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| - Don't even get me started. Cause I can go for a while.
As a Phoenix native and lifetime Suns fan, yeah, I'm probably a bit biased, but all I'm saying is that the Suns represent everything that is great about the sport of basketball.
They reinvented run and gun. The late 90's and early 00's (millies? oh-oh's? whatever) were dominated by Tim Duncan/Pistons style defensive and half court basketball. Fundamentally, it is perfectly sound and effective. As a viewer though, it is not nearly as entertaining or enjoyable as what Steve Nash and the boys bring to the table.
The Showtime Lakers and even, to an extent, Bird era Celtics were what popularized basketball in the post Pete Maravich period. Michael Jordan solidified that athleticism and otherworldly leaping skills could change the way the game was played.
The Suns recreated the spark that has been gone for more than ten years now. People are awake again. The second coming of Jordan didn't come in any of the hosts that we suspected it might, and ultimately never arrived at all.
Instead, what did it was Nashball. Now, non-sports people are talking, becoming more knowledgable about the game, just to keep up. And not just in Phoenix: the Suns, I would argue have become the team for people without a team. Don't believe me? Listen to espn.com writer Bill Simmons, a die hard Celtics fan without much to cheer for this year, in his article "Thank you for the Suns": http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/070117
I hope they win it all this spring. For obvious reasons, and less obvious ones, too. I think they should be rewarded for revitalizing a dying sport. Not with steroids or Jordanesque leaping skills, but by bringing back what made it all work to begin with.
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