NBA Basketball Returns

Just as teams are finishing the final touches on their roster, coaches are appearing in newspapers and on television praising their club and the additions their teams have made. The NBA season is just weeks away and once again, we are here trying to pick out the cream of the crop for the 2006-2007 NBA season.

This season will be no different than any of the previous seasons. Like any of the previous years, this off-season saw a myriad of player transactions - from Ben Wallace joining the Chicago Bulls to Shane Battier being traded to the Houston Rockets and to TJ Ford going to the Toronto Raptors. And like any previous seasons, this season will have its share of surprise teams and disappointing teams. One thing that will be different this season, however, is the crowning of the NBA championship to a franchise that has never been crowned before - The Phoenix Suns.

All of the 30 teams in the NBA can rightfully make the argument for being the hungriest team to win a championship. Garnett and his Timberwolves have been starving for a title run ever since he joined the team back in 1995. Avery Johnson's Mavericks have been hungry for a title, but Shaq, Wade and Riley stole their dinner this past season. The Baby Bulls, who are all grown up by now, have a strong frontline of Ben Wallace, Tyrus Thomas, and Andres Nocioni and may arguably be the team to beat in the Eastern Conference. Finally, the hungry Los Angeles Clippers, who were an inch away from stealing the Phoenix Suns spotlight during the playoffs, have fine tuned their lineup to not only surpass their cross-city rivals, but compete strong in the entire Western Conference with the addition of three-point shooting big man Tim Thomas pairing up with the team's superstar Elton Brand.

Nonetheless, as hungry as the rest of the teams and their multi-million dollar payrolls are for an NBA championship this season, no team is as hungry for a title as the Phoenix Suns. Although the Phoenix Suns have had some tremendously successful and memorable moments since their inaugural season back in 1968, they have never won an NBA title. This season could be different.

For the past two seasons since Steve Nash's return to the Valley, the Phoenix Suns have become the new blueprint of how to play basketball. Forget slow, Detroit Piston half-court defensive basketball which makes the viewer yawn every five seconds. Taking much influence from European style finesse basketball with their coach and Italian legend Mike D'Antoni, the Phoenix Suns have become one of the fastest teams in the NBA with their nonchalant run-and-gun style that features no real center on the roster. This type of basketball won Steve Nash back to back Most Improved Player awards and gave the team back to back Pacific Division titles - one of them entirely without their best post player and all-star Amare Stoudemire and their best interior defender and rebounder Kurt Thomas. After having six foot eight versatile swingman Boris Diaw, who ended up winning the 2006 Most Improved Player award, man the center position for the Phoenix Suns while both Amare Stoudemire and Kurt Thomas were nursing their knee injuries, the Suns made it all the way to the Western Conference finals for a second straight year.

This season will allow the best opportunity for the Phoenix Suns. With virtually the same returning players - minus Tim Thomas & Eddie House - the Phoenix Suns went out during the off-season and acquired a true backup point guard - the defensive-minded Marcus Banks, who will relieve Nash for about 18 minutes a night. Alongside Banks, the Phoenix Suns snagged a versatile six foot eight forward, Jurmaine Jones, who will be asked to play both power forward and small forward - the role left void by Tim Thomas. But the biggest additions, however, are undeniably Amare Stoudemire and Kurt Thomas, who practically missed most of last season and the entire playoffs. As good as the Suns did without a true big man presence in the paint; it is scary to think of how this team will perform with two powerful inside players returning to join an already healthy all-star cast of Steve Nash, Shawn Marion, Raja Bell, Boris Diaw, and Leandro Barbosa.

Coach Mike D'Antoni stated in a recent interview with an Arizona-based newspaper that it is much easier to play basketball when expectations are low; as they had rightfully been in the past couple of seasons with injuries. This season, things are different for the Phoenix Suns. Expectations are high and the bar has been raised. After two Pacific Division titles, two MVP awards, two Western Conference Finals appearances, a most improved player award, a coach of the year award, and an overall winning record which had become the envy for most teams, the Phoenix Suns have set their sights on an NBA championship this season and nothing else. With a healthy team entering the 2006-2007 season, anything short of a title will be considered a failure.

Suns signed forward Jurmaine Jones, who had a career-scoring year last season, to a league minimum salary after he declined to join a professional team in Israel for double the salary.

When asked by referees to pause the game in order to fix the broken 24-second shot clock during a 2005 regular season Suns home game, coach Mike D'Antoni replied to the referees, "It's okay. We don't even use it anyways," indicating his confidence with his high-speed Phoenix Suns team who is seldom seen using the full 24-seconds per possession.