Suns had a December to remember. After a 1-5 start, they have now gone 23-3 in the last 26 games. They have the second best record in the league. Business is very good for the Suns right now. The team is firing on all cylinders. Diaw has gotten out of his early season funk. Amare is back to being dominant again. I am still waiting for those ferocious dunks, but he seems to be back to 80% or so. Barbosa has taken another step forward in his career this season and Marion is doing his thing as always. They are deep too with Marcus Banks, Jalen Rose, James Jones, Kurt Thomas and Jurmaine Jones, though Mike D'Antoni doesn't really use all of them. Sometimes, he doesn't use any of them!
But the story for the Suns is again Steve Nash. This guy is becoming a truly dominant super-star in the league. He is even better than the last 2 years when he was the MVP. His stock has risen steadily and is now getting all the credit he deserves. 3 coaches including Mike D'Antoni have recently said that he is the best player in the league, period. Thats high praise in this league coming from Scott Skiles and Pat Riley. He is averaging 20 points and 11.3 assists on 52.5% shooting and 50.7 % from beyond the arc. Thats better numbers than last year across the board and he carried the team last year without Amare. He is doing even better this year playing for a better, deeper team. He is the front runner for the MVP award again though he'll face some great challenge from some great guys. Right now, Nowitzki, Kobe and Gilbert Arenas are very much deserving of consideration. I am sure LeBron will join them soon and Carlos Boozer is in the vicinity too. But as of today, I think Nash wins it again easily. Lets see how the season evolves.
The best record in the league belongs to the Mavs. They have had 2 streaks of 12 and 13 games (and counting) to Suns 15 games. They have also beat the Suns twice, once early in the season during the bad stretch. I hate to admit it, they might be a tough matchup for the Suns. Josh Howard is becoming a huge pest and Nowitzki is Nowitzki. Looks like the Western Championship might come down to the Suns-Mavs again. I think both these teams are better than the Spurs. Last year, we got a Mavs-Spurs semis due to the weird ranking scheme for NBA playoffs. Most people thought that should have been the Western finals. That has been fixed this year, but we might end up with a legitimate Mavs-Spurs semis this year with the Mavs winning again. Too early for all this talk, but I think it looks like a Mavs-Suns Western finals with the Howard-Marion match-up deciding the winner. Hows that for some early season predictions :-)
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