End of an Era

Suns' embarrassing, blow-out loss at home against the Spurs on Friday when the Spurs led start-to-finsh was more than just a loss. It could be an end of an era - a glorious era at that. The last 4 years have been the best Suns basketball, may be even the best basketball I have ever seen. Mike D'Antoni and Nash brought an unique and refreshing new style to town that captured everybody's imagination. It was run and gun and all fun. But the Spurs ruined it for all of us. They just played better defense and time and again proved that their style is better than the Suns as far as winning championships go. The Suns just could not solve the Spurs riddle. They realized they couldn't do it this year either and thats why they got Shaq. It looked good for a while as the Suns dominated the Spurs in both the games they played since the trade. The playoffs looked good for the Suns as well until very late in to game 1. But after that ridiculous ending to the first game of this series, the Spurs have resurrected and are handling the Suns and Shaq pretty easily.

So clearly nothing is working against the Spurs. D'Antoni is not working. Nash and the run-and-gun is not working. Amare and Barbosa and Diaw and Shaq aren't working either. They could actually get swept. How shocking is that! They are still second to the Spurs but the problem is, you can't even say they are second only to the Spurs. The Spurs have always been the best team in the league and the Suns were right behind. The Suns are still behind, but a few teams might have over-taken the Spurs, with "might" being the operative word. Lakers, Boston and even the Hornets and the Jazz could potentially beat the Spurs. Some people are saying the Suns may miss the playoffs next season. Thats how ugly things are right now.

So the Suns have to rebuild and reload and retool. It starts with the coach in this case. I am not one of those guys who wants the coach fired after every loss. We live in an era of instant gratification these days where fans want results immediately. You can't blame them because they are paying a tonne of money for their tickets and why should they put up with mediocrity? They also have 100 different channels to watch if their team is losing on TV. There is way too much money involved in sports and with the GMs and coaches making millions, they just can't hold on to their jobs for 4 or 5 years without improving and moving in the right direction towards a championship. So Mike D'Antoni has to go. This firing won't even be one of those "this is the culture in the NBA (and our society) these days. We are impatient and coaches get fired too soon" thing. This firing would actually be fair in some sense because Mike is a very special coach who runs a very unique system and this system has been shown to be in-effective against the Spurs 3 out of 4 years (including this one). So you got to change. I would be very surprised if D'Antoni comes back as the Suns coach next year. I am one of the biggest D'Antoni fan. I am sure he will have a job-offer within hours because he can build a fun team like no other. Chicago and Toronto are probably already waiting for the Suns to fire him. He is an excellent asset to an organization that doesn't have championship expectations unlike the 07 Suns. Thats exactly why he did so well with the 04 and 05 Suns.This team is not getting any younger and the Suns don't have a lot of cap-room. This roster can be tweaked, but not changed a whole lot. So I can't see how the Suns can go into next season with the same set of players and the same coach. That dog aint gonna hunt. Steve Kerr has to make a move and I think he will.

It'll be a sad day for me and the Suns and the NBA when that happens because Mike-D re-invented a style of play in the NBA that was 100 times more watch-able than the style that was in vogue the previous 15 years. Along with Steve Nash, he created poetry in motion and many teams copied parts of it to speed up the game. NBA was looking good again. Unfortunately defense wins championship and this Suns team with real bad defenders in Nash, Barbosa and Diaw and a semi-decent Amare was never going to get it done in the playoffs against the Spurs. The Spurs on the other hand consistently shut the Suns down by making sure their defenders stayed with the 3-point shooters and with Bowen locking up Nash. No meaningful adjustments from the Suns and if Nash is cut off, this offense is done. They probably can't even beat a San Antonio high school team without Nash. Thats the other problem with this system - there is none. It's basically Nash running and dishing or probing and figuring out what to do in half-court. When Bowen cuts him off, it's game over for the Suns. Plus Nash is also getting exposed defensively as Parker is killing him. Good young athletes like Shawn Marion and Joe Johnson are no longer with the Suns and hence Nash is getting exposed on defense even more.

Speaking of Joe Johnson, one has to wonder how much of this is Robert Sarver's fault? While we were all happy to see how good Diaw was when he was new in town and excited about the high draft pick that Atlanta gave us, it's clear now Diaw is no Joe Johnson. Plus Atlanta has won one more game than the Suns this off-season as of today and that means that high pick the Suns get next year, is not that high after all. That sucks big-time. All this because Robert Sarver didn't make the right financial decision on Joe Johnson. You think Suns can use Joe Johnson in this series? Do you think Bowen guards Nash if Joe was on the roster? Do you think Nash gets exposed so much on D if either Joe or Matrix is in this roster? How about Sarver also trading all his top picks the last few years to cut salary? You telling me these Suns can't use Luol Deng, Nate Robinson, Rajon Rando and Sergio Rodriguez? When things go fine like it did the last few years, we tend to forget these bad decisions. But when we get (almost) swept in the first-round, they all come back to haunt us. I am beginning to think this may be one of the worst managed franchises the last few years which has had one of the best records in the NBA not because of it's front-office and ownership, but inspite of them! These fools have shot this team for the next few years. They have taken a young, championship caliber team and made it a old, over-the-hill team in 3 years.

Congrats Sarver. You deserve to be swept. But the Suns should win one for the fans on Sunday and I am pretty sure they will.