could be more "valuable" than any other Phoenix star; such a premise belittled the contributions of Stoudemire two years ago and Marion last season. Without Marion, the Suns wouldn't be the Suns.
STATS DON'T LIE
According to STATS INC, the Suns rank in the top-3 in the following offensive categories:
Field Goals made (1st)
Three-pointers made (1st)
Free throw percentage (1st)
True shooting percentage (1st)
Two-point field goal percentage (1st)
Three-point percentage (2nd)
Assists (1st)
Assists/turnover ratio (1st)
Points per game (1st)
Fast break points (3rd)
Anyway, the Stoudemire-Marion issue could have killed this team -- , it still might -- but something funny happened while they were sorting everything out: Phoenix couldn't stop winning. After the 3-6 start, the Suns won an astonishing 15 straight, dropped two of three, then won another 10 straight (and counting). Once they started rolling over everybody, Marion accepted his new role as the drummer. For now. Let's see how he feels in five months. But as long as he's happy, Phoenix's top six players surpass anything we've seen since Magic-Kareem-Worthy-Cooper-Scott-Thompson/Green or Bird-Parish-McHale-Johnson-Ainge-Walton. Just look at these guys. It's insane.
Barbosa: He'd be the best guard on more than half the teams in the league right now ... unstoppable off the dribble and a first-team member of the Streak Scorer All-Stars ... learned to run the offense just competently enough that they could bury Banks ... they'll even run plays for him in crunch time (like the 3 that beat the Bulls) ... I think he's one of the best 40 players in the league, a slightly more efficient version of Ben Gordon ... by the way, he's their sixth man.
Diaw: Killed them in the first few weeks by showing up out of shape, now he's fine ... plays three positions and guards the best opposing low-post player, doubles as the second-best passer on the team (5.5 assists a game!), doesn't care about shots, moved to the wing for Stoudemire's sake and remained just as effective ... one of the most underrated back-to-the-basket guys in either conference, although the Suns rarely go to him in the low post ... also one of the only people I've ever liked from France ... shooting an eye-opening 54 percent this season ... I think he's one of the best 45-50 players in the league ... somewhere, Steve Belkin is reading this and saying to himself, "See, I told you Diaw and two No. 1s was too much!"
Bell: Doesn't care about shots, nails open 3s (42 percent) and covers the best opposing scorer every game (although his defense is slightly overrated -- quicker guys like Gordon give him problems) ... he's also their fiercest compe or ... if they don't need his defense in crunch time, they'll play Barbosa over him and he won't complain about it ... I once wrote that he played like Bruce Bowen after four drinks -- I'd like to revise that to "Bowen after two shots of tequila and a slap to the face" ... and if that's not enough, he clearly aggravates Kobe, which counts for something.
Marion: If you had to pick one forward in the NBA to run the floor with Nash, this would be the guy ... as long as he's happy, playing hard and feeling even mildly appreciated, the 2007 Suns are unstoppable ... I think he's one of the best 20 players in the league ... by the way, did you ever think that Shawn Marion would go down as the greatest UNLV player in NBA history?
Amare Stoudemire
Barry Gossage/Getty Images
Looks like huge egos and microfracture surgery can't keep the Suns down.
Stoudemire: I'd say he's about 87 percent back, which makes him the second-best center alive (behind Yao and tied with Dwight Howard) and a top-20 player ... totally attuned with Nash on those pick-and-rolls ... improved his team defense and became an asset as a shot-blocker ... averaging a 20-10 over the past six weeks and starting to show "force of nature" signs again ... living proof that you CAN come back from microfracture surgery (although I still wouldn't recommend it).
Nash: I wouldn't have voted him MVP the past two years (when he did win), but I'd absolutely vote for him this year (when he won't win because nobody's prepared for a world where Steve Nash is a three-time NBA MVP). Here's the case for Nash in three parts:
A. When the Suns were threatening to implode early in the season, by all accounts, he kept them together almost singlehandedly (on and off the court). There isn't a more authentic leader in the league. He's the anti-Zach Randolph.
B. The more he plays with the same teammates, the better he gets. Now he's starting to resemble Gretzky during his Edmonton days -- not only does he keep finding guys for layups, dunks and wide-open 3s, he's finding them at consistently impossible angles. I have never, ever, EVER seen anyone run the point guard position like this on a day-to-day basis. Not even Magic and Isiah. If we ever kept track of assists that directly created a layup or dunk for a teammate, he'd be heading toward an all-time record.
C. Two months ago, I joked that Deron Williams looked like he went to John Stockton Summer Camp ... then it turned out that he actually DID spend the summer being tutored by Stockton. Now I'm wondering if Nash went as well. He rarely smiles and he barks at the refs more than he ever did. He gets testy with opposing players and teammates. Just like Stockton, he sets moving picks and trips defenders coming off screens (most famously to set up Barbosa's 3 that won the Chicago game). I don't want to say he's going to the dark side like Danny LaRusso during the Terry Silva Era, but there's definitely a nasty edge to his game that I can't remember seeing before.
Here's what happened: When Dallas eliminated Phoenix last spring, Nash probably spent a few weeks mulling over his career and everything that happened. He thought about the two MVP awards, realized he couldn't accomplish anything more other than winning a le, then thought long and hard about how to do it, ultimately cutting off his hair (feel the symbolism, baby!) and getting in the best shape of his life (remember, he wore down the last two springs). Then he showed up for training camp, realized the Marion-Stoudemire soap opera would be an ongoing problem, realized Diaw was woefully out of shape, realized Banks wasn't going to help at all ... and something snapped inside him. Exit, nice Steve Nash. Enter, icy Steve Nash. And he's been playing pissed off ever since. Eventually, everyone else fell in line.
Well, guess what? THAT'S AN MVP! That's what I'm looking for! Finally!
Steve Nash
Barry Gossage/Getty Images
Losing to the Mavs last year did make Nash sad, it got him angry.
It's been a virtuoso season for him. Borrowing the same tactic that once worked so well for Magic, Isiah and Stockton, Nash uses the first 40-42 minutes to get everyone else going, then takes over in crunch time and looks for his own offense if the Suns need it. Sometimes he'll defer to a scorching-hot Barbosa, sometimes he'll feed Amare on those high screens, sometimes he'll post Diaw if there's a mismatch to be exploited, sometimes he'll slash-and-kick to Bell or Marion, but if he can get his own shot, and it's a good one, he's taking it. Over anything else, that subtle change in Nash's mind-set -- basically, a complete refusal to accept anything less than a championship, even if it means some occasional selfishness -- kicked this Phoenix team into another gear. Remember when Nash scored 48 in the playoff loss to Dallas two years ago? He was horrified and even a little embarrassed afterward, right?
Now, he'd probably be pissed that he didn't get 50.
That's the biggest difference between the 2006 Suns and the 2007 Suns, with Nash's haircut symbolizing everything -- they play with a chip on their shoulder. They want to run teams off the floor. They want to break their will. For instance, Cleveland came to Phoenix last Thursday for a nationally televised game, and since the Cavs had been playing well and showing signs of running away with the East, it looked like a good test for the cruising Suns. Instead, it turned into a nonstop layup line. By the end of the first half, Phoenix was winning by 26. And I learned three things from that game:
1. The Suns dismantled Cleveland effortlessly, like they were plucking wings off a butterfly or something. I don't even think they shifted past third gear the entire game. That was truly scary -- not for me but for everyone else in the league.
2. The Cavs were demolished to the degree that they can't be taken seriously for the rest of the season. This game was more one-sided than the Awvee Storey-Martynas Andriuskevicius fight.
3. There was one moment when everything kicked into a higher gear for the Suns and they started rolling off easy basket after easy basket -- really, it was breathtaking to watch -- and eventually, their fans stood up and just kept cheering and cheering, even during a break in the action, just to profusely thank the players for what was happening. And I was sitting on my sofa thinking, "During the Bird Era, this happened ALL THE TIME. They'd get it going, great things would happen, and we'd stand up and cheer and cheer because we couldn't think of another way to adequately express how fortunate we were other than to just start throwing money on the court. And now, it's happening in Phoenix and I'm jealous as ."
Which brings me to my main point ...
It's nearly impossible to compare players and teams from different eras because the game continues to evolve in ways that nobody ever imagined. Tuesday night, I watched a triple-OT game between Texas and Oklahoma State where a 6-foot-11, 190-pound forward (the outrageously talented Durant, my current basketball obsession other than the Suns) scored 37 points on an eclectic mix of 25-footers, spin moves, jump hooks and drives to either side. He did everything facing the basket. He looked like a 6-foot-11 Tracy McGrady. Trust me when I tell you this: We've never seen anyone remotely resembling Kevin Durant on a basketball court before. If you stuck him in a time machine and transported him back to the Russell-Chamberlain Era, he'd probably average 55 points a game. Just the mere thought of his putting on a Celtics jersey makes me want to start sobbing with joy.
Shawn Marion, Raja Bell, Boris Diaw
Barry Gossage/Getty Images
No one will be able to ignore the Suns this spring.
Anyway, because the game keeps evolving and improving, you can only compare the impact of players and teams relative to the time in which they played. Would the '86 Celtics have beaten the '96 Bulls in a seven-game series? Too difficult to say. For instance, Pippen would have guarded Bird in that series, and there wasn't anyone remotely resembling Scottie Pippen in 1986. So how could you know? Compare their relative impacts and it's a different story. The '86 Celtics were greater than the '96 Bulls because they excelled against tougher compe ion, they were invincible at home (50-1 at home if you include playoff games) and their top-six was better than Chicago's top-six. You will never convince me otherwise. But the one thing that separated those mid-'80s Celtics and Lakers teams from everyone after them was that sixth gear: You never knew when they would throw together one of those four-minute stretches, turn the game into a layup line and blow somebody off the court.
(In fact, that Celtics team was so loaded that they screwed around during games, almost like musicians jamming near the end of a song. During a recent NBA TV interview with Bird for the Legend's 50th birthday, Bill Walton and Bird reminisced about the time Bird set goals for their West Coast trip, decided he would average 42 points a game for the trip, then got bored midway through and decided to shoot all left-handed shots in Portland. And he did just that. This actually happened.)
Now the Suns are approaching that hallowed level and I never thought we'd see something like that again -- not with 30 teams, not with a salary cap, not with the lottery system, not when teams are so much smarter about not giving away future lottery picks for the likes of Don Ford and Gerald Henderson. If the Suns stay healthy, they should win 67-70 games and nobody should touch them in the playoffs except for Dallas, the one contender that can dictate a specific tempo and force its opponents to abide by it. Still, I can't imagine the Suns blowing a seven-game series -- not with their style of play (impossible to stop), not with the way they shoot free throws (everyone in the top six is over 80 percent except for Diaw), not with everyone they can throw at Nowitzki, not with Nash's new and improved killer instinct. Even their team defense has improved to the point that Barkley doesn't dismiss them anymore. They're a juggernaut with a terrific coach and no real holes other than a thin bench.
Of course, the Suns can guarantee immortality with one move: Thanks to the Diaw-Johnson trade, they own Atlanta's 2007 No. 1 pick unless it falls in the top three. Say they packaged that pick with Kurt Thomas' expiring contract and/or Banks' contract for one more blue-chipper. What would happen if they added Rashard Lewis or Mike Miller, gave one of them James Jones' minutes (20-25 a game), then went seven-deep the rest of the way? Starting Nash, Stoudemire, Diaw, Bell and Marion, with Miller/Lewis and Barbosa coming off the bench, nobody would play more than 38 minutes or less than 25, and there wouldn't be a bad shooter or a bad all-around player in the bunch. Five of the seven players would be shooting over 40 percent from 3-pointers. They could go small, they could go big, they could play fast or slow, they could do anything they wanted. They'd be the Dirk Diggler of NBA teams.
Look, my NBA life is in complete shambles. My beloved Celtics might be the worst team in the league and I spend far too much time thinking about an 18-year-old kid in Austin who could save them some day. The Clippers are playing such uninspired, mediocre basketball that it's not even fun to attend their games, even as an unbiased observer. My favorite commissioner has endured some rare misfires and was recently pulled over for being drunk with power. The whole season has been a disaster. Other than Gilbert Arenas screaming "Hibachi!" and Isiah making one last boneheaded trade, all I have to look forward until next June's draft are the Suns and their quest for greatness.
So for my sake, make one more move, Phoenix. You owe it to Nash, you owe it to D'Antoni and the Suns fans, you owe it to me, and you owe it to every other diehard basketball fan who loves this game and never imagined we would see another invincible team. All 19 of us.
If were talking about re ed - than were talking about most of your post's I've seen on this forum DINGO.
Steve Nash = Good flopper. Manu Ginobli = most re ed flopper. Even if you get shot by a bullet, you can't recreate the that Ginobli does.
Whinniest es = Popovich and Duncan. No other team in the league rides the officials like these two do. Every play, Every whistle. Just give the ref 100 bucks before the game and get it over with so we don't have to watch that display.
By the way - Was at Oregon State when Gary Payton played. Although defensively he is one of the toughest and Nash does not even compare. Gary Payton is no where near Steve when it comes to shooting accuracy. Steve also wins hands-down for his ridiculous way of passing and making everyone on the team better.
I'm looking forward to the day when I can lurk and not see one thread with the word Phoenix or Suns in it started by a Spur. We're border-line obsessed.
RACK Mark in Austin! Suns fans are like a virgins who has never scored. Without Nash they never will. Cuban should trade Dirt for Nash headsup and he would have a better chance of winning a le. Nash for Dirt? Would you do it????????
I went to the bank today to deposit Matthew's phat check to yours truly and asked the teller the date. She cheerily reported that it was July 23rd.
July 23rd? Really?
And people are still whining about the God forsaken Phoenix Suns? What's the problem here? Nobody in America cares about baseball anymore or something? Is everyone trying really hard to ignore the fact that Barry Bonds is about to pass that ol' curmudgeon Hank Aaron for the all time home run record? Is the Mike Vick situation too sticky to think about and debate without delving into all kinds of racial stereotypes and cannonballing ourselves into murky social waters?
What is the dealio, yo?
Yeah, so apparently the league has (had) a dirty ref. At least that means he had a reason to suck. That leaves twenty or thirty more of them who are just flat out incompetent. What's their excuse?
Me, I don't think this is the end of the world. He wasn't a premier zebra and didn't work that many important games. His last playoff game worked in 06-07 was Game 3 of our Western Conference semi-final. Not exactly a high-status gig. Obviously his superiors were so thrilled with his performance in the contest that they informed him that his season was over afterward.
Like Anne Frank, I like to think that people are basically good until they give me a reason not to. So for now, until I get more evidence to the contrary, I will choose to believe this was just one s bag, acting alone. He has in all likelihood committed a serious crime here, but in all seriousness, none of his deeds altered the scope of history all that much.
To this day I can tell you with a straight face and total conviction that Joey Crawford had more of an influence on the Suns/Spurs series than Tim Donaghy did because if it wasn't for Crawford acting like a total hothead in the April 15th game at Dallas and ejecting Duncan, the Spurs might very well have had the two seed and home court advantage in the second round.
One fellow who is predictably making a huuuuuuuge mountain about this (most likely because he's afraid to jinx his beloved Red Sox by writing a column about them) mole hill is Bill Simmons. He wrote a scathing article about the whole affair, focusing largely on Game 3, and basically took a huge steaming dump on our team and the legitimacy of our fourth le. If you're keeping track at home, the Spurs have only won two championships since neither the 1999 nor 2007 seasons in actuality ever "happened."
That's still two more than Dallas or Phoenix, of course, but I don't need to tell you that.
Personally, I think the NBA should conduct two separate banner/ring/trophy ceremonies every season. One, as per custom, will still be given to the team that wins the NBA Finals, and the other will be awarded to the squad Bill Simmons, President of the Sports Universe, deems worthy.
For this season the Bill Simmons Championship would obviously go to the Suns, last year's would have gone to the Mavs, and in 1999 we'd give one to, I dunno, the Celtics I guess. Because we all feel terrible about Len Bias and Reggie Lewis, really. Their premature deaths were the biggest tragedy in the history of the world you know. Well, outside of Boston not getting the 1st or 2nd pick in this lottery, that is.
Anyway, if Steve Nash and co. want to use the Donaghy thing as an excuse for losing, that's fine with me. Excuses are for losers. I watched every minute of that series and as I remember it, the Spurs prevailed mainly because Amare still sucks on defense, Shawn Marion always comes up small when it counts, Tony dominated Barbosa on both ends of the court, and Raja Bell couldn't guard Manu at all in Games 5 or 6. Oh, and Mike D'Antoni killed them the whole series. Anyone here remember it differently?
Simmons made excuse after excuse for the Suns, covering up for all their failures and conveniently ignoring all the tiny details that hurt his argument. Let's take them one by one.
He says the Suns would've won game 1 if Nash didn't get hurt. I hate to break it to you Bill, but not only were the Spurs winning the game at the time of Nash's injury, (self-inflicted by the way) but he was out for only 45 seconds total and those crooked NBA refs you're so low on made every allowance they could to get him back in the game, blatantly delaying action like umpires stopping to sweep home plate so a catcher can recover from a foul ball to the groin. No matter how much time they gave him, Nash and the trainer couldn't stop the bleeding.
Whose fault is that?
And you know what? As far as Game 1 goes, having Nash on the bench wasn't exactly a handicap for Phoenix. He sucked that game and finished with a -12 while his backup, Barbosa was +4.
Going into the series, most of the experts picked the Spurs to win because they were the tougher, more defensive minded, more experienced team (kinda like your old Celtics, eh Bill?). Game 1 was a chance for the Suns to make a statement on their home floor and they, and particularly their leader, came out flat and laid an egg. The Spurs stomped on them easily without Manu even playing all that well.
Game 2 was a legitamate beatdown for the Suns, and they did what they had to do, salvaging one home game. The Spurs never looked very crisp or into it and one got the impression that they were satisfied with themselves getting the one road win.
That brings us to Game 3, and Simmons' apopylectic fit. Yes, there were a few bad calls in the game, as there are in every game. But looking at the supposed Zapruder film on Youtube, nothing strikes me as that egregious besides the one Ginobili play. And even in that one, the issue wasn't that a foul was called, (Manu certainly thought there was, judging by his reaction) but the timing of it, with Donaghy blowing the whistle well after the shot attempt.
What's funny about the rest of the plays though is that A) they're mostly no-calls on 50/50 plays against the Spurs defense and B) Donaghy isn't the one making the calls, it's Eddie F. Rush. I guess he was in on it too.
People are making a big deal that Amare Stoudemire played only 21 minutes in this game because of foul trouble, but nobody brings up the fact that Amare was second in all of the NBA in fouls committed last season. Also, he's the bright individual that got himself suspended in Game 4.
Here's my crazy conspiracy theory, ready? Maybe, just maybe, Amare only played 21 minutes because Amare is really ing stupid.
Whoa.
You know what's really hilarious? The worst non-call of the game wasn't even mentioned by Simmons or the Youtube clip. Raja Bell raked Manu across the face and practically gouged out his eye (remember the cut?) in the 3rd quarter. Nobody called a foul even though the evidence was pretty hard to refute afterward. Funny how nobody is bringing that play up, huh? In fact, what happened in the aftermath of that non-call is what won the game for the Spurs, not a crooked ref. Gino was so pissed off that he exploded for like 8 points in 40 seconds or something at the end of the 3rd quarter and the Spurs turned a tight game into a relatively routine playoff win.
Still, Simmons' rationalization for why "the bad refs" were sent to work Game 3 is ridiculous. Despite their Game 2 loss, the Spurs weren't the team that had anything to prove, Phoenix was. They were the wimps and chokers without the rings, not us. Show me one person, TSG included, who thought the Suns were still going to win that series after Game 1. The way Bill makes it sound, the league was afraid of Phoenix blowing past the Spurs 4-1 and sent the pro-home refs to give the feeble Spurs a chance to prolong the series before eventually suc bing to their mighty nectarine-and-plum clad conquerors in Game 6 or 7. Gimme a break. If the NBA was interested in a long series, they would have assigned road-friendly refs, if there even is such a thing, to Game 3. All the pressure to win in that situation is on the team that lost home court advantage. You give them Game 3 so they can relax and make the underdog play their tails off in Game 4 to send the series back 2-2.
Anyway, nward we go to Game 4. TSG makes it sound like that the Suns, finally given proper refs to work with, boatraced us in this game since they were the clearly superior team. Is he smoking crack? We were winning the whole game, and up by double digits for a huge chunk of it. We totally collapsed in the last eight minutes (you want to talk about some bad calls, go watch this one again, good lord) and the Suns outright stole the game.
Does anyone remember the actual game? No. All people talk about is the Nash/Robert Horry play, otherwise known as, "THE DIRTIEST, HARDEST, AND MOST FLAGRANT FOUL EVER COMMITTED."
What started as a simple hard foul became a month-long news story for three reasons, all having to do with the Suns. 1) Nash totally embellished the foul and pretended to be in a lot of pain, even though he got up pretty damn quickly when 2) Bell went after Horry after the play, turning it into an altercation leading to 3) Amare and Diaw stupidly leaving the bench and getting themselves suspended.
What's ironic to me about the suspensions is that with everyone questioning the integrity of the NBA in general and David Stern in particular, it took a lot of guts and ethics to do what he did. Think about it, why would this guy purposefully pull the strings for the Spurs? What's in it for him? Our team gets NO ratings. We play a slowdown style, our players don't say or do anything outrageous, and our coach shuns the media like a plague. ESPN can't stand us, and the public won't watch us. Our players are known as either shameless and balding floppers, dirty thugs, whiners, or emotionless automatons. Our point guard is only "NOW" because he's married to a woman everyone wants to sleep with.
Somebody give me one selfish or business-driven reason why Stern would want the Spurs in the NBA Finals. Go ahead, I've got all day.
He suspended Amare and Boris not because there's a conspiracy or because he wanted the Spurs to win. He suspended them because they broke a rule. David Stern isn't stupid. He knew that 90% of the people watching that series were rooting for the Suns. But rules are rules and the leaving the bench rule is a good one for the league; a concept that Bill Simmons and most of the gang at ESPN just can't seem to swallow because it - GASP! - happened in a playoff game and it was a spur of the moment thing.
Because you know, most brawls and fights like the Knicks/Nuggets thing or the Malice in the Palace are choreographed and planned well in advance.
I commend Stern for having the stones to suspend Amare, knowing the heat he would face for it and going through with it anyway. It's disingenuous of Simmons to bring up the suspension when it has nothing to do with the Donaghy controversy and laughable for him to group Diaw in with Stoudemire as "one of the Suns main guys." Mind you that this is the same Boris Diaw that Bill made fat jokes about the whole season and whom the Suns were desperately trying to unload during the offseason. For God sakes, I think Horry was more valuable to us than Diaw was to them, and the only reason he got a two game suspension (the Warriors alone committed a half dozen fouls in their five game series with the Jazz that were more egregious than Horry's by the way) was to make the thing look more palatable.
All you need to know about the Game 5 suspensions was that the NBA board of governors had a chance this past month to change or alter the rule and they decided not to. All of the whining and complaining was sound and fury, signifying nothing.
As for Game 5 itself, the culprits weren't Stern or the refs. The guy who blew that game was D'Antoni, plain and simple. He only played six guys (his main three of Nash, Marion and Bell all played 46+ mins) and his guys were completely tapped out in the second half. In the 2nd quarter with a 15 to 20 point lead, there was no reason for D'Antoni to not give Pat Burke and Jalen Rose a few spot minutes. No matter how poorly they did, it's not like they were in a position to kill the team right then. D'Antoni's lack of trust in his bench has crippled the Suns for three years running now and it boggles my mind that nobody took him to task for how he totally mismanaged such a critical, winnable game. A coach can't react to two rotation players being out by simply doling out their minutes to the other six. You have a 12 man roster for a reason and if you can't trust over a third of your guys for even a couple of minutes with a huge lead, then perhaps someone else should be brought in to do the GM job.
Oh right, that happened.
Simmons' assertion that the Suns would've cruised in Game 5 is asinine given how easily the Spurs won Games 1, 3, and 6 and how they were winning most of Game 4. The only contest, out of six, that the Suns won undisputed was Game 2. They got Amare back and all that changed was both teams scored a lot more points. You didn't need to have a ref on the inside to predict that one.
The better team won the series, and I wish ESPN and all the Suns bandwagoners could just accept it already. If y'all want rings, then perhaps you should tell your superduperstars to play a little defense and tell your coach to act like a leader of men instead of Yosemite Sam on speed.
It's sad how brainwashed Simmons has become by the worldwide leader and the LA lifestyle. He claims to be a Celtics fan, but he roots for Showtime basketball, style over substance. The Spurs can get stops when they have to have them and they can score when it matters most, from inside or outside, from their bigs or their smalls, from their stars to their role players. No other NBA team can claim such a thing.
How someone brought up rooting for Bird's Celtics and currently enjoying the Belichick Patriots run can engage in such a blatent, fraudulent crusade to on the Spurs run is beyond me.
Simmons' trademark line, for years, has been, "As always, I'm an idiot."
No kidding.
Simmons slobs sons knobs
This was a perfect post from PTR.I went to the bank today to deposit Matthew's phat check to yours truly and asked the teller the date. She cheerily reported that it was July 23rd.
July 23rd? Really?
And people are still whining about the God forsaken Phoenix Suns? What's the problem here? Nobody in America cares about baseball anymore or something? Is everyone trying really hard to ignore the fact that Barry Bonds is about to pass that ol' curmudgeon Hank Aaron for the all time home run record? Is the Mike Vick situation too sticky to think about and debate without delving into all kinds of racial stereotypes and cannonballing ourselves into murky social waters?
What is the dealio, yo?
Yeah, so apparently the league has (had) a dirty ref. At least that means he had a reason to suck. That leaves twenty or thirty more of them who are just flat out incompetent. What's their excuse?
Me, I don't think this is the end of the world. He wasn't a premier zebra and didn't work that many important games. His last playoff game worked in 06-07 was Game 3 of our Western Conference semi-final. Not exactly a high-status gig. Obviously his superiors were so thrilled with his performance in the contest that they informed him that his season was over afterward.
Like Anne Frank, I like to think that people are basically good until they give me a reason not to. So for now, until I get more evidence to the contrary, I will choose to believe this was just one s bag, acting alone. He has in all likelihood committed a serious crime here, but in all seriousness, none of his deeds altered the scope of history all that much.
To this day I can tell you with a straight face and total conviction that Joey Crawford had more of an influence on the Suns/Spurs series than Tim Donaghy did because if it wasn't for Crawford acting like a total hothead in the April 15th game at Dallas and ejecting Duncan, the Spurs might very well have had the two seed and home court advantage in the second round.
One fellow who is predictably making a huuuuuuuge mountain about this (most likely because he's afraid to jinx his beloved Red Sox by writing a column about them) mole hill is Bill Simmons. He wrote a scathing article about the whole affair, focusing largely on Game 3, and basically took a huge steaming dump on our team and the legitimacy of our fourth le. If you're keeping track at home, the Spurs have only won two championships since neither the 1999 nor 2007 seasons in actuality ever "happened."
That's still two more than Dallas or Phoenix, of course, but I don't need to tell you that.
Personally, I think the NBA should conduct two separate banner/ring/trophy ceremonies every season. One, as per custom, will still be given to the team that wins the NBA Finals, and the other will be awarded to the squad Bill Simmons, President of the Sports Universe, deems worthy.
For this season the Bill Simmons Championship would obviously go to the Suns, last year's would have gone to the Mavs, and in 1999 we'd give one to, I dunno, the Celtics I guess. Because we all feel terrible about Len Bias and Reggie Lewis, really. Their premature deaths were the biggest tragedy in the history of the world you know. Well, outside of Boston not getting the 1st or 2nd pick in this lottery, that is.
Anyway, if Steve Nash and co. want to use the Donaghy thing as an excuse for losing, that's fine with me. Excuses are for losers. I watched every minute of that series and as I remember it, the Spurs prevailed mainly because Amare still sucks on defense, Shawn Marion always comes up small when it counts, Tony dominated Barbosa on both ends of the court, and Raja Bell couldn't guard Manu at all in Games 5 or 6. Oh, and Mike D'Antoni killed them the whole series. Anyone here remember it differently?
Simmons made excuse after excuse for the Suns, covering up for all their failures and conveniently ignoring all the tiny details that hurt his argument. Let's take them one by one.
He says the Suns would've won game 1 if Nash didn't get hurt. I hate to break it to you Bill, but not only were the Spurs winning the game at the time of Nash's injury, (self-inflicted by the way) but he was out for only 45 seconds total and those crooked NBA refs you're so low on made every allowance they could to get him back in the game, blatantly delaying action like umpires stopping to sweep home plate so a catcher can recover from a foul ball to the groin. No matter how much time they gave him, Nash and the trainer couldn't stop the bleeding.
Whose fault is that?
And you know what? As far as Game 1 goes, having Nash on the bench wasn't exactly a handicap for Phoenix. He sucked that game and finished with a -12 while his backup, Barbosa was +4.
Going into the series, most of the experts picked the Spurs to win because they were the tougher, more defensive minded, more experienced team (kinda like your old Celtics, eh Bill?). Game 1 was a chance for the Suns to make a statement on their home floor and they, and particularly their leader, came out flat and laid an egg. The Spurs stomped on them easily without Manu even playing all that well.
Game 2 was a legitamate beatdown for the Suns, and they did what they had to do, salvaging one home game. The Spurs never looked very crisp or into it and one got the impression that they were satisfied with themselves getting the one road win.
That brings us to Game 3, and Simmons' apopylectic fit. Yes, there were a few bad calls in the game, as there are in every game. But looking at the supposed Zapruder film on Youtube, nothing strikes me as that egregious besides the one Ginobili play. And even in that one, the issue wasn't that a foul was called, (Manu certainly thought there was, judging by his reaction) but the timing of it, with Donaghy blowing the whistle well after the shot attempt.
What's funny about the rest of the plays though is that A) they're mostly no-calls on 50/50 plays against the Spurs defense and B) Donaghy isn't the one making the calls, it's Eddie F. Rush. I guess he was in on it too.
People are making a big deal that Amare Stoudemire played only 21 minutes in this game because of foul trouble, but nobody brings up the fact that Amare was second in all of the NBA in fouls committed last season. Also, he's the bright individual that got himself suspended in Game 4.
Here's my crazy conspiracy theory, ready? Maybe, just maybe, Amare only played 21 minutes because Amare is really ing stupid.
Whoa.
You know what's really hilarious? The worst non-call of the game wasn't even mentioned by Simmons or the Youtube clip. Raja Bell raked Manu across the face and practically gouged out his eye (remember the cut?) in the 3rd quarter. Nobody called a foul even though the evidence was pretty hard to refute afterward. Funny how nobody is bringing that play up, huh? In fact, what happened in the aftermath of that non-call is what won the game for the Spurs, not a crooked ref. Gino was so pissed off that he exploded for like 8 points in 40 seconds or something at the end of the 3rd quarter and the Spurs turned a tight game into a relatively routine playoff win.
Still, Simmons' rationalization for why "the bad refs" were sent to work Game 3 is ridiculous. Despite their Game 2 loss, the Spurs weren't the team that had anything to prove, Phoenix was. They were the wimps and chokers without the rings, not us. Show me one person, TSG included, who thought the Suns were still going to win that series after Game 1. The way Bill makes it sound, the league was afraid of Phoenix blowing past the Spurs 4-1 and sent the pro-home refs to give the feeble Spurs a chance to prolong the series before eventually suc bing to their mighty nectarine-and-plum clad conquerors in Game 6 or 7. Gimme a break. If the NBA was interested in a long series, they would have assigned road-friendly refs, if there even is such a thing, to Game 3. All the pressure to win in that situation is on the team that lost home court advantage. You give them Game 3 so they can relax and make the underdog play their tails off in Game 4 to send the series back 2-2.
Anyway, nward we go to Game 4. TSG makes it sound like that the Suns, finally given proper refs to work with, boatraced us in this game since they were the clearly superior team. Is he smoking crack? We were winning the whole game, and up by double digits for a huge chunk of it. We totally collapsed in the last eight minutes (you want to talk about some bad calls, go watch this one again, good lord) and the Suns outright stole the game.
Does anyone remember the actual game? No. All people talk about is the Nash/Robert Horry play, otherwise known as, "THE DIRTIEST, HARDEST, AND MOST FLAGRANT FOUL EVER COMMITTED."
What started as a simple hard foul became a month-long news story for three reasons, all having to do with the Suns. 1) Nash totally embellished the foul and pretended to be in a lot of pain, even though he got up pretty damn quickly when 2) Bell went after Horry after the play, turning it into an altercation leading to 3) Amare and Diaw stupidly leaving the bench and getting themselves suspended.
What's ironic to me about the suspensions is that with everyone questioning the integrity of the NBA in general and David Stern in particular, it took a lot of guts and ethics to do what he did. Think about it, why would this guy purposefully pull the strings for the Spurs? What's in it for him? Our team gets NO ratings. We play a slowdown style, our players don't say or do anything outrageous, and our coach shuns the media like a plague. ESPN can't stand us, and the public won't watch us. Our players are known as either shameless and balding floppers, dirty thugs, whiners, or emotionless automatons. Our point guard is only "NOW" because he's married to a woman everyone wants to sleep with.
Somebody give me one selfish or business-driven reason why Stern would want the Spurs in the NBA Finals. Go ahead, I've got all day.
He suspended Amare and Boris not because there's a conspiracy or because he wanted the Spurs to win. He suspended them because they broke a rule. David Stern isn't stupid. He knew that 90% of the people watching that series were rooting for the Suns. But rules are rules and the leaving the bench rule is a good one for the league; a concept that Bill Simmons and most of the gang at ESPN just can't seem to swallow because it - GASP! - happened in a playoff game and it was a spur of the moment thing.
Because you know, most brawls and fights like the Knicks/Nuggets thing or the Malice in the Palace are choreographed and planned well in advance.
I commend Stern for having the stones to suspend Amare, knowing the heat he would face for it and going through with it anyway. It's disingenuous of Simmons to bring up the suspension when it has nothing to do with the Donaghy controversy and laughable for him to group Diaw in with Stoudemire as "one of the Suns main guys." Mind you that this is the same Boris Diaw that Bill made fat jokes about the whole season and whom the Suns were desperately trying to unload during the offseason. For God sakes, I think Horry was more valuable to us than Diaw was to them, and the only reason he got a two game suspension (the Warriors alone committed a half dozen fouls in their five game series with the Jazz that were more egregious than Horry's by the way) was to make the thing look more palatable.
All you need to know about the Game 5 suspensions was that the NBA board of governors had a chance this past month to change or alter the rule and they decided not to. All of the whining and complaining was sound and fury, signifying nothing.
As for Game 5 itself, the culprits weren't Stern or the refs. The guy who blew that game was D'Antoni, plain and simple. He only played six guys (his main three of Nash, Marion and Bell all played 46+ mins) and his guys were completely tapped out in the second half. In the 2nd quarter with a 15 to 20 point lead, there was no reason for D'Antoni to not give Pat Burke and Jalen Rose a few spot minutes. No matter how poorly they did, it's not like they were in a position to kill the team right then. D'Antoni's lack of trust in his bench has crippled the Suns for three years running now and it boggles my mind that nobody took him to task for how he totally mismanaged such a critical, winnable game. A coach can't react to two rotation players being out by simply doling out their minutes to the other six. You have a 12 man roster for a reason and if you can't trust over a third of your guys for even a couple of minutes with a huge lead, then perhaps someone else should be brought in to do the GM job.
Oh right, that happened.
Simmons' assertion that the Suns would've cruised in Game 5 is asinine given how easily the Spurs won Games 1, 3, and 6 and how they were winning most of Game 4. The only contest, out of six, that the Suns won undisputed was Game 2. They got Amare back and all that changed was both teams scored a lot more points. You didn't need to have a ref on the inside to predict that one.
The better team won the series, and I wish ESPN and all the Suns bandwagoners could just accept it already. If y'all want rings, then perhaps you should tell your superduperstars to play a little defense and tell your coach to act like a leader of men instead of Yosemite Sam on speed.
It's sad how brainwashed Simmons has become by the worldwide leader and the LA lifestyle. He claims to be a Celtics fan, but he roots for Showtime basketball, style over substance. The Spurs can get stops when they have to have them and they can score when it matters most, from inside or outside, from their bigs or their smalls, from their stars to their role players. No other NBA team can claim such a thing.
How someone brought up rooting for Bird's Celtics and currently enjoying the Belichick Patriots run can engage in such a blatent, fraudulent crusade to on the Spurs run is beyond me.
Simmons' trademark line, for years, has been, "As always, I'm an idiot."
No kidding.
That's pretty funny.
Now will you suns girls just stfu and come back when you win 4 NBA championships. Strike that, your pissant organization ain't got the mettle. Come back if you ever win one. Until then bow to your daddy.
I'll take substance over style any day. Wise choice grasshopper. Nash and any of you wannabees are welcomed to stop by our beautiful city and enjoy our San Antonio Spur's throphies any day.
The Bucks swept Bird and the Celtics in 83. The Bucks were more Boston's rival than Phoenix is the Spurs'
the best foreign beer is rarely found in green bottles anyway.
that post was as useless as bill simmons. go suns.
Their dentures cannot handle our thickness!They like weak, thin tortillas?
Figures.
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