Back in 1996....

That was the first jersey I ever got… Hitting the 3 ponters… And the all out hustle… He would guard the other teams stud… Its kind of wierd now that he is a coach looking professional…

I was 9 years old and the Lakers were the only team I had access to back then. There was something about Kobe and that afro of his that really dazzled me.

Bad As I Wanna Be is not uniformly awful. If you ignore the ridiculous multiple fonts and font sizes, you can see that Dennis Rodman was actually quite insightful about the state of the NBA and its culture. He was also committed to playing good basketball with an intensity and consistency that should embarrass many players now.

Oh, and Steve Nash is that player for me. I’m too lazy to look for a picture.

Did you miss me?

…..yes, you leave me no choice.

Yeah, I said it. The man could soar, the man could score… and being a small white Jewish kid in a minority neighborhood growing up, he made me feel like race doesn’t matter as long as you’re good at something.

Could you find two bigger Suns tormentors to pick? We all know about Kobe but, as much as I respect Hakeem, I find him to be personally responsible for 2 championships he won that the Suns would have won otherwise in the mid-90s.

Anyway, as for the question at hand, I’ll say Walter Davis. I grew up as a Suns fan in the late 70s/early 80s, and loved Paul Westphal and Alvan Adams, etc. but the guy who jumped off the screen was Walter Davis, such a fluid, graceful athlete. Sweet D, The
Candyman, The Man With the Velvet Touch.

Kevin Johnson in the late 80’s did it for me… but embarrassingly it was mostly due to a parental “religious” upbringing that KJ also supposedly had. =/ Yay for manipulative parents!

take a guess

I grew up watching some games with my dad and he was a huge Michael Jordan fan. I watched some of the games as a little kid and I really thought he was the best, which he very well is. I was only 9 when I saw that Utah-Bulls Finals in 1999 but it was the best I’d seen and I still remember it today.

But the player that got me truly invested is Steve Nash. And it was after he signed with the Phoenix Suns that I started following basketball, which led to me being a Suns fan and finding this site.

Rather, it was a moment. I had watched Suns games as a kid with my dad, and rooted hard for them, but it was the double OT playoff game against the Blazers in ’91 that cemented me as a lifelong Suns fan, even though the Suns lost that game.

…if you say you’re missing me. I haven’t had the urge to write about anything in a while, though I feel a word storm could be on the horizon.

I wasn’t really into basketball until 1996’s Space Jam with MJ. Ah, yes….junior high and Jordan. He was big. Everyone loved him. Love, love, love. I wasn’t into the Suns until about 2004-05 when I saw Nash on tv. I was convinced that he was 5 feet tall (seriously…he looked really short compared to everyone else on the big screen). It was the Mighty Mouse complex. Then I got to know Bell, Barbosa, Diaw…it just goes on from there.

Which player first got you interested in basketball?

Pippen and Rodman. I always had a liking for the Suns during that time and would root for them, but didn’t become a Suns fanatic until Nash arrived. Before then I had always liked Nash and the Mavs. When he came to the Suns I knew they were going to be good, but I never thought they would become a contender.