Yes, there was a little extra spring in the ol’ step today, and the sky seemed even sunnier than usual.
That’s because tonight’s game had a little more personal anticipation attached to it. Namely, Suns.com finally got some front-row love at the game… okay second row, but for the first time the official online home of the Suns got to see things up close and personal with lower-level press box seating. [Read more...]
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The Detroit Pistons rolled into town looking for their fourth-straight win but instead found a team with an answer for everything. Terry Porter’s Suns wouldn’t back down from a challenge came through their identity crisis with a new attitude. While they showed traces of the fast-paced, offensive-minded team of previous years, the Suns also brought a “no excuses” edge to both ends of the US Airways Center court.
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(Barry Gossage/NBAE/Getty Images)
It’s good news/bad news time already.
I realize some of you are saying it’s awfully early to break out the old BN/GN bromide to cure a headache, and those who aren’t saying that are grumbling, “What GOOD news?” But in the current philosophical idiom in sports it is what it is. So… [Read more...]
(D. Clarke Evans/NBAE/Getty Images)
The NBA Championship is not won with just one win.
I knew what I wanted to talk about before the game even started this evening. If the Suns had lost, my first sentence would have been “The sky is not falling with just one loss.” Coach Porter, the Suns front office and the players have all said that this team is a work in progress. The Spurs were missing Manu Ginobili in this game. And now that Coach Porter’s new schemes are out “in the wild,” opponents will find ways to stop the team’s set plays. [Read more...]
(Barry Gossage/NBAE/ Getty Images)
So, the mercifully short pre-season preparation for the regular season is over, and the interminably long regular season preparation for the post-season will officially get underway in San Antonio this Wednesday.
And frankly, I can hardly wait. For the post-season, I mean. I say this because we won’t know for sure until then whether Year One of going back to thinking INSIDE the box after four years of exhilarating – albeit ultimately somewhat unfulfilling – thinking outside the box, will work or not. [Read more...]
The buzzword around the Suns these days is “Patience.” It will be a process and a journey with a brand new system implemented by Terry Porter. There are times when the team struggles with the new half-court sets and the “push your man baseline” defensive concepts. But through repetition and commitment to The Porter Principles, you can see progress every day. And the model student at class is one of the oldest: Shaquille O’Neal. [Read more...]
After missing all of training camp and the Phoenix Suns’ first three pre-season games, Leandro Barbosa is back from Brazil. Barbosa was with the team on Media Day and then left the team to fly to Brazil so he could tend to his sick mother.
Many of the players didn’t realize LB would be back at practice this morning. The flight from Brazil to Phoenix is 13 hours and he didn’t get in until 10:00am this morning. He left the airport and came right to practice. When someone asked him about the flight, he only said, “It’s a long flight.” [Read more...]
Well after much anticipation, the outdoor game at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden between us and the Denver Nuggets is finally in the books. Not the results we were looking for (in case you didn’t catch it on TNT, we lost), but definitely an experience I’ll remember.
It was unique, different and heading in we had no idea what to expect. Got a little colder than we thought it would get out here. When we took the court this evening for shootaround, me and the guys were kind of hoping that as fans made their way into the building things would warm up a bit. That didn’t end up being the case, unfortunately. It was chilly out there at certain points and the wind definitely played a factor. Overall it was an exciting experience and definitely different than anything I’d ever been involved in. [Read more...]
In the wake of the coaching merry-go-round that spun Coach Mike off to New York, both General Manager Steve Kerr and Coach Terry Porter vowed these Suns would be different. And one of the few things we could get out of last night’s game was that that promise is being kept.
These Suns are indeed “different”. [Read more...]
Barry Gossage / NBAE Photos
The Suns had an all-employee meeting this morning in the Casino Arizona Pavilion at US Airways Center. It’s something they usually do a few weeks before the season starts. With employees spread out through the entire arena, it’s hard to fathom how many people actually work for the team. But when we are all there together, you realize how many people it takes to keep an arena, 3 teams and many other events going on a daily basis.
Team President, Rick Welts, usually speaks to the employees and lets them know how the business is going, what the goals for the upcoming season are, etc. That still happened and it was great to hear his vision of the next year. After Welts spoke, we had several other people talk about the upcoming season including the All-Star Game that is coming to Phoenix in February 2009. We had some discussion of what that would bring to Phoenix and to US Airways Center. Then because of all of the changes that happened in the off-season, we also had some special guests. [Read more...]
