Suns went into New York and lost today like they have been prone to do lately. They didn't get embarrassed like the other day at Boston, but this was bad enough considering they were playing against their old friend and ex-coach Mike D'Antoni. Nash gave him a hearty hug before the game, but his 19 assists were not enough to secure a Suns win. Nash has been raining assists lately, but the Suns are still a mediocre team. Some days they look real good beating the Mavs or nearly-beating the Spurs, but then on other days, they lose to the Knicks.
Terry Porter has made some changes and some people say the Suns are better for it, but things are still not significantly better. The ball goes into Shaq a lot more and they run a lot less, but the defense is nowhere near where it needs to be, Nash gets exposed every night and the others in the team are not much better either. They just don't have the right personnel for defense. For instance, how can David Lee have a 25-16 night with Shaq and Amare in the paint? Amare had a grand total of 4 boards today. I am sure D'Antoni loved how the Lee-Shaq/Amare match-up turned out today. The Suns are nowhere near the class of the Lakers or the Celtics and and with all the changes, this team is still searching for an identity. So I don't know where they are headed, but I would have to guess not too far.
The Suns are really riding one of the most under-rated curses in all of sports. The "Lew Alcindor curse" is now 40 years and counting and it would stick out like a sore thumb in Phoenix if the Cardinals win the Super Bowl. Even Sportscenter referred to Phoenix as a NBA-town last week. Phoenix quite frankly is not the greatest sports-town period these days, but it used to be a hard-core NBA market in the 90's before the influx of all the new franchises. Nobody cared about the Cards back then and the DBacks, Coyotes and Jake Plummer where not in town yet. DBacks got their championship within a few years and if the Cards get theirs next week, the Suns will be left all alone. I hope the Cards win, but I want the Suns curse to end soon too.
In other news, Jeff Kent is retiring. He is the most under-rated baseball player of all time. He is one of the best ever to play at second base, but few people realize that. Dude is not the best human being - who can forget his motor-cylce lie, but he never got credit for all of his baseball exploits. He put up great numbers and it was always credited to him either protecting or playing in front of Barry Bonds. He then went to Houston and now his success was all because of Biggio, Bagwell and Berkman or it was because of the small juice box out there for a baseball park. But Kent went to LA and still put up decent numbers until he got too old the last couple of season. He never got along with Bonds or for that matter with anybody, but Bonds was the only guy who wanted the Giants to re-sign him. Bonds is no fool and he knew how good Kent was and Bonds also knew that the Giants would not spend the money to replace him in the lineup with an equivalent bat. But the fans had no appreciation and thats been Kent's story everywhere. Now he is retired and I would definitely put him in the Hall of Fame.
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