You and me could write a bad romance.

The Suns
First off, the (kinda old) video that brought me back to the blog:

As this person says, the Phoenix Suns are probably the most fun-loving team in the NBA. Hence, my love for them.

Amare on kids radio!

Maybe Goran can be the Point Guard of the Future!



Lakers v Suns
Tonight is making me hate the Lakers even more. Fouling Grant Hill so hard that he loses his contact and requires stitches. Lou Amundson getting flagrently fouled and not getting the call, causing Alvin Gentry to be ejected. Evil usually wins, I guess.

As a pick me up, have a picture of a napping Earl Clark:














(Courtesy of Jared Dudley's twitter account.)


Mystics News
It's not actually news yet, but on Tuesday the Mystics are having a press conference to announce an apparently awesome new signing. My guess is Katie Smith, which would be super good, but I'm also holding out hope that it's Deanna Nolan (even if she's not a free agent). I don't think it could possibly be Penny Taylor, and she's the only other option of this magnitude.

So I guess we'll see...

Libraries gave us power

The Suns beat the Mavericks last night. It was a pretty awesome game. I particularly enjoyed Hill playing D against Dirk decently for all of his playing time and the time that I noticed Shaq *finally* getting up to cheer for an Amare play.

The Onion's take on the Shaq trade. If I were still in my 20s, maybe I could sustain a burst of energy more powerful than the sun could emit over a 10-billion-year time period. But Steve Nash has to understand that I have a bad hip.

Steve Nash is made of awesome, but his shoes are made of scraps. I think this is super cool. I wonder how much they will cost. I'd be tempted to get some. Oh wait, never mind (scroll down). 100 bucks is crazy for that. Oh well.

Kobe won't have surgery. He won't do the 3-point shootaround, but he still might play in the ASG. My bet is that in the end this will really hurt the Lakers. Which, y'know, I don't really mind.

What do The Suns think about the potential Kidd to Dallas trade? They don't seem to care too much.

Information on the Devean George situation. I just don't really get how he gets to do this. Something about Larry Bird? So confusing. And he's the only one in the league? How is this different from Kobe's ability to block a trade? So many questions.

An article about the Mystics' center, Gillian Goring. I'm taking all of the information in here with a grain of salt. It's not a very well written article, and it seems to think that the NBA and the WNBA are the same. All the same, having an article that long on one of the Mystics whose name doesn't rhyme with "Weird" is pretty cool and definitely worth linking to.

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...

Like a flaming dragon on a playdate

Finally the Varejao situation is taken care of! I was pulling for him to play for the Bobcats for a couple reasons. First, because I could go see him play the Suns next year. (I can't go see them in Cleveland, because my Cavs loving cousin probably wouldn't like it if I rooted against his team.) Also, the Bobcats organization is in favor of players playing for their national teams. The Cavs are kind of on the fence about that (unless your name happens to be LeBron).

I'm mostly just happy that he's back to playing again. I enjoy his energy, his enthusiasm, his hair, and having another Brazilian team member to cheer for. Not that I cheer for the Cavs too often, but still.

I'm really dismayed and angry about Stern's statement regarding the settlement between Madison Square Garden and Anucha Browne Sanders. It sends a very clear message about how he regards women. As a friend has said, "he'll fine players for not wearing ties, but not Thomas for flagrantly harassing a high level female executive?"

MSG and Thomas created a very clear hostile working environment for women. Stern can take a definitive position supporting the many women who work for the NBA, not to mention female basketball fans. But he refuses. This from a man who has been an important supporter of the WNBA. It makes me very angry. I'm going to be trying to find contact information for him and/or Stu Jackson, and writing a letter. There's not much else that I can do.

On a not quite happier note, I wanted to touch on some things from Monday night's game against Miami.

Number one, since when does Shaq hit all his freethrows? It was only 4, but still. If he had missed them, it would have gone into overtime. I'm mostly kidding, but it really did take me by surprise.

Second, how cool is it that the Suns hit five threes in the last 1:47? It was like they just weren't going to give up. "You guys can keep making twos," they seemed to say, "but if we keep making threes, eventually we can catch up." It was pretty awesome. Even more awesome? That three of those threes were from Hill. Hill! Who everyone keeps saying should lay off the long range shots. I guess he just had a hot hand. Unlike some people I could name. *cough*Diaw and Barbosa*cough*

Next up, tonight versus the Jazz we finally get another televised game!

Because of some issues with the feed, I haven't posted here in forever. I think the issues have been resolved, and so now I just have to deal with the inertia of not writing for months.

The season has (clearly) started, and the Suns are doing great. This two game slide notwithstanding. (Although, can I just say, WTF is up with losing to the Timberwolves? I guess in an 82 game season the Suns can spare a loss, but still.)

On Friday I got to see them play live against the Wizards (in DC). It was very fun, I had terrific seats and they won 122-107. Plus Nash set a Verizon Center record with his 19 assists. I was sitting among a lot of fellow Suns fans, which caused my friend to remark that our section sucked.

Strawberry got big cheers from the crowd (even the Wizards fans) when he got to play in the fourth quarter, which wasn't too surprising but it made me smile. In a world where Grant Hill can get booed by Orlando fans, anything is possible.

(As an aside, those Magic fans really didn't have much cause to boo. Hill points out that his health was fine last season when he played 65 regular-season games. "I sat out a lot of games last year because the team wanted me to sit, not because I necessarily wanted to sit." From here.)

Also worth mentioning, this article is a good recap of the game, especially notable for the assist discussion and the sidebar about Barbosa's flagrant foul.