Kozmic Blues

There is so much angst and misunderstanding going on, people seem to be overlooking some basic, yet very important points about the Suns. There seems to be a divide amongst fans and within the team itself, as Jerry Brown points out - "There appears to be at least a peripheral disconnect between Kerr — a staunch believer in defense and depth — and D’Antoni’s high-octane offense/tight rotation mantra that will also play a role in the decision-making."

Personally, I don't see what all the fuss is about. I still insist that people aren't panicking. It's just a wide scale miscommunication amongst the ranks of Sunsland. It's true that a lot of fans don't want to hear that Amare Stoudemire is a glaring issue, but it's not like I'm insisting on anything. I'm just making an observation when I say things like...

"People are getting louder about their discontent with Amare, while more people are jumping back on the DEE-WOW wagon. Boris is playing like a madman [compared to Amare], even when he's not getting stats. Amare's just been sloughing up and down the court. Whatever the reasons, be it laziness or the knees, he's starting to wear thin on the fans, the media, and his own f-in team. He [could be] on his way out, if the Suns can get 75 cents on the dollar in return. The team proved when he was out that they didn't need him to get to the WCF. Injuries and inconsistent play derailed them, and the team has upgraded in both areas with SKYNYR and ULYSSES."

The brackets are edits I've made, since hearing from Paul Coro in his weekly Blogback, where he responds to fans e-mails. Apparently, he's gotten a lot of them about the same thing. But he did reference some of my comments, so I felt it appropriate to correct myself based on his reply. The original response is on page 17 here.

The criticism is valid, as he points out, "You absolutely nailed it as far as Stoudemire's defense, or lack there of it." But he disagrees with the idea that the perimeter defense has been solid, and that Diaw is "playing like a madman." So I will have to look closer at those areas tonight and perhaps reevaluate my stance on that. It could just all be relative to Amare's no-show that they've looked good to me. We shall see.

So you see, it is OK to look for faults because everyone is. You don't look to improve by addressing strengths. You learn by focusing on the weaknesses, and there is never a presumption that things need to change. It's like searching for the perfect woman.

You start off like everyone else, going for style over substance, the hot dingus over the homely love slave, and you eventually start to find a balance. You start meeting good, attractive women that are more like you in most ways, but with just a few minor differences that can't be overcome.

There's the beautiful exotic student of life who lives to serve her man. She loves to cook and clean and be an extraordinary lover. She is everything you ever dreamed of, and you start thinking that you're on the right track. This one's a keeper, until one day you find out how important your friends are. You take her to meet your friends, the first stop at the lunatic reading porn when you stop by unannounced with a new lady. You ask him politely to put it away, but you understand that he has every right to be doing so, considering the circumstances. No big deal. You're a guy.

Then you go to another friend's house, where a party is under way. It's a normal adult gathering with alcohol and disillusioned twenty-somethings, with a few partiers hanging out before they go off to participate in a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. And they're already in full costume.

On the way home, she informs you that she does not like your friends, and you need to get new ones. How she doesn't make it home on foot is a miracle of Cosmic proportions. But you drop her off at her car, and a week later you drop her off at the curb. You learn that you can't and won't change who you are for anybody. You recognize the importance of your friends, and that they are a reflection of you. You are who you are, and she didn't like that.

A few years later, you meet Miss Right. She's young, beautiful, intelligent - a ballet dancer, we'll say. Long dark, shiny brown hair, pink cheeks, and eyes that light up the universe. She's perfect, and she comes from a similar background. You two are so similar in make up, people sooner think you're siblings than a couple with big plans. But she's young. Everything that you went through growing up, she went through. If you're just barely getting over those traumas, what makes you think she has? Well, Miss Right turns out to be Miss Holy Jesus She Needs Therapy when she goes nuts when she finds pictures of ex-girlfriends on a computer disk that you thought was long gone. This girl is going to drive you insane.

At the same time, though, she's a lot like you, so you hold on. You try to make it work, but it's just not meant to be. You never really get over it, but moving on is the only option when you feel that your sanity is too important, and it's not fair to her to play doctor when you're just as messed up as she is. The whole thing ends in a spectacular flameout, and you realize how lucky you are that the meteor never hit the ground when, right away, you find The One.

She is everything. She is young, exotic, beautiful, intelligent, and well-adjusted. She loves you for you, she doesn't care about your past because it was before she came around. She's supportive and understanding, and you love her for it. It works. You're happy, you're on the right track, and everything is meant to be except one fundamental difference in culture. You realize that, as much as you love this girl, you can't change who you are, even though you really want to this time. That's what love does, after all. It compels us to be the best person we can be for the right woman, but we forget that we're not as good as we think we are. We are not supposed to look for perfection of the highest order. In order to do that, we'd have to become what he hate. There is an expectation of change that needs to occur, and you realize that it is you that is expecting it.

This is when you realize where everything went wrong. This is where you figure out for the first time that you've been looking at the wrong things. Every step of the way, you learned what was right for you. You got better and better at finding the girls that you felt best matched you, your standards. This is the epiphany. You were looking for change from the outside, when you really needed to look deep inside Your Self. You find out that the right woman has been right in front of you the whole time, even if you've never seen her. She's not Miss Right, she's not Miss Perfect, she's Miss You.

Of course, I'm talking about the Suns here.

This whole time we've been looking at what has been going wrong the last three years. There has always been a great collection of our strengths improving with each rendition of the team, and there have always been outside factors that derailed the whole steam engine. Now it's the regular season of the fourth swipe at the ring, and the team is starting to look at its weaknesses. They are looking in the right direction, within, to find ways to improve. It takes time for that realization to hit, but once it does, it will seem as if the entire cosmos has fallen into place.

All things essential. Life, philosophy, dreams...the Phoenix Suns. When they all come together like this, know you've found perfection. You've met the girl of your dreams.