On Second Thought
By Joe Gilmartin, Suns.com
Posted: Nov. 21, 2005

Veteran sportswriter Joe Gilmartin has covered the Phoenix Suns since the first game back in 1968. Over the past four decades, he has written about Suns players from Van Arsdale to Stoudemire for each of the Valley's various newspapers. In his illustrious career, Gilmartin also served as the team's television analyst and wrote the book, "The Little Team That Could," on the 1975-76 Suns team that advanced to the NBA Finals.

For the past few seasons, Gilmartin has offered his unique insights to fans on Suns.com, posting columns after each home game at America West Arena. This season, he has expanded his role and will be giving you his thoughts on anything and everything related to Suns basketball and the NBA in general.

There we went again!

Us “experts”, I mean. You’d think by now we’d have learned our lesson, but no. Even though we promise ourselves faithfully on the first day of training camp every year that we will not rush to judgments, come November we’re right back to suffering concussions from jumping on and off bandwagons far too soon.

And the Suns, alas, are not immune to collateral damage from this annual exercise in silliness. In fact, in some ways they suffered more than most.

What with Amaré in rehab and Joe Johnson in Dixie a certain amount of grim pontification concerning the team’s outlook was to be expected. . But pronouncing their 2005-06 edition DOA was at the very least premature.

And it certainly didn’t improve assessments of their prospects when it lost four of their first five home games, especially when two were flat out blown, and one was a blown out.

The simple truth is that, given Amaré’s injury and a major roster overhaul, the Suns are exactly what they should reasonably have been expected to be, namely a talented group in search of identity, cohesion and confidence.

Not only that, but if the season had ended Saturday night in San Antonio (this has got to be the earliest I’ve ever invoked that “if” by at least three months) they would have been exactly where they hope to be when Amaré, returns after the All Star break --- i.e., very much in the playoff hunt. In fact, they would actually have been IN the playoffs as the number eight seed.

The further fact is that, with the exception of that embarrassing aberration against Memphis they have played more good basketball than basketball, enough to suggest that while they don’t figure to go all that far north at this point, the season is a long way from going south. A long way.

And while the much discussed (actually more like dissed and cussed) overhaul of a team that won 62 games, was an understandable downer, the good news here is that the new parts are really pretty decent but haven’t quite had time mesh yet.

Raja Bell, Boris Diaw, Jams Jones, Kurt Thomas, and Eddie House may have been oversold a tad, but they are by no means stiffs. And while he isn’t new, Leandro Barbosa has been an absolute revelation.

Three games into the season he suddenly exploded into the player the Suns have been saying all along his blinding speed gave him a chance to be some day. He came into the San Antonio game averaging more than 17 points since he started getting major minutes. And he was absolutely tearing the World Champion Spurs up until he was injured. The good news here is he could be back as early as the end of the first week in December.

How blinding is his speed?

Well, neither the Spurs nor the Pistons, arguably the two best defensive teams in the league, were able to contain him. In fact, in one sequence against the Pistons he was streaking up the floor with ball into the teeth of a very tough “D’ that not only was waiting for him but had actually overshifted to cut off his path to the basket --- and he blew right threw it for a lay-up!

It was kind of like watching a slugger facing a drastic shift hit a ground ball through it anyway.

This is a team that’s never going to be really sound defensively, but it’s also a team that figures to lead the league in scoring again. And if everybody stays healthy and Amaré returns as expected, it will be a contender.

It is, of course, a team that suffers in comparison with its immediate predecessor in many ways, not the least of which is how incredibly fast last year’s complete overhaul came out of the gate.

The thing to remember here is that last year’s overhaul was done without the burden of expectation that that was part of this team’s camp luggage. And the other thing is that last year’s team had Amaré and this one didn’t.

And we’ll never know how quickly it would have meshed if he had gone down, a truth which should blunt some of the criticism of the off-season moves. The thing to especially remember in this connection is that these players were brought in based on how their skills would fit WITH Amaré, and his absence altered their roles in subtle and not so subtle ways.

Much was deservedly made of how Steve Nash made everybody better last year, but Amaré also made every body better too, including Nash (who would by the way be the first to tell you so).

Another thing that hurt this team perceptionwise, at least in mind, was the schedule. Playing 12 of the first 16 games at home may seem like a good idea, and may actually be one in some circumstances. But not in this one.

I mean, if it’s me putting a whole new show together I want to work out the bugs in places like Hartford and Schenectady and before I bring it to Broadway.

Playing 12 of the first 16 on the ROAD would have not only eased the pressure. (Nobody gets all that bent out of shape when you lose on the road, and such a heavy ration of away games would not only have cut the Suns a little slack, but actually made it easier for Coach Mike and his staff to get things sorted out and the players to get used to each other.

The bottom line: It’s really too soon to declare defeat, or victory either for that matter.