[h1]Time is running out for Suns[/h1]
You can slice, dice and dissect this trade all you want, but even after the Bass-o-matic treatment, the conclusion is the same: The Suns led the West when they traded Shawn Marion for Shaquille O'Neal a month ago. Now they sit in sixth place.
How long can you work out the kinks before acknowledging that they're not going away? If Friday's 126-118 loss to Utah at US Airways Center was a playoff preview, it's going to be a short postseason.
"We just didn't get any breaks, and we don't quite have the swagger to close yet, but I think we're on the right track," Suns guard Steve Nash said.
The Suns
were better. But this dangerous fine line they're walking, trying to restructure their team while trying to stay in the playoff hunt, is getting dicey.
You can bet that fans will start barking about the Suns' bench again.
The Jazz went 10-deep, even without injured starter Andrei Kirilenko, and four of their reserves played 10-plus minutes. They are a solid bench of role players, including Kyle Korver, who scored all of his 14 points in the fourth quarter.
Coach Mike D'Antoni went eight deep instead of his typical seven, with the addition of new acquisition Gordan Giricek.
D'Antoni doesn't want to hear it. Nothing raises his hackles like criticism about his short bench.
"The object is to win," he said earlier Friday. "It's not, 'Play everybody and have a good time and everybody goes home friends.' I'm getting ticked, because our (starters) are playing less minutes than anybody in the league."
The suggestion that D'Antoni go deeper is mind-boggling to him.
"OK, I don't want to play Steve (Nash), I want to play D.J. (Strawberry). Yeah, that makes sense," he said.
D'Antoni wasn't ripping Strawberry as much as he was trying to reiterate what he always has believed: He sticks with players he trusts and refuses to apologize for it.
This is where it gets dicey. The window of opportunity for players to prove themselves closes quickly in this neighborhood. Once it's closed, it's hard to crawl back through.
"We're here to win a championship," he said. "We're not here to develop players."
He might not be developing players right now, but he is trying to develop a functioning offense. And that seems to be getting in the way of this championship business.
D'Antoni still is tweaking and fine-tuning. O'Neal would like to stay on the court longer, for example, but the coach doesn't want him and Amaré Stoudemire out of the lineup at the same time. And when Stoudemire is ready to come out, he wants O'Neal to be fresh.
Still, O'Neal has made sure to let the coach know he's ready. As he tells people in the organization, "I have no night life." Consider how often he comes to work out in the arena during the evening, I believe him.
It's hard not to feel nostalgic about what the Suns used to be.
D'Antoni still believes that the new-version Suns can be successful. He also still believes that his preferred rotation is the way to go.
"One of the reasons we could win 60 games or 55 or go to the conference finals is because we have this group of seven guys, where there shouldn't be much of a drop-off when a guy comes out," he said. True, but none of this short-bench business will matter if the Suns can't get out of the first round of the playoffs.
And lately, that doesn't sound like such like a crazy proposition anymore.
Friday, March 7, 2008 at 11:44 PM
[h1]'Antoni on hot seat? No, but temperature rising fast[/h1]
Dan Bickley
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 25, 2008 12:00 AM
...
Technically, D'Antoni has two more years left on his contract. But there have been whispers of discontent inside the walls, mainly about his refusal to use more players. One sentence, six of his words - "We're not here to develop players" - seem to ring in damnation, almost nullifying the 232 regular-season victories D'Antoni has collected since the beginning of the 2004-05 season.
Suns General Manager Steve Kerr would say only that it's "a non-issue" and that "Mike and I are both focused on the playoffs," and that everything else will be evaluated when the season is over. But this much is certain:
...
Typically defiant, D'Antoni was ready with the one-liners on Thursday.
"To those (people on the ledge), go ahead and jump," D'Antoni cracked. "We've got 6 million people. We're fine. It was a little overcrowded anyway."
Then, turning serious, D'Antoni said he understood the panic:
"You know what? I can understand it. I'm ready to jump out, too. I'm on the ledge with them, but I'm not going. I'm going to crawl back in and we're going to play Friday and we're going to bust them and that's our mind-set. And we still don't have any doubt that we can win this series..."
But he knows the problems are getting thick.
For instance, the Spurs' Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker are attacking the basket at will. At this time of year, most NBA teams would respond with some very physical counterattacks at the rim. D'Antoni can't employ this strategy because his team can't absorb unnecessary fouls - because he never groomed a full bench.
D'Antoni also was unprepared for Popovich's Hack-a-Shaq strategy against Shaquille O'Neal, so much that he frowned in disdain at the Spurs coach during Game 2. In fairness, even Kerr was relatively surprised at the desperate tactic, thinking his former coach was above that kind of stuff.
Yet D'Antoni can't even match the gamesmanship. He can't purposely foul Tim Duncan and Bruce Bowen, both highly erratic from the free throw line, because his team can't afford to absorb unnecessary fouls - because he never groomed a full bench.
...
Yet it seems like the coach's greatest trait is becoming a liability. He so affable, friendly and non-confrontational that you wonder about his authority over the group and whether he can ever put his foot down and demand a level of excellence (like Popovich often does), particularly with Amaré Stoudemire.
You wish this were all unnecessary, that D'Antoni could become just like Popovich, win a few championships and stick around for as long as he wants. But this four-year quest for a championship has been full of exhilarating highs and heartbreaking lows. During this time, the Suns have spawned a massive, captive audience, and now it wants results. Some overzealous fans went so far as to e-mail death threats to Kerr through the team's main Web site after the controversial trade for O'Neal.
Now, the temperature is hotter than ever. The Spurs have roared back in each of the first two games after making halftime adjustments, leading to a strong undercurrent among Suns fans that D'Antoni is getting badly outclassed and outfoxed by Popovich. One can only imagine the heat and the consequences if his team can't rise to the challenge, making a series out of this mess with the Spurs.
And that's it...that's everything in a nutshell. Phoenix fans went CRAZY when they heard that he basically doesn't believe in growing young talent. He either likes what you can already do from day 1 or you're done in his eyes.
