1. You don’t have to read this.

2. You don’t have to read this.

3. If you decide to read it and then feel offended that it has less to do with Suns basketball and more to do with the ridiculous world around NBA basketball in general, please remember – you didn’t have to read this, so please spare me the comments reminding me that this is a Suns basketball site and blah, blah, blah…

Proceed to jump?

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A funny conversation between friends makes me realize just how much I am hurting for some basketball today...

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Not that it made a difference here at BSotS, but I never got around to posting September’s Halfway Haikus. By the end of September I was in more of an “f-u” than a “haiku” mood. I’m still in that mood as far as the NBA is concerned, and so I’ll skip September and October altogether.

Focusing more on football than basketball this year is a relatively new thing for me, as I usually temper whatever misgivings or apathy I hold toward the oblong pigskin game of the brutes with a healthy dose of that pick and roll. I’m a Bears fan, a Vikings fan, a Jets fan…even a little bit of a Chargers fan; I cannot be loyal to any one team. But I have been fiercely loyal to the Suns.

I can’t remember who wrote the post and I’m not going to go back and look since I’m not trying to be a journalist here (fact-checking and all that jazz) but I believe it was Alex Laugan who said he hoped that the 2011-2012 season would be ultimately, completely cancelled. I wholly agreed with that notion. Just looking at what we’ve got going for us right now, looking at how pathetic and sad it is for Nash and Hill to have stuck around (although admittedly I’ve been all for it in the past) – it just makes me want to slap an old woman in the face. It makes me want to slam dunk a poor, defenseless turtle. It makes me want to ignore that doggy in the window. It makes me want to…watch more football. How peculiar, all this doom and gloom (and violent thinking, yikes) coming from me while posting on the “Bright” Side. Not exactly dolling out the rainbows and sunshine here.

But…we have a new team president, Mr. Brad Casper. And as I understand it, he had not watched a game or really been a fan until 2005? Seems legit. In all seriousness, I find that a lack of experience can be refreshing in some instances. It happens all the time in government. Shit.

That’s all I have in me for now, especially after taking a moment to read Wil Cantrell’s The Smartest Suits in the Building, Act III. Thank you for that.

Classic:

Sarver (stands and breaks into a sprint to the door): "EAT AND RUN, EAT AND RUN, EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF, HAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I'm still not feeling it, folks. Football preseason - meh. Baseball - double meh. And the lockout continues. So here are my weak haikus for August. I promise the joie de vivre will come back in the later months of the year. Please feel free to add as many haikus of your own in the comments section. It will make me feel warm and fuzzy!

**************************************

I heard a friend say

Something completely shocking :

“Let’s go rosterbate”

That was years ago

Conversation continues…

Choose your favorites

We say some things like,

Pietrus versus JR

Dudley everywhere

Antawn Jamison?

He’s got nothing on C. Frye

Come on, step it up

Trade Robert Sarver

For the entire team

And just start over

Bring back Marion

And please bring back Raja Bell

You can keep Griffin…

Bring back Barbosa

I will “meep, meep!” all night long

And unleash the “woooo!”

It will be so nice

When the lockout is lifted

Big money right there

Give grant lots of hugs

And give Nash some big noogies

Free kittens for all

I have no worthwhile haikus to contribute this month. I am so sorry I’ve failed you. Actually I don’t *really* care, but I want to be consistent – so please feel free to add your own in comments as usual. Also, I should mention that I’ve spent most of the last few months on vacation and/or working very hard, so basketball has taken a backseat lately to exploring new restaurants in big (actual) cities and bitch-slapping deadlines that try to bring me down. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is. Until we get some momentum on the upcoming, slow/late starting season, my haikus will be more like hai-poos. Oh, me. 

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Where’s MJ these days?

Shaq tweets, “I’m retiring”…

And most hate LeBron

The Finals are weird

At least for me this year, but…

I will still watch ‘em

Second appearance…

Remember ’06 finals?

Miami won [in] 6

Dirkules, haha

Nowitzki is a beast man

Oh, ReDirkulous

Speaking of Finals…

American Airlines, dude

I’m Chicago-bound

It is exciting

The Bulls series was crazy

But I miss the Suns

Nash goes cliff diving

Yeah, I’m checking his Facebook…

I am so jelly

Not much to say now

Summertime sports are boring

Watch the Stanley Cup…

And that’s all for June

Bright Side, any summer plans?

Answer in haikus!?

Oh, hi. Nope...didn't forget about my pledge to contribute to this fantastic site with my strange haiku habit. Much like April's edition, though, this one is lacking any real drive or creativity. PLEASE add your own in the comments section to sum up the 2011 NBA playoffs and/or the Suns post-season!

With no Suns action

We evaluate players

Some more than others…

Steve Nash is staying

His facebook says he loves AZ

I don’t know ‘bout that

Cosmic mystery

Unknowable enigma

That’s not Channing Frye

Majestic Gortat

You may have Gortatitis

Moo moo moo moo moo

Oh, that was mad cow

What I meant to say was this:

Yeah…I got nothing

Wisdom clashes hands

Hunted victory flutters

Sad team must bow head

Oh, how sweep it is

Jackson saw game 4 coming

And…so did we, right?

So much going on

Western playoffs equable

But beasts in the East

“Knock-knock”…”Who’s there?”…”A

haik”…”A haik who?”…”Hey, how the

heck did you know that?”

Your turn, please.

I have to tell you, folks, before you decide to read this junk: I am in no mood for haikus today. I’m almost not in the mood to watch the game tonight (sigh...of course I will). But alas, it’s time for the BBGF Halfway Haikus: April Edition, and I will continue to churn them out once a month (or until Seth tells me to stop it).  Please add your own to give this post some substance!

April’s upon us

A win over the Clippers

Might there be a chance?

Absolutely not

Spanked by San Antonio

Still dislike Manu…

Whoa. The Bulls are BACK!

This makes me very happy

Sorry to say so…

At Canis Hoopus

Optimism was low-key

Suck it, Timberwolves

Merrily we go

Another couple losses

Couldn’t break 90’s?

It doesn’t matter

Whatever happens tonight

…just the Timberwolves

Ending with the Spurs

Really universe? Really?

Rivalry my butt

I want a burger

How was the Sunday meet-up?

B-S-O-T-S

Haiku! Gesundheit…

Ridiculous waste of time

But thanks for reading…

6 losses so far

It started with the Celtics

Luck ‘o the Irish?

Here in the desert

Milwaukee had some issues

Sucks to be a Buck

Boom goes the Thunder

Oklahoma surprises…

…well, no one really

Suns melt the Rockets

Houston, they had a problem

It was a close one

When eating Nuggets

Some moderation is key

Suns got tummy ache

Orlando Magic?

Oh, prestidigitation

Blocking out the Suns

Hornets stung us bad

Oh my God, I’m allergic!

Get to dee choppah!?

Next up, a home game

Hey, let’s go see that one guy…

Louis Amundson

After that, it’s…well…

Clippers, Lakers, Toronto

Haiku away! Derp.

As my bio implies, but in case you didn't know, I am not the girlfriend of a basketball. I'm Elle, a girl who's a friend to all Suns fans. I like to add colorful commentary to otherwise technical and tense subjects, if only to amuse myself/pass time. I've actually been a BSotS fan and reader for a long while, long before I "joined" the site.

But I do have some confessions to make.

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Happy Birthday Nash

Oh, and Mr. Pietrus

Hope it was a blast

Not unlike your play

Last night’s game was some fun stuff

Though not a shocker

Bittersweet notion

“All this work just for 8th seed…”

People losing seats

Carter is a boob

Just a bunch of fat nothing

Not too fun to watch

He wishes for wins

He wishes to rosterbate

Disappointment, go!

I still love Grant Hill

And in fact, I always will

That man is too cool

Growing pains, back pains

Hair all a mess on his head

Oh, you know Lopez?

Dragic_is_Magic

Pretty sure I envy you

You’re an awesome chick

Pontification

Not unlike rosterbation

Yet irrelevant

Purple - orange duo
Colors bring calm. Then, panic:
Doc, check out this rash

Grace personified,

I leap into the basket

I meant to do that

*Submit yours below!*

January 9

Oh God, only 15 wins

So far what a shame…

Dudley’s crazy knee

Launched that ball away from him

Everyone went “boooo”

Only one game passed

Fifteen and twenty one now

Dude, who are the Suns?

Nuggets are not good

For anything but dipping

Into tasty sauce

Basketball is hard

Just ask Carter or Lopez

Follow up on that

Steve Nash is ugly

Sorry, but seriously

Office girls love him

The Suns are Jello

Sitting in an old, cold bowl

Put a stapler in!

The rule for today

Win the next game or get punched

New rule tomorrow

If I owned a pig

I would name him Rob Sarver

And cook some bacon

What are you smoking?

Gentry isn’t the problem

Your face is stupid

Enough of this stuff

Can I get a “Let’s Go Suns!”?

Refrigerator

Phoenix - It's a Dry Heat.

Florida - I really wish they'd change their name to “Humidity” so fans or residents could say “it's not the heat that's so bad. It's the Humidity.” Think about the irony of the Heat beating the Suns. It's all too existential.

Yes, to look on the bright side is to appreciate that two extremely talented friends can take over a team, a city, some spotlight – together – and still say it's all for the love of the game. Some are jealous, some suspicious, and some will simply roll their eyes. Every now and then they look to the vets for some direction. But Grant Hill just shakes his head.

Sigh.

In the meantime there is CAPS LOCK. In the meantime there are those of us who've actually said “rec” out loud at work while we're definitely supposed to be doing something else. In the meantime, Wil goes crazy. 2NASHTY comes through with a comment straight out of little brother/black sheep land. People are straight up growing mustaches.

Stay thirsty, my friends. We are...the most interesting team in the world.

Wow, it’s in Wikipedia! It’s in the news! Tim C., the good guy from Pounding the Rock, also classifies the ever entertaining Suns / Spurs saga as a rivalry (and uses a great big brother / little brother metaphor to hammer it home, as it were). So the Suns and Spurs exemplify the time honored joy in observing diametric match-ups, yes? Oh yeah… Alex Laugan also touched on the issue this morning.

At first I was going to disagree and say that the teams had a lot more in common than most know and that the Suns / Spurs history wasn’t any more emulatory in nature than some other NBA team (disqualifying the literal use of the term “rivalry”), but after pausing a while to think about it, there really are only a few similarities between the two. The first and most obvious similarity: Phoenix and San Antonio are both large southwest cities with a robust helping of diversity. It’s huge for sports when all fans can come together despite pressing sociopolitical issues that might otherwise divide them. As I recall, the Spurs were actually on board with wearing the “Los” jerseys on Cinco de Mayo last year, but they couldn’t be made or distributed fast enough to wear (game 2, playoffs). Other similarities include the insatiable need to beat the Mavericks, to make fun of (and concede to) the Lakers, great coaches (you can’t get mad at Pop…’cause he might actually pop and that would be kinda gross), and of course the strong fan confidence backing the whole operation up in the first place.

The biggest differences between the Suns and Spurs are (in MY opinion, which is to say when I am not twirling my hair and pretending to know things about basketball):

·        We don’t have a flopper on the team. The “beloved” Balki Bartokomous (Manu) Flop – I say beloved because some find it amusing when basketball players fall down and go boom – just won’t find its way into a play by any of our Suns.  The Suns are too cool for that nonsense (but not above smashing glass doors, hooray). Manu isn’t the worst in this respect, though. At least he doesn’t have a weasel face. Manu can definitely shoot those three pointers, but then again so can his match-up for tonight. Go Jason Richardson!

·        Our bench seems to be a lot more colorful than the Spurs bench. Okay, so I don’t really know too much about the Spurs back-up dancers, but they don’t have a magic Dragic or a newly extended and no doubt ecstatic Dudley (who scares the heck out of the Spurs vets, anyway). Our toys are more fun. Gary Neal looks a little scary, though, and I’m raising an eyebrow in his direction this evening.

·         Celebrity disparity. None of our guys are dating or married to a famous person. Good for them. I, for one, think that celebrities curse sports at times (with the exception of the Lakers whose roster includes celebrities as is). Look at the Kardashian Cowboys. Ouch. And yes, I am aware that when she was dating Reggie Miller the Saints won the Super Bowl and my whole argument just went out the window. Whatever.

·         Happy colors. Purple + Orange = Good judgment and Power. Black + Silver = Absence and…yeah I am just totally making this junk up as I go. Sorry.

                                                         GAME ON!

Location:

Casey Jones’ Bar and Grill (32nd Street and Bell Road – about a million miles away from where I live). Back table, huge big screen (not HD, boo hiss) all to ourselves. It’s a Packers bar, so there was really no fanfare. Upside: better service, easier to concentrate. Downside:  comrades would not stop talking about football.

In Attendance:

Friends Erik, Josh and Jeremy (you might remember Erik as my “basketball boyfriend” from earlier FanPosts) and random patrons of the bar.

Note to readers – this is extremely disjointed and random at parts, but amusing if you’re really bored…

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To our Phoenix Suns, who will, at the very least, entertain and amuse their fans this season by merely existing among the other 10-15 (or so, out of the other 29) talented teams in the wonderful world of the NBA.  I will proudly raise a glass (bottle, cup, etc.) in honor and anticipation of the Suns’ precarious disposition this season, and clang it optimistically against the glass of a fellow fan.

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One month and three days to go until the start of the Phoenix Suns Preseason! That’s one month and three days of anticipation, speculation, expectation, and, well… many other “ations” to be sure. But it’s coming. Can you feel it? The first home game will be fun and I hope to see some of you there.

The offseason, blah. This trade, that trade, things we don’t have. Things that we want, reasons we’re sad. Whoa…that was starting to rhyme. Dudley still tweets, Hill is still a family man, Nash is a badass in his sleep, Frye still laughs at everything and appreciates life, and so on. It’s entertaining (and smart for the professionals) to keep an eye on the guys in the offseason, but for me – just the basketball “girlfriend”, not the announcer, stat-keeper or credible confidant, it gets boring. Don’t misunderstand, I love reading all the articles, posts and comments on this site – with writers like Seth, Alex, Wil, etc…it’s hard not to be on this site every single day. But I’m jonesing for the real action. One month and three days…

Onward to awesomeness.

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It’s been almost a month since my last post. I’ve been very busy trying to stay out of the valley since summertime made its debut, and I hate lugging a laptop around on trips. So in the meantime, I haven’t had the time or the desire to worry about the Suns. What’s to worry about? Ah, but I started to worry, a few days ago, that if I didn’t post something soon I’d go down in BSotS flames with my report cards and horoscope predictions lost in the internet void forever. Well, not really - but I did tell Will I wanted to write again.

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We didn’t forget about you. In fact, we’ve been thinking a lot about you lately.

In the spirit of fun and in my peculiar fashion, I’d like to consider Jared Dudley’s personality via astrology. I know, I know…this is about as effective as believing in Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny (who both, if you’re under 10 or borderline 12 years old and reading this, absolutely exist). But the carrot I’m dangling over your head, just out of your reach, is Dudley – a Cancer, born July 10, 1985.

Crabs can't really jump, but you can...

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"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

So says Shakespeare’s Juliet when suggesting that the names we ascribe to objects entail an element of arbitrariness (mmm...meaty words). So, as an object, Gani Lawal might as of now be viewed as a good or bad idea, a new or scary prospect, a possible lynchpin, a natural...or a dud (a "Dudley" would be a different, pleasant story). But we have yet to really objectify this man, once named “Mr. Basketball 2007”, so until then I want to know where a name like his originated.

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What Happens in Vegas... certainly shouldn’t stay there in this Bright Sider's opinion. I’d like to talk (type) about the Summer League and the Suns’ upcoming soiree in Sin City. I wondered to myself -- which almost always translates into me doing a lot of reading and research -- what exactly is the purpose of having summer league? Is it like summer camp glorified?

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This is the 7th installment of the 2009-10 Phoenix Suns player report cards. We're using the old-school A-F system for continuity’s sake. Today the spotlight’s on Channing Frye.

For a Phoenix fan, Frye’s addition to the team in July last year was a very attractive prospect. Having attended St. Mary’s high school in the valley and then rocking his way to the NBA through the University of Arizona, Frye flew to Phoenix out of Portland as fast as he could and we welcomed him with open arms. Now we’re facing the possibility of his departure. It’s been one hell of a season for our 6’11" Forward-Center.

His first and maybe even last season with the Suns, summed up by the most important people in the basketball universe (the Bright Side readers), produces Frye’s final grade for the 2009-10 season.

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I’m bored. The offseason is very, very off. Yes I’ve been interested in and paying attention to all of the recent Suns drama, and sure I’ve been looking forward to some of the summer league action. But I’m still bored with nothing to watch except golf - and I really detest golf. I feel like a little kid on a road trip killing my parents with, “Are we there yet?” only an hour or so into the trek. It is such a long road to October, and goodness do I hate those kind of kids. So instead of whining about my impatience and boredom, perhaps I’ll take a moment to reminisce on a brighter time. This is the Bright Side of the Sun, after all.

Back in the day (or prior to 2005), I used to hate the sound of a bell tower. Neither Metallica nor ACDC could shake the image of a ghostly cemetery or a cheesy wedding (both equally terrifying) from my mind after hearing the ethereal toll. Then suddenly there was this man with a name straight out of Aladdin (aww) controlling the floor and the toll quickly became music to my ears. Raja Bell stole my heart and even dunked it a few times. And then he was traded. It was like having my grade school crush move across country all over again. I had a huge crush on Bell’s skills.

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