The Phoenix Suns (Mr. NN's favorite team) made a big trade right before the NBA trade deadline that was supposed to secure the top spot in their Western Conference playoff run over 2006-07 chumps San Antonio, the Dallas Mavericks and the hated L.A. Lakers. When I say big, I mean man mountain big. All 340 pounds of Shaquille O'Neal, all 340 pounds squeezed into his little Suns uni, all 340 pounds brought in to Phoenix to add strength and toughness to the formerly run and gun Suns. And after Shaq's first 6 games, it appears that all those 340 pounds do is to block out the Suns. The Suns have a 2-4 record with Shaq in the line-up and have fallen out of the top spot in the Western Conference.
Is this a case of the rich getting greedy? Was it worth the sacrifice to get a formerly great player that had been slowed in recent years by injuries sustained from the constant pounding he had taken over a 15 year playing career, one that really could never fit into the system that had been successful all these years? Was Shawn Marion, the main player let go by The Suns, such an unsettling force in the locker room that Suns G.M Steve Kerr had to get rid of him even if it destroyed the magical chemistry that The Suns seemed to have on the court? Marion (who was my favorite player on the Suns) has such a unique combination of outside shooting touch, the ability to fill the lane on a fast break to be on the receiving end of all those miraculous Steve Nash passes, and is capable of defending all five other positions of the opposing team's line-up. Shaq, by comparison, is just a huge immobile mountain of - yes, I'll say it - fatness, and it has completely changed the Suns game.
Have you ever thought something looked so good you had to have it, but then when you got it home it just didn't fit with the rest of your stuff? Has something seemed so desirable until you had a chance to try it out, and discovered that what you had before was better? I think the Suns are finding that out the hard way.
You're welcome (I fixed EVERY SINGLE ONE of your links for you).
ReplyDeleteRaja Bell is the best looking one on the team and that's all that counts to me. We shall overcome.
You're welcome (I fixed EVERY SINGLE ONE of your links for you).
ReplyDeleteWhat did I do wrong? I followed the little link icon on the compose new blog entry screen, but that didn't seem to work. So what did I mess up?
And more importantly, Raja Bell may be good looking, but this ain't a beauty contest - It's The National Basketball Association. Filling up the hoop is what counts.
my analysis (consequential, as i have been a suns fan long enough to witness dick van arsdale play live at the madhouse on mcdowell):
ReplyDeleteTEMPE, AZ—Claiming he was initially excited at the prospect of playing for a legitimate championship contender, new Phoenix Suns center Shaquille O'Neal admitted Monday that, upon reading about the phenomenon of massive stellar explosions popularly known as supernovas, he is now terrified of the entire organization.
"I have emerged from my astronomical studies a much more educated man, a learned man, and yes—a frightened man. I am now a sage of the supernova," O'Neal said during a combination press conference and PowerPoint presentation at an Arizona State University lecture hall. "If I would have known being a Sun meant being a part of a system where gravity could collapse, causing my radiant celestial body to explode in an event 10 times brighter than an ordinary Phoenix Sun—or worse, dematerialize into a neutron star or possibly a black hole—I would have never agreed to the trade."
"I have a family to think of," continued a visually tense O'Neal, who later stated that, because supernovas occur in our galaxy once every 40 to 50 years, the Suns, having joined the league in 1968, are "due for a big one."
While O'Neal said that simply being a part of the Suns' runaway-nuclear-fusion-reaction style of play would be frightening enough, he added that learning how an aging supergiant star typically ends its life cycle in a violent explosion was a profoundly terrifying experience. The 35-year-old center, who considers himself a super-giant star in the twilight of his career, has refused to go anywhere near his new teammates.
"Like Superman, I receive my energy from the Suns," O'Neal said. "I'm scared I will not be able to flourish in an environment where there is a risk that the Suns' supply of hydrogen could be exhausted, which would cause the core of the Suns to collapse into the center—in this case, me—and create a rise in temperature and pressure that would become great enough to ignite helium and then start a helium-to-carbon fusion cycle."
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/shaq_terrified_of_phoenix_suns
o/`Keep it coming, love! Keep it coming, love!
Don't stop it now, don't stop it, no, don't stop it now, don't stop! o/`
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