I got more records than the KGB

The Suns
10 questions about this Suns' season: Arizona Republic, East Valley Tribune

Insight into Porter's playbook (now with muddled metaphors!)
“I’ve never been a big believer in having 10,000 plays and then wind up only running five of them,” he said. “I’m more of a believer in having just a few, making sure those plays have a lot of wrinkles and options.”
The Suns spent an hour ironing out the wrinkles on one such play in Wednesday’s morning session.
So are wrinkles good? Or bad?

Also from that article:
When the Suns broke the huddle under former coach Mike D’Antoni, they chanted "Suns!" Under Porter, that mantra has changed to "Defense!"
I'm cautiously excited about seeing how they do with this defense oriented approach.

More on Porter's defense and how players are adapting to it.

Nash is in favor of fewer minutes, but not fewer games.
"If I could miss 10 or 12 games and go to the Bahamas, that sounds good," Nash said. "If I have to stay here, I might as well play. But to shift the minutes around a little more and change our style just a little bit to preserve guys' legs ... I think that's possible."

I'm just ridiculously in favor of there being backups for Nash that might let Barbosa return to his natural position. The man just doesn't see the floor well, and that's ok. You'd never ask Nash to post-up, or Shaq to start jacking up threes, so why is it a problem if LB is a (really good) undersized shooting guard?

Speaking of Barbosa, he left training camp to be with his very ill mother in Brazil. My thoughts are with them.

Also in that article:
The players [ran] gassers for every missed free throw.... "I have to change that around because they didn’t run that many," [Porter] said. "There were too many free throws made."

Diaw poked STAT in the eye and now Amare may wear goggles for the rest of his career. It isn't serious, but he's just a cautious guy.

Also in that article: Barbosa hasn't set a date to come back from Brazil yet. The Suns do not expect him back before next week, at the earliest.

A fairly nay-saying look at the upcoming season. Some positive bits, but also featuring many phrases in the vein of as if his feet are nailed to the floor and collection of dinosaurs.


Other NBA
Photo from the Plain Dealer
Information about Anderson Varejao, his off season, and his ankle injury.
The injury also prevented Varejao from playing for Brazil in an Olympic qualifier. Surprisingly, he received criticism in his own country for sitting out the qualifier and rehabbing his ankle.
How is this surprising?

"What was tougher for me is the media in Brazil didn’t know what was going on," Varejao said. "I didn’t know why. Everybody started talking like I didn’t want to play for the national team. That was tough. Brazil is a soccer country. Basketball is not that big, so they didn’t really know what was going on."
No, really, I think that even if they had known why he didn't play for Brazil, they would have been disappointed. Especially b/c he played in the playoffs even with the sprain. And claiming that basketball fans around the world don't know about it when their favorite player is injured? Is shortsighted in the age of the internet.

Varejao said the ankle is still swelled a little, but not as bad as it was.
Which, aside from some questionable grammar, is both good and bad. Obviously.

The Spurs count their blessings and come up with three.

Lawrence Pedowitz's review of the NBA's referees has been completed. He found that Donaghy was the only ref who acted illegally. But, as Donaghy's attorney, John Lauro, points out: "If this had been an independent investigation we would have gladly cooperated," Lauro told ESPN.com's Mike Fish. "But we knew this was going to be a PR effort. ... It is a way that David Stern can say, 'I put nice little ribbon on this whole case and the only person that has ever done anything incorrect is Tim Donaghy.' That really was the whole purpose of the report."
I gotta say, I agree. I'm on the fence about if there are other refs who were fixing games or doing things that were worse than favoritism, but I don't trust Stern at all.

The Warriors' mascot is named Thunder. The new OKC team is the Thunder. Conflict!
"For the sake of not making things confusing, we're going to do something. We just have to figure out a good exit strategy."
He just might have one -- leave Thunder in China during the team's upcoming trip to Asia.
"He might get lost in the crowd over in China," Rowell said. "There are 1.3 billion people there."


General WNBA
Lauren Jackson will be a free agent and the Storm are bound and determined to keep her. Also, no matter what the title of the article says, she doesn't want to think about the issue yet.


WNBA Finals
You may be able to stop Nolan, but the Shock have more options than that. For instance, they have Taj McWilliams-Franklin. And other veterans like Katie Smith. Also, the awesomeness of Bill Laimbeer. But mostly, they have Taj.

Doris Burke's diatribes about how the Mystics are eeeeevil for trading Taj to a contender have been bothering me a lot during ESPN's coverage of the Playoffs. I'm glad that someone else put it into words. If I had tried, it might have come out as *keyboardsmash*

I would also add that the Mystics picking up a 8.3ppg/3.7rpg 22 year-old rookie center (in Humphrey) is a lot better for rebuilding than the Grizzlies picking up a 4.8ppg/4.9rpg 26 year-old center who has been playing professionally for 7 years (in Kwame Brown). So please don't even begin to compare this to the Gasol trade, Ms. Burke. Thank you.

Mr. Dinkins, would you please be my mayor?

Again, it's been awhile since my last update. This time it's because I was very sick for about 2 weeks. Blech. Some older links are mixed in here, mostly because I found them interesting and/or important. Enjoy!

The Suns
Saturday's Game One loss against the Spurs was pretty hard to take. To lose a 16 point lead and have it go into two overtimes (one of which happened on a 3-pointer from a 7-footer) before finally losing on a last second shot? Just really hard to swallow. In the post game interviews, the Suns all looked so sad. Shaq was barely audible, and Hill looked like he probably had been crying. It broke my heart.

May Tuesday's game go much better, without dumb fouls and dumber luck.

Game recaps: Associated Press, Arizona Republic, East Valley Tribune

It looks like Diaw is key for this first round matchup (and in my mind, the entire playoff run).

Unrelated to the playoffs, Barbosa met Shaq first when he was 7 years old. They shook hands, and then Shaq broke LB's gym's backboard. It didn't get fixed for a week and a half.

Other NBA
Apparently the new owners of the Sonics had no intent to keep them in Seattle, no matter what they told the NBA or the previous owner. I know this is old news, but it's important context to the fact that the NBA team owners approved the Oklahoma City relocation. A few things stood out to me in the second article.

One: Clay Bennett hopes no one understands the concept of context. Bennett said his words had been misinterpreted. When he wrote, "I am a man possessed! Will do everything we can," he meant he was determined to find a way for the Sonics to remain in the city. Ha!

Two: Bennett is...facing a class-action lawsuit brought by season-ticket holders who say they were duped into buying tickets under the premise the Sonics wouldn't leave. Crazy!

Three: And this week former team owner Howard Schultz announced plans to sue to get the team back, saying Bennett did not make a good-faith effort to secure a new arena deal as he promised when he bought the team in 2006. I'm glad *someone* is paying attention to the emails from the first article, since David Stern seems to be so prone to flattery. Even if Seattlites don't like Schultz either.

The Nuggets had major bus problems on the way to game one. Bad omen there with black smoke and everything.

Isiah Thomas finally got fired, but he's been kept around seemingly for kicks. My friend Anna suggested that this may be to avoid paying out the nose to let him go. Whatever it is, I'm glad he's (mostly) gone to stop the poisoning of that franchise (and the league as a whole).

FIBA and Other International Ball
Here, have an overview of Olympic qualifiers and the Olympic games themselves.

Brazil is optimistic about their chances to get through the Olympic qualifiers. I'm definitely rooting for them.

Tiago Splitter's sister, Michelle, has been dealing with leukaemia for awhile, and recently had a recurrence. I hope her health improves.

Shabtai von Kalmanovic treats the members of his basketball team (Spartak) really really well. That includes Dianna Taurasi, Sue Bird, and Tina Thompson. He has a little more than a smidge of smarm though.

Becky Hammon signs with the Russian national team to play in the Olympics. This was weird to me, until I read that article. She's right, her choices were to sit on my couch and watch the Olympics, or play in the Olympics. It made it an easy decision.

The WNBA
The WNBA draft happened while I was not busy maintaining this blog. It was a pretty awesome (if semi-predictable) draft, and the Mystics got a pretty good (and local!) pick-up in Crystal Langhorne.

The Seattle Storm (who are my preseason guess for a championship) recently entered into a sponsorship deal with Olivia Cruise Line. This is (probably) due in part to their off season pick up of Sheryl Swoopes (longtime spokesperson of Olivia). This is the first time that I know of that a WNBA team has officially entered into any kind of partnership with a high profile member of the lesbian (or gay) corporate community. However! Their press release on this cracked me up and not in a good way. The only time that they mentioned anything about the GLBT nature of Olivia was when they mentioned famous personalities that had been involved with the company in the past (and present). Entertainers and athletes aligned with Olivia have included stars such as Melissa Etheridge, Heart, KD Lang, Missy Higgins, Paula Cole, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova and the Storm’s own Sheryl Swoopes. No other GLBT mention, even though olivia.com literally announces that it's "Where Lesbians Go."

The New York Liberty are going to play an outdoor game this year. It marks the very first regular season game of it's kind in pro-ball. Male or female.

Tamika Catchings is working hard to rehab from last year's torn Achilles Tendon. She wants to help win the Fever a championship, and she really really wants to play in the Olympics.

WNBA Transactions:
* Nikki Teasley, who was my favorite Mystic two years ago and who I still love a lot, is pregnant. I was all excited for her, b/c a little Mystic baby! But then she got let go, for reasons that had nothing to do with her pregnancy. Raise your hand if you believe that. No, me either. Pretty crummy.
* Former Mystic, Stacey Dales retires from the Chicago Sky to focus on broadcasting.
* The Minnesota Lynx picked up Ashley Awkward. This is mostly notable because my sister will love her name. She came from Australia's WNBL, and it'll be interesting to see how she does in the WNBA.
* Sue Bird re-signed with the Seattle Storm.
* Yolanda Griffith gets signed to the Storm. Yes, they're collecting fairly old players, but I have the feeling that they're going to be really good.
* The Phoenix Mercury lock Dianna Taurasi down for another three years.
* The Mercury sign Yuko Oga from Japan. I don't know much about Japanese women's basketball (they'll be in the Olympic qualifiers in Spain in June), so I can't wait to see her play.

Pour myself a cup of ambition

Geez, it's been a little bit. This is going to only cover through Tuesday for the most part, and only the NBA. I'll have another post up soon (hopefully today) with WNBA and FIBA as well as stuff from last night. Sorry, I know all two of you wait with baited breath for these posts.

The Suns
Win number four was terrific on Saturday night. I didn't get to listen or watch stats, but a friend (smileyqueen114) was at the game and she texted me with excitement and awesomeness. For instance, did you know that it was the Gorilla's birthday on Saturday? Neither did I. Happy 28th, Go!

Win number five wasn't too shabby either. They're really playing well and having fun and earning the respect of their opponents. I seriously couldn't ask for more.

Recaps: Associated Press, Arizona Republic, East Valley Tribune

With those wins, the playoff picture looks a lot better.

Monta Ellis wants to have a race with Leandro Barbosa. Ok, so maybe he doesn't *want to* per se, but he definitely talked about it.

Bell's defense has gotten markedly better lately. I really think that he missed Marion when the trade first happened. Or as he put it: My energy level personally went through a little down period when that trade happened.

Whaddya know, the Boris Diaw that won the Most Improved Player in '06 still exists somewhere in there. Maybe he's trying to win it again this year. He's thinking, if I take every other year off and really step it up in the even numbered years, that award is mine! Ok, maybe not.

Permit me some Sports Night quoting for this next link.
JEREMY Not fitting in is how qualified people lose jobs.
ISAAC Yeah, but a lot of time it's how people end up working here.
I just love my team!

I worry about articles like these. It just sounds like Marion all over again. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentences as Lebron and Kobe and KG, but I just... When I hear him say things like, I put in the time and the effort and the work to be an elite player and ... my teammates and coaches notice, even if other people don't notice it, it's like listening to Marion talk last summer. And that scares me a bit.


Other NBA News
Shawn Marion was out for two games because of back problems (or if you read comments on azcentral.com, because Pat Riley wants to get a good pick in the draft lotto). What I want to know is: was he in a car when he backed into an object in a garage? Because I really didn't read it that way, and I laaaughed.

One of the reasons that I was unable to listen to the Suns beat the pants off the Kings on Saturday night was because I was at the Wizards v Clippers awesomefest. Seriously, I wanted to shake some sense into all those people who left before the end of regulation. Let that game be a lesson to them. Four points in seven seconds to take it into over time! And Chris Kamen on the kiss cam! Awesomesauce!

Arenas thought he'd be back this week, but then on Monday the doctors said not yet. Who knows when he'll be back. If he doesn't come back this season, he might not come back to DC at all. I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

The Rockets lost! Finally!

The Nuggets score points like it's going out of style. I care very little about either team, so that article is going to stand on it's own.

The Seattle SuperSonics and Oklahoma City reached a preliminary agreement on a lease at the Ford Center, pending NBA approval of the team's move. Considering how Stern seems to feel about Seattle, it looks like a pretty definite move.

*puts on armchair psychologist hat* This guy seems like he's running from something. But he'll have great stories when he stops running.

Jesus can kill you if you don't get along

Oh, Cedric. What were you doing driving with a suspended license? And more to the point, what's going on with the clerk calling the cops for an invalid credit card? I want to hear more about this story, but I bet this is all that will come out about it.

I've never felt that Barkley hated the Suns, just that he doesn't want to be seen as playing favorites so he's hard on them. I think he wants them to be better, wants them to win a championship, so he gives what he feels is honest criticism.

Here, have an interesting comparison between Sir Chuck and Shaq.

It looks like the deal is going through to send Kidd to the Mavericks. This bums me out a little, but whatever. Mostly I'm happy that I actually remember who Van Horn is considering he last played in the 2006 Finals, and I was still trying to figure out what was going on then. I can't wait for the trade deadline when all this juggling will end.

Juggling like this. It's just a rumor, but man do I not want it to happen. It would make the Lakers better and the Wizards worse, and neither of those makes me happy.

Arenas and Thomas have started practicing with the team. No solid idea when either will return.

Arenas will probably not be asked to join Team USA in Beijing. This has got to be rough for him, considering that he once said that he'd rather win Olympic Gold than the Larry O'Brien trophy (scroll down because Gilbert loves to write novels instead of entries).

I saw this suggested somewhere else last year and still wish it would happen. I would love to see a team of international All Stars. Even if it couldn't be the new face of the ASG, I'd love to see it happen as a part of the weekend.

Speaking of the NBA making international play a regular part of the season, my guess is that this won't happen, but how cool would it be? I would love to watch an NBA team play in an actual international competition.

Team France has picked their new coach. It's Michel Gomez. Apparently he used to coach for them in the mid-nineties. What does Diaw think about him? So glad you asked.

Denmark has just thrown their hat into the ring of potential hosts for the 2014 FIBA World Championship. Again, I'm mostly just interested to see how this process works.

Today marks the first day of the WNBA free agency. The first blockbuster trade? Swin Cash has reason to believe it'll send her to the Storm.

And I said "Rhino...stop making things up."

I have been writing lists of links about basketball (mostly the Suns and the WNBA) in digest form and sending them to my sister almost every day. Recently I had the thought that maybe I should start posting them here, so other people could access them too.

So here goes, my first posted digest. Hopefully I'll have them up every day or so.

An interview with Mike Jones, an American playing pro ball in Iran. I rather enjoyed his emphasis on how friendly people there are and his description about what there is to do for fun. Surfing the internet ten hours a day instead of two. Hee. It was kinda cool that he wants to stay there (if the money is right).

I don't understand this. How can Chris Kaman play for Germany just because it's where his great grandparents were from? Doesn't he need to live there? Or have a passport already? Or at least citizenship? My head hurts from thinking about it.

France wants to host the 2014 FIBA World Championships. It's interesting to see how FIBA is picking this, since Japan (the site of last year's games) isn't exactly a basketball powerhouse. It would be pretty cool for the French national team to have it at home though.
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Boris Diaw answers 6 questions. He talks about basketball, movies, books, and photography. It's interesting (and rather gleeful) to me that he talks about his international basketball experiences with as much importance as his NBA experiences. I mean, I want him to care more about the *Suns* than the French national team, but I love that he doesn't shortchange international competition in favor of the NBA. (Photo from suns.com)

The recap of Monday's Suns game against the Wizards from the East Valley Tribune. Of note to me: Barbosa has the flu (which makes so much sense as to how invisible he was). It was honestly a crappy win, but without Marion (anymore) and without Shaq (yet) it's a take what you can get situation.

Shaq practices with the Suns for the first time. He gets winded (of course) and probably won't play until the Lakers game after the ASB (of course). I did enjoy that he and Grant Hill were carpooling. It'll be a good way to save on gas, diesel or otherwise. He also admits to not being Superman (crazytalk!). As a result of this practice, some of his new teammates have strongly requested that the team reinforce the apparatus currently supporting the two baskets at the team’s practice court. After watching one of Shaq’s slams during his personal workout Sunday, guard Leandro Barbosa shook his head and said "Man, that thing is coming down."

Shaq is huge and Pete Wentz is pocket-sized.

Latrell Sprewell is in more trouble. The "best" part of this to me, is that this is the same boat on which he choked a woman without her permission during consensual sex. Oh, Latrell...

Emotional fuckwits!

I just woke up early from a dream that had me posting reasons that I'm angry at Barbosa. About how he's been lost and unable to connect on anything. Which is all true. And I am angry, but I think I'd rather not post about that.

I want to post asking why in a game like last night's, we played without Jalen Rose or Marcus Banks. A shooter like Rose with fresh legs? A player who has purportedly good D like Banks? Get them out there when we still had a lead. Rest the guys who looked so sloppy in the fourth.

I was so giddy and elated in the first half. It was like the team that I fell in love with last year in the playoffs was back. No one plays basketball like they did last year, not even this year's team. Last year everyone counted them out and they got so far playing such amazing and beautiful ball. They had so much to prove. This game was shades of that, and I really was excited to see them come out and do it again.

And then midway through the third they started getting tired. They started losing that beautiful lead. In the fourth when it was all gone, I thought I'd cry.

I don't know if I'm on the conspiracy bandwagon, that this was fixed by the NBA, but I can tell you that I think that it was an unfair ruling that did benefit the team that perpetrated the flagrant. I know that if Duncan and Bowen walked on that court following the Elson and Jones incident, they should have been suspended too. There is some bias in that, even if it's not intended to be game-fixing bias. If rules are rules and we should suck that up as Suns fans, then rules should be rules for everyone.

The latest I've heard about that (and this hasn't been confirmed, just word of mouth) is that Stu Jackson (NBA exec vp of basketball operations) said that Stoudemire and Diaw got their suspensions as a result of leaving the bench to participate in the near brawl, but that Duncan seemed to get up out of concern for Elson, and therefore wasn't suspended.

Do I really need to address that asshattery? No I didn't think so. (It does briefly bear mentioning that that's been Diaw's story about why he left the bench from the get go. He was worried about Nash.)

Whatever. I feel robbed by fate, frustrated by the outcome, and angry at Barbosa.

Tomorrow's game had better be awesome.