Thank You, Suns...Thank You

The league, this week, released its final attendance numbers for the season. Normally I don't pay much attention to this bit of info because, let's face it, no one really cares except David Stern and his marketing department. It's a chance for them to say collectively, "Look at us! Mommy was right! We ARE popular!" But I read the article anyway because our hometown journalism squad hasn't been giving the fans much to look at, since the Suns finished the season by making the Rockets and Clippers earn every inch of their respective do-or-die wins.

Basically I was just hoping for at least a Suns bone to gnaw on for a few minutes. Though there was no direct mention of Clockwork Orange, I did manage to find something -- however imaginary it may be. First, some trivial observations:

1. LeBron James entered the league in 2003. The highly anticipated rookie was projected to put fans back in the seats and raise public awareness of the NBA to heights not seen since Jordan's return from early retirement -- again. League attendance did not rise that year.

2. Shaq and Kobe, the dream media pairing, ran the table between 2000 and 2002. They were touted as the next big dynasty in the wake of Chicago's 8 year reign, and their match ups were shoved down our throats like a pork chop at an intervention for Lara Flynn Boyle. League attendance did not rise.

3. In 2004, San Antonio and Detroit battled it out for the first ever National Boredom Association title. No one watched it. No one cared. Defense wins championships, but offense wins sponsors. Attendance was on the verge of hitting an all time low.

4. Soon after the Spurs/Pistons Valium Bowl, Steve Nash signed a free agent deal with the Phoenix Suns, joining the explosively high flying tandem of Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Marion.

Now, I don't have the numbers to back it up, nor am I inclined to do the research. It's tedious, it's boring, and probably won't even support my theory anyway. But there is a visible correlation between fan attendance and television ratings, and those numbers have been on the rise, as well. People see it on TV, then they want to see it in person. It's standard demographics. Anyway.

Here's the meat on that bone...

The NBA broke its attendance record for the third straight year, drawing more than 21.8 million fans during the 2006-07 season.

"The third straight year," they said. From opening tip 2004 until the Clippers secured their lottery fate in the last game of the 2007 season, attendance has been going up. That, my friends, is the Steve Nash era.

Oh, I'm sure that some would argue that, because the top selling teams in the league are all in LeBron country (it's the Midwest, what else is there to do?), the overall attendance figures can be attributed to "King James". They'd like us to think that, of course. It would validate the media's premature coronation (I wanted to say "immaculation" for a satirically sweet pun, but it isn't a word...damn. Try it out anyway..."premature immaculation") of his royal blandness.

If that's true, then where was the attendance spike in 2003-04? The truth (the one I made up in my head, that is) is that ABC, ESPN, and TNT were scrambling to pick up Suns games late in the year when the team showed that, not only was it the most entertaining product on the court, it also had championship potential.

What a sell! Imagine -- fans watching games all the way into June! Has that ever happened before?!

It certainly didn't happen the year before the Suns run (and gun) started. Just ask San Antonio and Detroit what their media share was. Probably not even enough to pay for the parade.

So could it be that our very own Phoenix Suns, the team everyone outside of Texas and Los Angeles actually loves to watch (and the fans in those areas love to hate), is the team responsible for bringing the NBA back from the dead? Sacramento and Dallas didn't do it, and they were supposedly doing the same thing the Suns are doing now (false...myth...bullsh...).

Now, the only reason I bring this whole thing up is that I noticed something else in that article. The last time this happened (at least three straight seasons of attendance increase), Michael Jordan's Bulls were in the middle of their first three-peat. Jordan was already a bona fide star in the league, complete with Nike deal and Coke commercial (he soon switched to Gatorade -- made by the same company, more kid-conscious product). But the league's attendance numbers didn't coincide with his teams rise to championship heights. No. According to the article, the first year of rising attendance was...

1992.

There are a two significant events that occurred that year, most notably the Olympic Dream Team storming its way to the Gold in Barcelona. The other event: the star of that particular collection of NBA legends -- the one who drew the most attention and was the team's leading scorer -- had been traded earlier that summer. Charles Barkley debuted with the Phoenix Suns, and over the next four years (his tenure with the Suns), the league's attendance rose every season.

Coincidence? Maybe. But two big time acquisitions by the Phoenix Suns leading to two perennial runs of huge explosions in entertainment value and points scored across the league coinciding with rising attendance? Coincidence? Maybe not.

It seems that the Suns are onto something here, and the league might want to take a closer look. If conspiracy theories are true (and I'm CERTAINLY not one to perpetuate them), then we should expect a big thank you from the Stern Corp. and his band of Merry Officials this post-season.

OK...I'm joking about that. It will be nice enough just to have the officials call games in accordance with the rules changes and points of emphasis established earlier in the decade. Those changes, you may remember, were meant to speed up the game and increase the scoring, as well as cut down on all that brutish interior play. They were also implemented at the behest of one Jerry Colangelo.

Coincidence? I don't know for sure, but it sure is something interesting to think about.

Not to be presumptuous, but on behalf of the Phoenix Suns...you're welcome, David.