The 2009/10 Phoenix Suns have shown tremendous resiliency and mental toughness in their 10-2 start to the season. (Photo by Max Simbron)

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Gone are the days when the Suns ran teams off the court with high-paced fun and gun basketball. This version of the Phoenix Suns has already proven to be more versatile, mentally tough and resilient than any of the earlier Nash-era teams.

Asked before Sunday's game against the Raptors what his favorite part of this year's team is, Suns head coach Alvin Gentry quickly mentioned the teams resiliency. His favorite win up to that point wasn't the big upset over the Celtics at the Garden. He was impressed with his team coming from behind in Philadelphia on the last night of a long road trip. It was a game the team easily could have let go but they battled back and got the win.

Five times in ten wins the Suns have been trailing going into the fourth quarter and five times now the Suns have overcome double digit deficits to get the win. Obviously the Suns don't want to have to come from behind but what it shows about this team are a few things that have been missing in Phoenix for the past 5 years.

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Consider this your totally random question of the day.

After reading some comments about wanting Raja Bell back or not being able to get an early 2nd round draft pick that could have been used on Blair or Budinger, it got me thinking - just what are the biggest holes on the Suns roster?

Is it the back up point guard where the Dragic / Barbosa combination still leaves questions?

Is it the power forward depth where Lou is good but still....?

Or obviously is it at center where Robin Lopez has yet to play a game and is still a big "?"

In fact it is so obviously at back up Center that we will run this poll without that option.

The Suns bench has done more than cheer this season. Their play has allowed Phoenix to go 9 or 10 deep and has limited the minutes played by the starters leaving them fresh to close out games. (Photo by Max Simbron)

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The wonderful play of the Suns bench has been well documented and has lead to the Suns regularly playing 4 reserves (Barbosa, Dudley, Amundson and Dragic). With the pending return of Robin Lopez and the continued development of Earl Clark Gentry will easily be able to go 11 deep.

We've marveled at Jared's "athletic hands" and Lou's volleyball rejections but it is interesting to note how the depth of the Suns has impacted the minutes of the Suns starters.

Through 11 games the Sun with the most minutes per game is Amare Stoudemire at 34.5mpg which ranks 43rd in the NBA.The "aging" vets are even lower with 32.7 for Steve Nash and 30 for Grant Hill. This is the first time since the 1999/00 season that Nash is averaging under 33 minutes.

All this for a team that is 9-2 that has only played four times at home and has only had one two-day break between games so far.

While the Suns have looked flat on the second game of their three back-to-backs they've also managed to overcome double digit deficits four times and are holding teams to 41.6% shooting in the fourth quarter of their nine wins.

As further evidence for the benefit of being fresh there's this little fun fact from Paul Coro,

When trailing after three quarters, the Suns went 4-30 last year. They are 4-2 in that situation this season. And this is a team already on its eighth road game tonight.

Those are all signs of a rested team. Not once has Steve Nash had to play an entire fourth quarter and I can't even recall him entering the game with more than 8 minutes to go. Compare that to last season when the Suns often were forced to play Steve for the entire final period leaving him too gassed to perform late game heroics.

The depth is no surprise to Suns fans who understood that the bench was a strength of the team going into the season but the numbers are a bit startling when your top guy in minutes is only 43rd in the league.

We're 10 games deep into this loveliest of seasons (so far) and it's time for a wee bit o' the housekeeping.  

First of all, thank you for making Bright Side of the Sun your Phoenix Suns destination of choice.  Two weeks into the season and traffic here is over twice what it was last year!  Our year-to-date numbers are even better having grown by almost three times what they were for 2008.  In other words, we blowin' up.  

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Jared Dudley is only getting better. (Photo by Max Simbron)

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Of all the Suns I met at Media Day, Jared Dudley was the easiest one for me to talk to. Nash wasn't really available, Amare had been asked the same questions over and over again, Robin Lopez actually intimidated me, Earl Clark was too soft spoken for me to understand (and his words came from what seemed to be the ceiling of US Airways), Channing Frye was surrounded by everyone, and was talking about his honeymoon, and talking to Dan Dickau was clearly pointless.

Jared Dudley has a very engaging personality. As a young pseudo journalist, it's oftentimes difficult to think of an original question to ask a professional athlete. Of course there was much to ask Dudley. He was really trying to tweet his way to, um, something, and he had shown some serious promise last year in limited minutes for the Suns after he was tossed into the Bobcat deal that sent Raja Bell and Boris Diaw to Charlotte for Jason Richardson.

Last year in limited minutes Dudley proved to be a bench player the Suns had needed for some time. He was a guy who went to the floor for loose balls, played defense, and took pride in everything he did on the floor with the precious minutes he was allotted. The guy had heart, and all of us Suns faithful that endured a season of pain and confusion last year got a glimpse of the Junkyard Dog. We liked what we saw.

Dudley was intriguing to me, but I didn't have to ask him much, he was willing to talk and talk and talk. By the end of our two minute or so interview, I was struck by one thing he said. The Q &A went something like this:

Me: "So have you been working on your three point shot this off season? You really seemed to thrive in the Suns run and gun system late last season."

Dudley: "Hey, anything to stay in this league. I'm working on everything."

And it struck me at that point that this guy wasn't taking anything for granted. He wasn't satisfied to sit at the end of the pine just picking up an NBA paycheck, he wouldn't be satisfied to play a few years in the NBA and then move in. Jared Dudley wanted to play, make his mark, and stay in the NBA. He knew what he could bring to the table. He knew what it took to get on the floor, and he wasn't intimidated by anyone in the NBA, anyone.

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Brandon Jennings is a talented player but his me-first attitude will not serve him well in his NBA career as a point guard.

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I hate to rain on this 55 point parade but Brandon Jennings hitting uncontested jump shots against the Warriors does not change my opinion of him as a point guard in this league.

How many times have we seen young studs come in and show they could score the ball and how many times have they proven themselves to be me-first ballers that eventually alienate their teammates and fade away to supporting roles.

Brandon is obviously talented and he clearly was feeling it last night as he told Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski after the game, "The shots kept going in, and after a while the rim kept getting bigger and bigger and I just felt like I couldn’t miss."

But it was this quote on NBA TV that caught my eye, "The Warriors, they kept going under the screens in the first half I was hesitating to take shots and in the second half they kept going under the screens and I was like 'ok, don't keep disrespecting me' and I just started knocking down jump shots and we started getting a bigger lead and after that I just started thinking about getting the win."

Absolutely, if the Warriors are going to go under the screens then he needs to take that shot but his response is telling. He doesn't talk about taking what was given. He talks about being disrespected and only after that he starts thinking about the win?

That kind of attitude is perfectly acceptable in a young talented player but not in a point guard who's role is to lead his team on the floor.

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We interrupt today's grieving over the loss to the Lakers to bring you this random thought....

How does Channing Frye compare to Utah's shooting big man Memhet Okur and what will that mean to the Suns salary situation next season.

As always, we start with the stats...

Okur is scoring about 1.5 more points per game and grabbing 1.8 more rebounds per game in about 2 more minutes per game played. Edge Okur until you notice that Frye is a more efficient shooter from range: 43.3% vs 38.1% for Okur. So far this season, Frye is taking and hitting about twice as many three's as Okur.

The one number that really stands out is free throw percentage. There's no reason for Frye to be at 64%. If he can increase that by 10 or 12 percentage points his scoring will increase by a couple of points per game. As teams focus more on closing out on him and preventing him from getting wide open looks he's going to have to put the ball on the floor more. That's going to lead to more free throw attempts which he's going to need to hit.

On the flip side, Okur is turning the ball over at much greater rate which is certainly a big reason why his efficiency rating is only +14.86 compared to +14.20 for Frye.

Defensively, they both average .7 blocks per game and Frye has the edge in steals which isn't a surprise since he is much more mobile than Memhet. Okur's size does give him an edge as post defender but Frye's ability to guard the pick and roll and provide activity makes them about a wash on that end of the floor.

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With this scorching start the Phoenix Suns are on pace to win 73 games. That's not going to happen which means at some point the team is going to go on a slump and fans expectations are going to be crushed and the disappointment and anxiety level will rise.

Even more important than how fans and media react to the coming adversity is how the team prepares itself for the long haul.

Right now, from Coach Gentry on down we are hearing a story of humility and desire coming from the Suns. Gentry talks about waiting until 20 or 25 games in to assess the team and that Amare has another level to jump to in his game. Nash talks about how the team is still figuring itself out. Hill calls it a work in progress.

This team is playing with a fire and edge that comes from being a discounted underdog. That extra oomph has been the difference in at least two close games this season and is needed to overcome the size disadvantage the Suns face on a nightly basis. When your front line is over-matched physically it takes a special kind of energy to win the rebounding battle.

Beating the World Champion Lakers on their floor on the second night of back-to-back would raise fans expectations through the roof and risks taking away the team's edge that it needs to bring that effort every night. We've seen how the pressure of "eye on the prize" can sap the Suns energy. We've seen how the media and fans explode with angst at every set back once the bar has been raised to the championship level.

What this team needs more than a win tonight is to continue to believe that they are the underdog and that they must work hard to get better every day.

That's why a loss tonight to the Lakers isn't such a bad idea.

[Note by Phoenix Stan, 11/12/09 10:52 AM MST ]

To clarify my point that probably wasn't made clear enough in the original rushed draft this morning....

While I strongly feel that a loss tonight isn't a bad thing and in fact has an "upside" I also by no means think the Suns should (or will) lay down and not try and get the win.

BEAT LA!!