It has been often said, and often said by me and by a bearded bum-looking genius I know, that the best way to argue against something is to argue for it, but poorly. 

I'm not particularly motivated by an interest to deny Phil Jackson ring number 11 nor appealing to some moralistic lobby that Kobe should not get number 5.  Seth's 100% right about Kobe.  I'm also not much into that "enemy of my enemy is my friend" philosophical mumbo jumbo either.  I have plenty of room in my heart for 29 enemies.

However, after yesterday's serious offense on these pages, I felt compelled to shed my perennial disinterest in the NBA Finals and write about my Celtics. 

Yes, my Celtics.

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What can I tell you in this preview that you have not already read?  What can I tell you about Amare's almost too late come back in Game 3 that you have not already seen?  What can I tell you about the stupidity of stats when the Lakers get 20 and 20 from Bryant and Gasol but still lose?  What more is there to say about wanting to donate a bucket to Channing Frye?  What can I say about this game that you yourself have not already said?  What, my friend, what?

Let me first begin by telling you that this will not be the last Suns game preview you will read this season, and that's something no one knew when I accepted this weighty assignment three days ago.

In both the literal and the figurative, and even in the hyperbolically literal, this game is deep in the cut, deep in the marrow of everything this series will mean across the collective consciousness of the NBA.

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ALL HOPE IS LOST!

All hope of a Suns sweep, that is.  Feel the despair.  Wallow in it.

The Lakers got the rebounds, the Suns couldn't hit their shots.  The Lakers were everywhere perfect, Fish was a lockdown defender, Chandler Frye stabbed the Suns in the back every chance he got.

In the old days, a post with this magnitude of regret would start with a quote like

Life begins on the other side of despair.
Jean-Paul Sartre

and then in righteous detail expound (or lampoon) in all directions on that thin razor line of thought.

But no.  In the current internet-crazed era where even Epic Fail has failed, and is cast homeless from Seasons of Discontent, I call forth from brainyquote.com to give you the complete world's harvest on the lofty topic of despair.

Read it and weep, and abandon hope all ye who click here.

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It is entirely right for the Lakers, the winners of some ungodly number of titles, and their fans, viewers of an endless stream of victories by godlike figures dancing in ever pleasing pixelated shapes or projected at them at 30 frames per second, to stare down the barrels of their season's demise with all the incredulity of John Wayne facing a blade of grass.

That blinding confidence in so many cases will be proven justified.  What should the defending champs have to fear from the dysfunctional and improbable Phoenix Suns?  

All year, the drama in Hollywood has always been about the Lakers, the opposing teams merely the foil, the backdrop to the longest running soap opera in tinsel-town, the Lakers.  Given that premise, echoed by the peanut gallery surrounding the acquisition of Ron Artest, the only thing that could destroy the Lakers were the Lakers.  Internecine battles between coach and players, between the volatility of Artest and the narcissism of Bryant and the rivalry of heir and heiress in seizing control of the Lakers empire are the only forces that could tear the team's title hopes asunder.  Like the three titles won with Shaq and Kobe, Cain and Abel, only the violence from within could destroy what the NBA world outside can not.

But these internal forces have not destroyed the Lakers.  So what now, you remaining teams in the NBA? 

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To steal a quote from some friends I know:

When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before. -- Jacob August Riis

The triumph on this scale, the second round sweep of a 4-time NBA Champion by a team that did not even make the playoffs last year is a thing that cannot happen merely by a few tweaks on the Suns roster nor by the off-games of a few Spurs players.  As Wil said, it was a sea change.   And it was very long in the making.

The range of causes and the subsequent unfolding of consequences of this San Antonio catastrophe, as are those of the Bay of Pigs or any other monumental disaster, are multiple.  Some I will review in this post.  It will be years before the analysis and the dust settles on the conflagration of events that surround this sweep. 

And it is only the first day after the Great Ambush of the Alamo Dome.

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Zeus: Perseus has won. My son has triumphed.
Hera: A fortunate young man.
Zeus: Fortune is ally to the brave.
Thetis: What a dangerous precedent. What if there more heroes like him? What if courage and imagination became everyday mortal qualities? What will become of us?
Zeus: We would no longer be needed. But, for the moment, there is sufficient cowardice, sloth and mendacity down there on Earth to last forever.

As sometimes happens in sport, we witness mythology in the making. 

For one night, amid the aged titans of basketball that have waged playoff wars for over a decade, a mere mortal, clothed in youth, rose above the gods of the day to defeat the monsters of the modern era, the NBA equivalent of the Kraken.

What is the Kraken?  It's the starting lineup of the San Antonio Spurs, 4-time NBA champion Tim Duncan and his squad full of multiple NBA champions.  The guys that come at you and keep coming at you.  It's the Alamo Dome full of Spurs fans, 36,000 arms pounding and 36,000 legs kicking and 36,000 eyes staring you down with disgust for your presumed inferior basketball knowledge and 18,000 mouths wanting to eat your soul.

Goran Dragic shook off his mortal spirit in the second half, scoring at will against the gods and monsters of the Spurs on a wide array of treys and layups.  In the final quarter, he scored 23 points to overtake the Spurs and win on their homecourt, humiliating the Kraken, the Fundamental, and the Popovich.

This great achievement reveals that Goran Dragic is no mere mortal.  He is blessed by those basketball gods.  Moreover, he himself may yet lay claim to that hallowed divinity. 

Half Finished GIF MOVIE

It is spectacularly bad form, almost as bad as it is to trot out the millions of cliches we substitute in for true communication, to turn our attention to the GOLIATH that is the Spurs before us without first taking a respectful moment to reflect on our now fallen adversary.  

After all, this isn't 'Nam, it's just entertainment-oriented basketball.  There are rules.

While Lorenzo Franceschi Bicchierai has rightly kicked off the victory parade and considered the Sunny Side of things, I point your attention to those tortured souls now awash on the internet.

Here's my thoughts on seeing the Blazers this year, my thoughts on what's next.  I encourage to add whatever positive, insightful and constructive thoughts you have about Blazernation today and tomorrow.  I'll delete with prejudice any comment that does not meet that criteria. Those comments do not belong in this particular thread.

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As we dawn on this new playoff day, there are many reasons why the Phoenix Suns stand to lose tonight's game. 

There's home court and the Rose Garden of Rabid Fans.  There's the conspiracy that everyone in the NBA stands to make more revenue if the series pushes to seven commercial-packed games.  Then there's the fury of the little Blazer Bunny backed into a corner and comes out fighting like a desperate dog.  Perhaps Pritchard and McMillan cooked up some surprises to ambush the Suns.  Then again, perhaps it will fall on the Suns, who comes out fat and flat?

Besides, should we begrudge a game 7?  It'd be an exciting bonus game in the series that the Suns, with the help of the refs, should surely win.  The Suns are currently sitting at a 60% winning percentage in these playoffs.  That's almost as good as their 66% winning percentage for the season, and they are facing stiffer competition.

I am not thinking about any of these things today. 

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If you don't put on The Gourds' cover of Snoop Dogg's "Gin and Juice" (ty Mike) you should just go ahead and skip this post - it's not for you and you will not be able to even comprehend the vibe - it will be a like a dog whistle that rallies the neighborhood skankery but will leave you scratchin' your thick noggin with all the lucidity of a carton of milk duds.

Don't waste your time, even if you have nothing better to do, which I suspect you don't.

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A tale of Two GMs or a Tale of Two O'Neal

This retrospective has nothing to do with current events, but carries on with my morbid fascination about might-have-beens regarding the pieces of the magical 7SOL era.  While I constantly follow Mike D'Antoni and Shawn Marion, this post is about former Suns GM Bryan Colangelo, who I actually harbor much internal appreciation for. 

By comparison, to some fans, GM Steve Kerr will always be the moron that blew up 7SOL in favor of championship calibre uber phail.  Kerr came sweeping into the Suns and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, single-handedly crippling the magic of the Phoenix Suns masterpiece put in place by none other than two-time executive of the year and former GM Bryan Colangelo.  Some people wish BC was still running the Phoenix Suns. 

Here's a tale of two GMs.  Or two O'Neal.  Who's the bigger moron?

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Welcome to Part 2 of 5 of our Suns 2009-2010 Season Preview: Assessing the Offseason. 

Here we will focus on front office moves this offseason, deferring the offseasons of players and competitors to Parts 3 and 4.  In Part 3, watdogg10 will review the standing the roster and the players' offseasons.  In Part 4, PanamaSun will assess the competition, including their respective offseason gambles.  In Part 5, Phoenix Stan will pull it all together and deliver his saucy insider's views regarding the keys for a successful and exciting season (he promises not to even mention the WNBA in his post).

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[Note by ZonaFlash, 09/27/09 12:50 PM EDT ]

Dear Friends - I'm sorry if I have distracted you on a bit on this post.  A Cliff Notes version says -

How American values are illustrated in government and in the NBA appear different, but what is central to both is a sense of Fair Play.   I consider how prospective owner Mikhail Prokhorov might tilt the tables of fairness and consider several stronger forms of the luxury tax.

The luxury tax was instituted to promote fair competition, but harms good teams that want to go over the tax to compete but cannot afford it  (Suns), favors teams that can afford the tax (Lakers, Mavericks, the new Brooklyn Nets) and promotes NBA Slum Teams (Clippers, Grizzlies) with undeserved payments to rich owners (Sterling) that do not care about their teams.  A stronger luxury tax would only exacerbate these problems.

I instead propose [1] Hard Caps and Slum Floors, that all teams must remain in a banded salary range no matter what, [2] the elimination of luxury payments (still allowing for other forms of profit sharing) and [3] because all teams are in a tight salary band, ESPN trade machine and trade restrictions could be completely disbanded, allowing for any trades as long as both teams remain in the salary band. 

The interesting thing to discuss here is whether and how to change the luxury tax.  Your opinion on this topic would be of great interest.  I'm not recanting anything here, so read with a molecule of NaCl and at your own risk!

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We've been quite polite these past weeks as we have endured the infestation of a number of Dubs trolls.  Some of them have been polite and interesting.  Some have been so obnoxious that they've even been banned from the SB Nation Warriors Blog, Golden State of Mind. I like the trolls, they make laugh and liven up the discussion with their hopelessly hopeful views about the future of their team.

And truth be told, I love what the Dubs did to Dallas, love the wild west run-and-gun and the stellar community over at GSOM.

However, enough is really enough. 

I find it humorous that they think they can disrespect our team better than we can.  We diss our team everyday, for years.  We dress down everyone from owners, mgmt to bench hopefuls.  Leave the dirty work to the pros.   What troll or casual Dubs fan can insult our team better than we do?  Reading their naive, juvenile criticisms is laughable. 

(I have to confess, dissing Steve Kerr as "one of the worst writers in the history of Yahoo! Sports" was a masterstroke beyond anything I have ever dreamed to say about him, although it could have been even better if AR4 had said "THE worst writer in the spotty early history of Yahoo! Sports" - Kudos there, AR4!)

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Let's get beyond the Amar'e / Biedrins trade.  It just ain't gonna happen. 

So, what can we get for J Rich?  We're motivated to move him.  =D

For a brief moment today, amid the turmoil of the Suns and the disaster that awaits the team in the 2010 bidding war, I toyed with the idea I might actually like the San Antonio Spurs, now that they jettisoned that awful excuse for an NBA player, Bruce Bowen. 

The moment came and went like lightning, as I realized, Bruce Bowen isn't gone at all.  He and Kurt Thomas will be bought out before mid-season and they'll be back on the Spurs in no time.   After all, what could the rebuilding Milwaukee Bucks possible want old fossils like Kurt Thomas and Bruce Bowen?  How could they have not even asked about young talents George Hill or Roger Mason?  I guess they did get prospect Amir Johnson for Fabricio Oberto from another more desperate rebuilding team.  The Detroit Pistons also traded talent for cash.  They are expected to waive Fabricio Oberto immediately to get out of his contract.

Welcome to the Year of the Yo-Yo Trade.

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With the unraveling of Amar'e's future in Feenix, I've taken a much greater interest in the 2010 Free Agent sweepstakes.  The sweepstakes is an unprecedented anomaly of contractual convergence that I would have wished could have passed Phoenix by.

However, it is upon us, and as any good armchair economist, weekend engineer or junior physicist knows, the only way to make sense of the 2009 Free Agent season starting in the next few days is to solve backwards, and understand it through the lens of 2010 Free Agency, when more players will move cities in the off-season than ever in the history of the NBA.

Here's list of 2009 Free Agents

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For the next few weeks, there's a new GM in town.  GM Steve Nash is now calling the shots.  The now undisputed  linchpin to the Suns success in the new millennium has usurped organizational power by his wait-and-see approach to signing an extension. 

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