Greetings, Bright Siders! You have clicked on a very special article today because this is my 101st post on Bright Side of the Sun. In the interest of full disclosure, this article was supposed to be posted for my 100th article, but the Suns had to go ahead and remove the interim tag from Earl Watson six days after the season ended. Thanks a lot, Ryan McDonough, for increasing my workload by 1/100th!
Anyhoo, to celebrate such a momentous occasion, here are 101 reasons for Suns fans to look forward to the 2016-17 season, ranging from the obvious to the delightfully absurd.
(Disclaimer: Deadpoolio and Bright Side of the Sun, including any and all affiliations either known or unknown, will not be held liable for any of the following that fail to come true. Any irresponsible bets you make based off the information in this article are yours and yours alone.)
- The 2016-17 season is an off year for an Eric Bledsoe meniscus injury.
- There are still 24 teams Devin Booker hasn't scored 30 points against.
- Eric Bledsoe is running out of menisci to tear.
- There are still 30 teams for Devin Booker to score 50 points against.
- Ryan McDonough's newest draft pick winning Rookie of the Year.
- Brandon Knight winning Sixth Man of the Year.
- Crowd noise.
- Alex Len's offense has nowhere to go but up.
- A Sun making the All-Star team.
- Devin Booker being voted an All-Star starter by every high school girl in America.
- Earl Watson loving and embracing you.
- Don't forget nurturing you.
- Looking up at the 14 Ring of Honor members.
- Watching as Shawn Marion makes it 15 members.
- Followed by Al McCoy making it 16.
- A quintuple-peat for P.J. Tucker in winning the Dan Majerle Hustle Award.
- Mirza Teletovic making 200 3-pointers off the bench.
- Mirza Teletovic getting more than one 3rd-place vote from Tim Kempton for Sixth Man of the Year.
- Ending the playoff drought. Because seven straight seasons without making the playoffs would just be ridiculous.
- The Heart Eyes Emoji being officially renamed the Devin Booker Emoji.
- Winning more than 23 games.
- Winning more than 40?
- Let's go nuts. 82-0!
- Seeing more than 50 percent of alley-oop passes get completed.
- Bogdan Bodganovic hitting game winners for Phoenix.
- Eddie Johnson calling games.
- Bad jokes from Steve Albert.
- Ann Meyers-Drysdale mispronouncing every player's name at least once over the course of a single broadcast.
- Seeing T.J. Warren make a circus shot off his own knee.
- Devin Booker saving a litter of puppies from a burning building.
- Beating the Los Angeles Lakers.
- Friday games being Retro Jersey Night.
- Beating the San Antonio Spurs.
- Trading a disgruntled player at the trade deadline.
- At least one of Phoenix's 7'1'' centers averaging more than a block a game.
- A new PR campaign to replace We Are PHX.
- Eric Bledsoe trying to live up to Diana Taurasi's legacy.
- Looking at the Phoenix Mercury's four championship banners hanging alongside the Suns' zero.
- The best mascot in the NBA, The Gorilla.
- The NBA announcing in March that Devin Booker has not, in fact, missed a single shot all season and that any perceived misses on his part were nothing more than optical illusions. The error is corrected soon afterwards.
- With the relocation and renaming of their D-League team, the Northern Arizona Suns, there are now twice as many chances the Suns will have a winning season.
- Grey sleeveless jerseys?
- Watching the Suns go undefeated in their black PHX jerseys.
- The Suns Dancers.
- P.J. Tucker steamrolling cameramen and fans in the first few rows.
- More end-of-bench celebrations from Alan Williams.
- Signing Dionte Christmas to celebrate with Alan Williams.
- Arguments over a new arena for the Suns.
- Ronnie Price being covered in floor burns by mid-December.
- Devin Booker being named the new Most Interesting Man in the World by Dos Equis.
- The Suns beating the Oklahoma City Thunder on New Year's Eve.
- The Suns acquiring the better twin for once.
- The Suns winning a coin flip for something. Anything.
- Earl Watson winning Coach of the Year.
- Tom Chambers and Eddie Johnson arguing during the pregame show.
- The Suns saying they will focus on defense in training camp.
- The Suns actually focusing on defense in training camp.
- The Suns carrying over defense from training camp into preseason.
- The Suns carrying over defense from preseason into the actual season, when the games count.
- Devin Booker brokering peace between Israel and Palestine.
- 50% off at Papa John's after every Suns win.
- All that great close-to-the-arena parking that Charles Barkley talked about.
- Wearing purple. It's the color of royalty.
- Alex Len growing a full beard, and Tyson Chandler shaving his.
- P.J. Tucker donning the goggles he wore during his first season in Phoenix.
- The Suns winning their final game before the All-Star break.
- A star player wanting to be traded to the Suns.
- The Suns committing the fewest turnovers in the NBA.
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar joining the Suns...as a player development coach. Hey, better late than never.
- Devin Booker's smile being reported as visible from the International Space Station.
- Archie Goodwin spending the summer with the master of turning around hopelessly broken jump shots, Jason Kidd. Goodwin goes on to lead the NBA in 3-point percentage.
- Steve Nash agreeing to be an assistant coach on Earl Watson's staff.
- The assist-to-turnover ratio of the Suns' backcourt instantly skyrocketing.
- Having the longest arena name in the NBA. (Sorry, Palace of Auburn Hills, we don't count prepositions here.)
- T.J. Warren's face springing to life.
- Tons of commercials for Carl's Jr. and Talking Stick Resort during the game broadcast.
- An Alex Len hook shot
- Nate Bjorkgren's shiny head blinding at least one opponent on a corner 3-point attempt.
- The Suns getting a celebrity fan in the crowd.
- The face of Teddy Roosevelt on Mount Rushmore being re-shaped to more closely resemble Devin Booker.
- Robert Sarver dunking off a trampoline again.
- With his foam finger.
- The Suns going a full 82 games without a player stepping out of bounds on the sideline.
- P.J. Tucker ripping through one of those sleeved jerseys like Hulk.
- The Fractured Prune inside the arena finally starts selling prune doughnuts.
- Former commissioner David Stern issuing an apology for costing the Suns a championship in 2006-07.
- The NBA announcing that pick No. 13 in the Draft is now officially reserved for the Phoenix Suns.
- The head-down driving layup being renamed the Archie Goodwin.
- Effen Vodka replacing Gatorade in the coolers behind the benches.
- Devin Booker replacing the Puerto Princesa Underground River as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.
- The Team Shop selling McStunna shades to honor MC GM Ryan McDonough.
- McDonough getting a better rap name.
- The Suns agreeing to sell jersey ad space to Orange Crush.
- A new orange-and-black uniform color scheme the Suns will call Tire Fire.
- Phoenix winning the battle of things NBA teams are named after. Phoenix is named after the Sun, and the Sun would obviously destroy the things every other NBA team is named after...except for magic, depending on how strong the magic was...and abstract ideas like jazz...and heat, I guess, because the Sun actually creates heat. You know what? Forget that. Sun wins.
- The Gorilla dunking off the roof of his Hummer while it does doughnuts on the court.
- Aaron Nelson winning Athletic Trainer of the Year for keeping Alex Len healthy for all 82 games only to have the award taken back when it is revealed he did so by giving Len adamantium bones.
- The sudden acceleration of global warming causing sea levels to rise and putting the Pacific Division Suns actually near the Pacific Ocean.
- Robert Sarver yelling at millennials to get off his lawn.
- Devin Booker traveling back in time to kill Hitler.
- Dave and Co. (including the lovable underdog Deadpoolio) bringing every Bright Side reader another season's worth of daily content that you will immediately skip through to get to the comments section.