How was kobe not ejected after going for Faried's head?!? How was kobe not ejected after going for Faried's head?!?

How was kobe not ejected after going for Faried's head?!? How was kobe not ejected after going for Faried's head?!?

How was kobe not ejected after going for Faried's head?!? How was kobe not ejected after going for Faried's head?!?

How was kobe not ejected after going for Faried's head?!? How was kobe not ejected after going for Faried's head?!?

How was kobe not ejected after going for Faried's head?!? How was kobe not ejected after going for Faried's head?!?

How was kobe not ejected after going for Faried's head?!? How was kobe not ejected after going for Faried's head?!?

Okay, so the Suns need to do some work this offseason if we have any hope to be competitive in 2012-2013. If Nash comes back and we build around him, I think we ought to build strictly with Short term contracts, and get 2 max players, on high paying 1-2 year deals, older veterans (i.e. Garnett or Allen). But, with the realization that Nash may not come back next year, here is what I think would be a good way to go about things, that would lessen the needs we have on our roster to be competitive going forward, and by that i mean a 7th to 4th seed in the West, while we wait for a Free Agency class with more young talent: read after the jump

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Last week, my teacher in Speech Arts Class told us to give a 3minutes tribute speech that is to be given yesterday. The instruction was to pay tribute and give thanks to anyone, anything that made a significant impact in our lives. So, I delivered a tribute speech to my beloved Phoenix Suns yesterday (in a class that is consisted mostly of MIA, CHI, LA, BOS fans). I got the highest score in the class. It would've gotten a perfect score if not for going over time. My teacher deducted 2 points from my score for going over the time limit. But who cares, I could go on for a day just talking about my Suns! So let me know what you guys think. What score would you give me if you were the teacher?

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"The burden for the ring won't be on your shoulders alone, young hobbit. We shall create a Fellowship of the Ring, Nine Walkers to go forth 'gainst the Nine Black Riders!" intoned that great elf-lord of nobility, he of the Elvin Gentry.

The young hobbit, little Stevo Nashins, his hair a disheveled mop after the arduous trek through the West, stood with head bowed, but an eager and determined gleam in his eye. "And what warriors would you send with me on this most perilous journey?"

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Just wanted to get a feel on who all my fellow Brightsiders would like to see drafted into Orange and Purple on draft night. My personal pick for draft night would be Austin Rivers just because of the killer mentality and scoring prowess that he contains. He has star potential if he reigns in some aspects of his game. Another prospect I fell in love with almost off of potential alone is Tony Wroten. He is very athletic and at 6' 5 he brings a new aspect to us at the point position. He is blistering fast and would be a good fit in our system. Would need to work on his shooting tremendously but the upside is very high. I'm interested to see what the community thinks we should do draft night. I'll include a link so everyone can see some of the prospects in our range.

http://www.draftexpress.com/nba-mock-draft/2012/

As we embark on yet another Sunless NBA playoffs, a lot of folks on the site have shared that they’ll be rooting for this or that ex-Sun advancing toward glory.

But I had not yet seen a comprehensive list of our former favorites (and not-so favorites) who are moving on with other teams in the 2012 race for a ring.

In an effort to rectify this, I have put together the following list of former Suns who are still in it to win it.

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First off I apologize for creating another fanpost involving free-rostergrazing (free agency=free grazing, trading=roste...oh whatever), but I will be delving into many different scenarios. I've seen a lot of posts involving what we should do this offseason to improve, most revolving around Eric Gordon so let me address this. He is a premier player in this league, the centerpiece in the trade that shipped out CP3, and anything we can offer Gordon will be a bargain for New Orleans, thus I believe Gordon stays. Even still, people talk about him as if he is on the block. I'm not saying the FO shouldn't kick the tires, so to speak. But nobody should be expecting to see Gordon in a Suns uniform. So with that said, I plan on looking at the most definite unlikely scenarios (minus Gordon, since that has been hashed to death), to the likely ones, all the way to the what if. As in what if Nash doesn't come back (GASP!).

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Because you demanded it! (Ok, only Suns R Us did, but anyway...) Pick your way through the NBA bracket to win valuable BSotS prizes! Jim Coughenour's Thesaurus! NashMV3's Sarc-o-meter! Scott Howard's slightly used flamethrower! Seth's TrollStan costume! DiM's collection of Goran posters! MMotherwell's statgeek abacus, with infrared WinShare sensor, and haremoor's quantum optimistic ray of unicorntastic rainbows!

Here's how to play: Chose the winner of each series and the number of games each series will last. You will be awarded 2 points for each correct series winner and 1 point for correctly guessing the number of games. For example:

Series--

Round #1......................Round #2.....................Conf Finals..................Finals

West

PHX over SAS, 4-0.......PHX over MEM, 4-0.....PHX over DAL, 4-0.....PHX over NYK, 4-0

MEM over LAC, 4-2

DAL over OKC,4-3.......DAL over DEN, 4-3

DEN over LAL, 4-2

East

CHI over PHI, 4-3........NYK over CHI, 4-3..........NYK over ORL, 4-3

NYK over MIA, 4-1

ORL over IND, 4-3......ORL over ATL, 4-2

ATL over BOS, 4-2

=================================================================================

Okay, okay. Now you do it. (Substitute UTA for PHX if you really have to.) Copy and paste this in a comment below and make your picks. Remember to include the number of games for all rounds.

Series--

Round #1......................Round #2.....................Conf Finals..................Finals

West

SAS vs. UTA, 0-0.........

MEM vs. LAC, 0-0

DAL vs OKC, 0-0

DEN vs LAL, 0-0

East

CHI vs PHI, 0-0...........

NYK vs MIA, 0-0

ORL vs IND, 0-0

ATL vs BOS, 0-0

There has been much lusting after Eric Gordon and Nic Batum on this site - young, athletic, volume scoring SG's who are Restricted Free Agents this year. Portland made a large number of drastic moves at the trade deadline to attempt to do a quick rebuild, leaving them with an all-star PF, and not much else - except a huge amount of cap room, and a lot of flexibility. The recent sale of the Hornets to Saints owner Tom Benson has confused the issue of Gordon's availability further, but for the sake of argument, we will assume that both of these players will be available - at a price.

The Suns will also go into the off-season with a lot of cap room. For the sake of this argument, I am going to assume that they make every effort to keep Nash and Hill here, at roughly the same to slightly less money than they made this year. Nash has made improvement one of the criteria for returning, specifically mentioning a 20 point scorer as one of the things we don't have and need.

In this case, we are very unlikely to improve on the PG, C, or SF position in the off season. That leaves the 2 and the 4 as areas where we could possibly improve. In this post, I will focus on the SG position currently occupied by Jared Dudley.

The free agent class in the summer of 2012 is thin. Here is the list of SG's that are available according to HoopsWorld (listed in order of rough value):

Shooting Guard
(name, team – 2011-12 salary – status)

Eric Gordon, New Orleans Hornets – $3.8 million – Restricted ($5.1 million Qualifying Offer)
O.J. Mayo, Memphis Grizzlies – $5.6 million – Restricted ($7.4 million Qualifying Offer)
Ray Allen, Boston Celtics – $10.0 million – Unrestricted
Landry Fields, New York Knicks – $0.8 million – Unrestricted*
Carlos Delfino, Milwaukee Bucks – $3.5 million – Unrestricted
Nick Young, L.A. Clippers – $3.7 million – Unrestricted
Jamal Crawford, Portland Trail Blazers – $5.0 million – Player Option ($5.2 million)
Louis Williams, Philadelphia 76ers – $5.2 million – Early Termination Option ($5.4 million)
J.R Smith, New York Knicks – $1.4 million – Player Option ($2.6 million)
Mickael Pietrus, Boston Celtics – $1.2 million – Unrestricted
Courtney Lee, Houston Rockets – $2.2 million – Restricted ($3.2 million Qualifying Offer)
Rudy Fernandez, Denver Nuggets – $2.2 million – Restricted ($3.2 million Qualifying Offer)
DeShawn Stevenson, New Jersey Nets – $2.5 million – Unrestricted
Damion James, New Jersey Nets – $1.2 million – Unrestricted*
C.J. Miles, Utah Jazz – $3.7 million – Unrestricted
Shannon Brown, Phoenix Suns – $3.5 million – Unrestricted
Josh Howard, Utah Jazz – $2.2 million – Unrestricted
Gerald Green, New Jersey Nets – $0.4 million – Unrestricted
Terrence Williams, Sacramento Kings – $2.4 million – Unrestricted*
Jodie Meeks, Philadelphia 76ers – $0.9 million – Unrestricted*
Marco Belinelli, New Orleans Hornets – $3.4 million – Unrestricted
James Anderson, San Antonio Spurs – $1.5 million – Unrestricted*
Matt Carroll, Charlotte Bobcats – $3.9 million – Early Termination Option ($3.5 million)
Brandon Rush, Golden State Warriors – $3.0 million – Restricted ($4.1 million Qualifying Offer)
Alonzo Gee, Cleveland Cavaliers – $0.9 million – Unrestricted*
Danny Green, San Antonio Spurs – $0.9 million – Unrestricted*
Tracy McGrady, Atlanta Hawks – $1.3 million – Unrestricted
Jerry Stackhouse, Atlanta Hawks – $1.3 million – Unrestricted
Willie Green, Atlanta Hawks – $1.2 million – Unrestricted
Jason Kapono, Cleveland Cavaliers – $1.2 million – Unrestricted
Marquis Daniels, Boston Celtics – $1.2 million – Unrestricted
Sasha Pavlovic, Boston Celtics – $1.2 million – Unrestricted
Cory Higgins, Charlotte Bobcats – $0.5 million – Unrestricted*
Anthony Parker, Cleveland Cavaliers – $2.3 million – Unrestricted
Travis Leslie, L.A. Clippers – $0.5 million – Unrestricted*
Keith Bogans, New Jersey Nets – $0.8 million – Unrestricted
Michael Redd, Phoenix Suns – $1.3 million – Unrestricted
Mo Evans, Washington Wizards – $1.2 million – Unrestricted
Kelenna Azubuike, Dallas Mavericks – $0.4 million – Unrestricted
Bobby Simmons, L.A. Clippers – $0.5 million – Unrestricted

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Beavis and Spit_fire are hereby declared as co-winners of the BrightSideoftheSun's Best Seer of the Season contest and are therefore presented with the crowns of Psycho Psychics.

Back at the beginning of the season, we asked for your predictions on how the Western Conference would shake out at the end-- Who would be first? Would the SUNS possibly be in the postseason mix? (SO CLOSE! One sub-luxed shoulder and trick knee away!)

The original fanpost was put up on Dec 23, asking you to predict the Western Conference final regular season standings. To remember why you picked who you did where, go to the link here. (No one had SAS as the #1 seed.)

Daryl Ray finished second (we miss you Sun God! hope all is well! come back to us!), and brian13 was third.

So Beavis and Spit_fire will have to split first prize, which is the New Jersey Nets now empty arena in Newark, Daryl wins one on NashMV3's Sarc-o-meters, and brian13 gets to appear on a new reality show on the JMZ network, where he has to live with Scott Howard, Sethpo, EBR, and the gang for the entire length of the off-season.

Hit the jump to find where you finished in the list of Prestigious Prognosticators (<< I thought Jim C might like this).

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