somethingshesaid
Veteran
...and it would surely have made a deep playoff run without Devin Booker's injury, I personally am not comfortable saying unqualified that it's the "best" Suns team and that it beats every other Suns team; and it is definitely not the Suns team I'm most emotionally attached to. There are a few reasons to feel skeptical of it, and it's not about the rebounding. Let me explain what, then.
I question this team's heart and overall effort: not in absolute terms, but in comparison with two other Suns teams I had the honor of watching: the 2010 team and the 2012-2013 team. The 2010 team came back from treading water or thereabouts in the first half of the regular season (if I recall) to absolutely destroying the Spurs and then almost defeating the Lakers (but for one mistake by Jason Richardson) in the WCF, and was widely admired for it by fans. And the 2013-2014 team: obviously not as good, but probably my favorite Suns team. It was one injury away from breaking into the playoffs when nobody expected it to and, frankly, when certain people probably didn't much want it to. (Figuring that out was the main reason I walked away.) But it seemed to be a team that didn't care about expectations; and because of that, I found 2013-14 inspiring. After all, the team most entertaining to watch is not an unbeatable behemoth like the 1995-96 Chicago Bullls; it's a come-from-behind team that was believed a loser.
And this 2012-22 team? It doesn't lose often; but when it loses or even almost loses, it tends to lose because the players blatantly got caught screwing around. It's been disturbing. I'm hardly the only person to notice that that was exactly what happened the other night: the players didn't play defense as hard as they're capable of. In the regular season, the near-loss against the Rockets really made me mad. There is no reason the best team in the league should almost lose to a team trying not to win, even with a player injured. (Uh...wasn't it Payne that time?) It's the same thing the Barkley-era Suns were notorious for, but that was easy to explain. It was all because teams take a cue from their leader, and every Suns fan knows that among superstar players who got near a championship, Charles Barkley was defiantly lazy. But it's much harder to explain for the 2021-22 team: due undoubtedly to Chris Paul's leadership, they're said to be focused and disciplined. Except when...they're not. There is an old quotation in Suns history, given by Finals-wrecker Danny Ainge after a loss in the 1993 WCF against the Supersonics, that can apply uncomfortably well to the 2021 team. "That was the first time I've felt we quit all year long. You saw what I saw. It just wasn't important enough to us.." More uncomfortable still when I realize: the Pelicans loss was not the first game when the 2021-22 Suns "just quit."
I question this team's heart and overall effort: not in absolute terms, but in comparison with two other Suns teams I had the honor of watching: the 2010 team and the 2012-2013 team. The 2010 team came back from treading water or thereabouts in the first half of the regular season (if I recall) to absolutely destroying the Spurs and then almost defeating the Lakers (but for one mistake by Jason Richardson) in the WCF, and was widely admired for it by fans. And the 2013-2014 team: obviously not as good, but probably my favorite Suns team. It was one injury away from breaking into the playoffs when nobody expected it to and, frankly, when certain people probably didn't much want it to. (Figuring that out was the main reason I walked away.) But it seemed to be a team that didn't care about expectations; and because of that, I found 2013-14 inspiring. After all, the team most entertaining to watch is not an unbeatable behemoth like the 1995-96 Chicago Bullls; it's a come-from-behind team that was believed a loser.
And this 2012-22 team? It doesn't lose often; but when it loses or even almost loses, it tends to lose because the players blatantly got caught screwing around. It's been disturbing. I'm hardly the only person to notice that that was exactly what happened the other night: the players didn't play defense as hard as they're capable of. In the regular season, the near-loss against the Rockets really made me mad. There is no reason the best team in the league should almost lose to a team trying not to win, even with a player injured. (Uh...wasn't it Payne that time?) It's the same thing the Barkley-era Suns were notorious for, but that was easy to explain. It was all because teams take a cue from their leader, and every Suns fan knows that among superstar players who got near a championship, Charles Barkley was defiantly lazy. But it's much harder to explain for the 2021-22 team: due undoubtedly to Chris Paul's leadership, they're said to be focused and disciplined. Except when...they're not. There is an old quotation in Suns history, given by Finals-wrecker Danny Ainge after a loss in the 1993 WCF against the Supersonics, that can apply uncomfortably well to the 2021 team. "That was the first time I've felt we quit all year long. You saw what I saw. It just wasn't important enough to us.." More uncomfortable still when I realize: the Pelicans loss was not the first game when the 2021-22 Suns "just quit."
