My Favorite Basketball Team Is Going To The NBA Finals For The First Time Since I Was Born
I'm going to start this with a quick disclaimer for those of you wondering why someone from New York would be a Suns fan. The simple answer is that my parents didn't give a shit about any sport other than baseball. So, during my formative years of basketball and football in the early-mid 2000s, I latched on to two players and their respective teams. LaDainian Tomlinson with the Chargers, and Steve Nash with the Suns.
The D'Antoni, seven-seconds-or-less offense was one of the most exciting things I had ever witnessed. Nash FLYING down the court and getting off crazy passes to guys like Stat, Matrix, Joe Johnson, Barbosa, Bell and even bums like Jalen Rose. THAT is what made me a basketball fan.
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Fast-forward a few years of incredible teams that had heartbreaking playoff losses at the hands of the bastard Spurs and Lakers, and we are in 2010. Stat leaves for the Knicks and we are left with a shell of the former team. They're bringing in older guys and overpaying for mid tier players. They're drafting like SHIT and playing like shit. That starts a decade of pure pain and misery.
The guy that made me a fan of the team, Steve Nash, understandably leaves* after 2 years with this garbage. They use high draft picks on outright BUMS like Alex Len, Tyler Ennis, Kendall Marshall, Josh Jackson and Dragan Bender as well as guys who just don't pan out out like Markeiff. They Only Win more than 40 games ONCE while going through 5 coaches and 4 GMs during this decade-long span. It was AGONY for a fan because they were not drafting well and there was seemingly not a cohesive plan in place.
Enter James Jones, who becomes full time GM in 2019.
I could loosely chronicle the rebuild, but Greenie has it all put much more concisely here.
We now have a team that is young, athletic, long and well lead by a phenomenal vet in CP3. By the way, that is one of the more bizarre phenomena of this whole thing. I have hated CP3 essentially his entire career.
Flopper! Faker! Antagonizer!
Now, though? I would go to war for this man. And I think seeing him and Monty getting a chance at a ring and the emotion behind their brotherhood is enough to swing anyone to his side. In this, his 16th year in the league, he is going into these finals averaging 16/9 and a steal in the playoffs.
Deandre Ayton is 22 years old in his first NBA playoffs and he is averaging 16/11 with a block!
Devin Booker 24 and he is averaging 27/6/5!
Cam Payne, who we all mostly knew as the Russell Westbrook handshake sidekick, was dragged out of the G-League to average 10/3/4 off the bench!
Mikal Bridges is playing out of his mind, Jae Crowder is killing it from 3, Cam Johnson is proving himself to be exactly the stretch 4 you want off the bench and Torrey Craig, who we got for cash considerations from the Bucks, just locked down PG and ended the game with a +28 tonight.
I'm happy my parents forced me to be a Yankee fan, because at least I was old enough to fully appreciate '09. But this is mostly uncharted territory for me. One of my two garbage, cursed franchises has ACTUALLY made it to a championship, and I am over the fucking moon right now over it.
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HOWEVER, Stephen A, I am not satisfied.
4 more games. 192 more minutes. 3 more hours.
I want BLOOD. I don't care if it's from Trae Young or Giannis. FEED IT TO ME! I want to guzzle up the tears of their fans as threes rain down on them like a monsoon. I want to witness Book and Ayton on the victory bus driving through Phoenix sucking down noons and making girls swoon. If you are a Hawks or Bucks fan, be prepared. After all, do you think you're tougher than the fucking Suns?
SUNS IN FOUR!