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Phoenix has long suffered an inferiority complex as a 7th city full of East Coast transplants that didn't quite have the chops to make it all the way to Los Angeles.
So for us when the New Yorkers comes to town be it the Mets, Knicks or (hide your children) the Yankees it's always a big deal.
Suddenly you hear people ordering "cawfee" with their tacos and the local Basha's clerks can fugetaboutit when they ask if the overweight bejeweled customer wants to use coupons.
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When you add on top of the normal Phoenician identity crisis what's become a very public spat between the spoiled stubborn head coach who refused to consider even the slightest input from his "bosses" and the overbearing under qualified TV analyst turned GM and his stingy banker owner then you have yourself a real duel in the desert. A showdown at the US Airway corral. An Oedipus vs Hamlet tragedy for the ages.
Mostly though it's just one big mess that makes for great fodder for talk radio. And blogs.
You will recall that when D'Antoni left Phoenix the accepted spin was that Kerr and Sarver wanted him to focus a bit more on defense and to consider deeper rotations.
We now know so much more thanks to a series of media barrages by both sides.
The first shot was fired by the highly emotional West Virginian whose pride clearly was offended by the notion that he should be accountable to anyone. In between churlish attacks on his former employer, Pricklystache saved some venom for his players as well:
"I'm a head coach," D'Antoni said defiantly. "I'm neither an offensive nor a defensive coach. I'm a basketball coach. Maybe I should go to a seminar. But I think I know how to guard a guy. How do I get a player to guard a guy? Well, that's harder to do."
A seminar isn't bad idea come to think of it. Larry Brown could co-host with Jeff Van Gundy. The first session could be called: "How to bench a player that won't defend his man". After lunch could be a panel discussion on "How to instruct your players to switch off non-shooting big men for last second shots in the playoffs". See Exhibit A.
Now that Regretstache is in Phoenix and feeling Sarver's energy field he seems to soften a bit saying that he shouldn't have said what he said but at the same time not backing off anything he said. That's convenient isn't it.
To sum up, it was Sarver and Kerr's fault for intruding but at the same time he over reacted to the loss against the Spurs and perhaps moved to hastily. One thing for certain, after hearing Weepystache talk about losing that first game to the Spurs you see now that the Suns never had a chance to come back.
The mental toughness to overcome was lacking and in it's place the team was lead to inevitable defeat by the pity party approach of the coach. Spurs fans were right. Our team was weak.
Listen for yourself to Mediastache after his team practiced on Sunday at Brophy High (save the gloating you private school snobs). Audio provided by Sports 620 KTAR.
Sarver in response on local radio talked for over 15 minutes (ironically to a New York transplanted radio host) and responded to all of Bitterstache's charges.
Yes, the Suns asked Stubbornstache to add a defensive coach and yes they asked him focus a bit more on defense. No, they didn't intrude on how he ran the team beyond that and no they didn't want him to leave.
If at this point you haven't figured it out, I am siding with the Sarver / Kerr alliance. I think Creepystache is a brilliant basketball coach and has incredible desire to win but his emotions and stubbornness got the better of him and he became as much of a primadonna as his highly paid young stars. He should do great in New York.
In the end he failed to lead his team past an agonizing defeat in game 1 and let the pain of the loss turn him paranoid. Losing is hard but if you can't put defeat behind you and get ready to play the next game you will never be a champion.
For all that, I am going to award Kerr a Genius Point as a symbol of my support in Le Affaire de D'Antioni. Many of you will disagree so bring it strong because I am pretty set in my ways on this one.
Also here's Porter, Barbosa and Nash talking about Knickystache and the upcoming game. Nothing earth shattering but I am sure a more competent writer then I could (and will) hammer out a few graphs about Nash's feeling the change.
Personally, nothing said really intrigued me so you all can just listen for yourself and bang out your own report. Desperate Housewives Football is on.
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