The Perpetual NBA Thread

**chain** · October 1st, 2007 12:08 PM

Third wheel
Shawn Marion (left) has never been the face of the Suns, in part because of teammates Amaré Stoudemire (center) and Steve Nash.

It hurts him that he has never been The Man in Phoenix. Jason Kidd was The Man, then Stephon Marbury was The Man, then Nash became The Man the moment he showed up in the summer of 2004. There have always been other Hamlets, while Marion has been consigned to the role of Rosencrantz or Guildenstern. Worse, Stoudemire, before his injury, seemed to have settled into Second Man status behind Nash, leaving Marion as the Third Wheel.

After he was selected as an All-Star reserve, Marion said, "Ever since I've been in Phoenix, I tried to make myself the face of the Suns on and off the court. That's what it's all about."

But he is not the face of the Suns. Nash and D'Antoni are the dual faces, and, whenever Marion's face appears, Stoudemire's is likely to, also. That drives him crazy. He appreciates Nash and gets along with him, but he doesn't feel the same about Stoudemire.

"Around here, it's Steve this and Amaré that," says Marion. "What people forget is that I had to adjust my game to different people. I had J-Kidd. I had Steph. Now I have Steve. All of them are different. I made the adjustments. You got to give me credit now. Don't overlook that.

"The other thing is, people judge players on points. And I think that's wrong." That is obviously directed toward Stoudemire.

During the season, Marion was angry that his likeness didn't appear among the huge bobblehead dolls in the Suns' team store in the arena -- the featured ones, of course, were of Nash and Stoudemire. During a couple of regular-season games, a drum line of young men performed during timeouts, all wearing replica jerseys of either Nash or Stoudemire. No Marion. He noticed. It sounds trivial to be complaining about that kind of stuff, particularly when you're compensated as a maximum player, but Marion had a point. There is Stoudemire, not even active, clowning around on the bench, and there is Marion trying to defend Odom, and yet Stoudemire gets all the love from the drum line. For all the bravado and posturing in the NBA, it is a breeding ground for insecurity.

Marion is also distressed that he doesn't have more of a national profile, both on and off the court. Stoudemire, in street clothes, got more All-Star fan votes than Marion did this season. Marion's main endorsement is with the Room Store in Phoenix, a deal that supplies him with furniture for his mansion in Scottsdale, and the commercial Marion did for the store loops endlessly on local television. He isn't one of Nike's main men, but he does have a signature sneaker, and his swoosh commercial -- which was quite good; it showed Marion dominating a pickup game while wearing a weighted vest -- ran often during the regular season on national TV. None of the Suns, in fact, Nash and Stoudemire included, are big-time endorsement figures.

Feeling dissed is a common malady in the NBA; the issue is, how does a player react to it? Marion, when feeling undervalued, sometimes gets inspired and sometimes goes into a funk, which is what the staff doesn't want to happen in the remaining games of the series. Two Marion problems had emerged from Game 2. The first is that he wanted to stay, in Iavaroni's words, "hooked" to Odom.

"A certain situation came up in a huddle and I said, 'Okay, Shawn, just switch,'" says Iavaroni. "And he says, 'No, I want to stay on him.'"

That is a frequent problem coaches face when trying to communicate the importance of team defense and shared responsibility. A player might come off his man to double-team or trap another player -- Marion is adept at that part of the game when motivated -- but then get ripped in the press if his man scores a lot of points.

The coaches also have to figure out how to get Marion running on every play, on every turn from defense to offense. Matrix in full flight is the Suns' most potent weapon. But Marion, who averaged 40 minutes per game during the regular season (five more than Nash), argues that he can't always run if he's under the defensive basket wrestling with giants. Marion is fond of mentioning that D'Antoni rarely calls a set play for him, and that he needs to get his points "in the flow of the game," as he said after the depressing Game 2 loss. This ignores the fact that the Diaw-to-Marion backdoor lob is probably the "settest" play in the Suns' arsenal.

Acting the part
There are other worries, or, rather, just a kind of undefined, general one. The Suns didn't play well, really, in either of the two games. Their offense, in fact, has really not played well since they scored 72 points in the second half to thump Sacramento in a statement game on April 11. Bryant has not yet taken over, which he might decide to do at home in the Staples Center, and the Suns perhaps won't be able to weather it. Each coach deals with the uncertainty in his own way, Iavaroni digging into his personal vault of defensive schemes, D'Antoni latching on to his personal credo that, "We're not scoring because we're not pushing," Dan insisting that it's all about effort and will. "I don't think we came out in Game 2 and played like you should in a playoff game," he says. "We didn't come out and say, 'F--- you.'"

"That's it," says Iavaroni, endlessly searching for the perfect phrase to tell the team. "We have to get back the f---- you factor."

As the morning shootaround gets underway at the Staples Center, Marion spies Jim Caviezel, sitting courtside.

"Hey, I know you," he says, shyly.

"I'm an actor," says Caviezel.

Marion smiles. "I'm an actor, too."

"Yes, he is," says Iavaroni. "And in the role of the Matrix . . ."

"I loved you in that," says Caviezel.

Marion positively beams. Most athletes quickly learn now to adopt a superior attitude to the public at large, but they still turn into little kids in the presence of movie stars. Stoudemire, on hand as a spectator, edges over to Caviezel during practice and talks to him for 15 minutes, no doubt positioning himself as a future action hero. "Black Jesus meets White Jesus," says Iavaroni. (Stoudemire has a "Black Jesus" tat on his neck.)

During the film session, Gentry, the pro's pro, sits by Marion, clarifying points from time to time, but mainly just letting him know that the coaching staff is still behind him.

Later, at a restaurant near the hotel, Jesus doesn't make the check disappear, but he does buy lunch.
Lost in L.A.

It's 30 minutes before game time at the Staples Center and nobody looks overly nervous. Perhaps it's an act. In trying to figure out what mentality they should adopt, the Suns finally decided upon "loose," having concluded after Game 2 that they had, according to Eddie House, "lost that carefree attitude they had during the season." Gentry emerges from the wings meeting, doing the that's-right-I'm-bad walk that Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder did in Stir Crazy. Stoudemire, who was born in Lake Wales, Fla., and whose favorite team is Florida State, and James Jones, who graduated from the University of Miami, are engaged in a spirited debate over which school has sent the superior talent to the NFL, going through it on a position-by-position basis. If Stoudemire is able to devote half that degree of attention to the rudiments of defense, the Suns will be a much superior team next season.

D'Antoni's main message is to be offensive-minded:

"Okay, guys, catch and shoot. Catch and drive. Dribble-ats. Spread the floor. Attack, Spread the floor. They do have a habit of touching the ball and messing with it. [He means that after the Lakers score they sometimes catch the ball or bat it away to keep the Suns from quick-breaking.] We'll try to bring it to the refs' attention, but you should just grab it and get running. Okay, Noel."

That is the signal for Noel Gillespie to turn on the video. Last season D'Antoni came upon the ploy of ending every pregame session with a minute or so of hig-octane Suns' offense. Every possession ends in a basket. The players watch raptly. They can never get enough of their own success.

"This is when we're at our best," says D'Antoni as the video runs, "when we're changing ends on the fly. They have no answer for it. Kwame is awful. Odom's a very average defender. Vujacic [backup point guard Sasha Vujacic] can't guard anybody. And Bryant in the open floor takes chances that aren't good. Let's go get 'em."

The coaches retreat to the small office. Like many arenas around the NBA, the Staples Center devoted little money to the visitor's dressing room. Suddenly, from out in the hallway, comes the voice of Nash.

**chain** · October 1st, 2007 12:08 PM

"NINETEEN ON THE CLICKETY!"
The "clickety" is Nash's word for the clock that clicks off the time until tip-off. Lately, he has taken to loudly shouting out the minutes, screaming it in fact, partly as a joke but also to get his teammates to follow him onto the court to warm up. Those sports movies in which a team comes charging out of the dressing room together? It doesn't work that way in the NBA. Players drift out in drips and drabs and finally congregate outside the door where they then shout out some sort of war chant and trot onto the floor.

"There's four on the clickety," says Weber to the other coaches. "We better get going."

The game could hardly begin worse for the Suns. In the first minute, Luke Walton knocks Tim Thomas to the floor as he drives, picking up a flagrant foul. Thomas glares at Walton for a moment, and, predictably, several players move toward the action under the basket. From outside the pack, Bryant pushes Diaw, who falls into Smush Parker. Eddie F. Rush, a veteran referee, calls a technical on Diaw.

"Eddie, Eddie, did you see it?" D'Antoni pleads with Rush. "Boris never pushes anybody. He didn't do it. He got pushed."

"I saw what I saw," Rush tells him.

"But did you see the push?" D'Antoni says.

"I saw what I saw."

A few minutes later, Diaw is hit with the obligatory three-second defensive call, which results in an automatic technical foul shot. It's like a little beeper from the league office goes off during the first period of every game, reminding officials to make the call, after which they will ignore the defensive three-second call the rest of the way since virtually none of the spectators -- and only half of the players -- understand it.

In the third quarter, Bell gets elbowed by Kwame Brown, and, in an ensuing scrum, Diaw falls. Brown is whistled for a technical foul. But then Brown stands over Diaw, his crotch somewhere over Diaw's midsection, and glares down at him. Perhaps Brown is still trying to prove something to his coach; earlier in the season, Jackson had called him a "sissy." Jackson said he didn't mean it like it sounded, but it resonated for Brown, who had been called a "faggot" by Michael Jordan, who drafted him when he was a Washington Wizards executive, then torched him when he was a Wizards player.

Brown's action is exactly the kind of thug behavior the NBA is trying to curtail, but no technical foul is called. Nash moves toward the action, and, in the process, pushes away Vujacic's arm. Bryant then trots over to Nash and they jaw at each other. Later in the third period, Bryant is called for a foul on a blocked shot attempt and, irritated, walks away, lifting his jersey over his head in front of another veteran referee, Bill Spooner. Spooner tells him, "Put your jersey down."

Clearly, L.A. is trying to punk a team it considers punk-able. The Lakers never really run away and hide, but they seem in control, calm even. When Bell is whistled for fouling Bryant with 4:18 left, he explodes in anger and draws a technical foul. Then D'Antoni, rushing to support him, gets one, also, the second and third T's the Suns have received. Leandro Barbosa's layup brings Phoenix to within 92-90 with 3:28 left, but Walton and Parker score consecutive baskets and the Lakers go on to win 99-92.

It is the nightmare scenario presented by Iavaroni. Bryant scored only seven points, but every other starter was in double figures. Kobe played the role of Prospero, directing everything, seeing all, being all, and acting quite superior about it all. D'Antoni decides on a psychological ploy, telling the media that Bell has done a great job subduing Kobe. Perhaps that will rile up the Laker and precipitate a shooting spree that will freeze out his teammates.

But with a 2-1 series deficit and Game 4 on the road, reality has set in: The Suns are two losses from an ignominious first-round exit.

Epilogue
The Suns, improbably, rallied from a 3-1 deficit to beat the Lakers in seven games, then needed seven games to knock off the Los Angeles Clippers in the Western semis. Their season came to an end when the Dallas Mavericks beat them in six games in the Western finals. Considering the season-ending injury to Stoudemire, it was considered a monumental achievement.

As for Marion, he finished the playoffs with scoring and rebounding averages of 20.4 and 11.7. Every time a Suns' coach criticized Marion's attitude, another would say: "Yes, but look what he does for us." He remains, at once, an elite player and a $17 million-per-year riddle.

**mazdamazda** · October 2nd, 2007 08:52 AM

Ohohoy...

[size=5]Amaré To Undergo Knee Surgery[/size]
October 1, 2007 - 8:04 pm
RealGM Staff Report -
The Phoenix Suns today announced that center Amaré Stoudemire will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his right knee tomorrow, Tuesday, October 2.

Team orthopedic surgeon Dr. Thomas Carter will perform the surgery to remove a loose body. Carter performed microfracture surgery on Stoudemire’s left knee in October 2005. The 24-year-old Stoudemire will miss 2-3 weeks and is expected to have a full recovery.