Is Ayton vs Embiid Already a Great Rivalry?

August as an NBA fan is how I imagine an Alaskan winter must feel like. Perpetually dark regardless of the time, cold with only brief glimpses and reminders of what the warm glow of the Sun(s) feels like. Needless to say, it leaves all of us longing for something to happen.

As a writer tasked with talking about the Phoenix Suns, it is a month of doing so much stretching that you could join Aaron Nelson’s staff. Sure, I could write a breakdown of the 82 game schedule recently released but the simple answer is the Suns will win between 32-35 games and which ones they’ll be is a total guess. I could start positional breakdowns but half of you don’t care what my thoughts on George King’s transitional defense are and the other half of you just had to Google if I made up the name or if he really plays for the team.

So what is a columnist to do? The easy thing would be to do my “Mount Rushmore of Suns players” or something similar or a mailbag where I let you the readers pose the questions and I answer them with as much sarcasm and 1990s references as possible. Since I didn’t request questions and they aren’t going to magically appear, let’s do this a little different.

We’re going to do a Reverse Suns Mailbag. I’m going to pose questions that have been on my mind, share my thoughts and you, the reader, gets to provide your expert analysis in the comments. Sure, this is just asking for criticism and fights below but they happen anyways so why not be an enabler.

So here we go, the first ever BS of the Suns Reverse Mailbag:

Is Ayton v. Embiid quickly becoming the best online NBA rivalry?

I knew I was going to like Deandre Ayton when the Suns selected him. Growing up as a Charles Barkley fan the bigger personality the better. He hasn’t disappointed yet.

Over the last few months he’s showcased his humor and his unique brand of trash talk. The focus of that talk? Joel Embiid. This past week as part of the Panini rookie photo shoot, Ayton was asked to draw his own rookie card. While the drawing was amateurish, it depicted the Suns No. 1 overall pick posterizing Embiid. Which led to the Sixers center jawing back.

The off court rivalry is quickly becoming one of my favorites in the league but can it become one of the best on it?

Does anyone actually believe Kevin Durant might come to the Suns?

Is Durant flirting with Phoenix? That’s certainly one way you could read the situation. Over the last few months he’s mentioned how much he likes the city… as a vacation spot.

Just last week Durant and Devin Booker teamed up to play some pick up ball and seemed to have a great time together. Oh, and apparently in 2015 he wanted Sam Presti to select Booker in the draft.

So this all means he’s coming to Phoenix next offseason, right?

Let’s be honest. This is Phoenix. Nice things don’t happen to us. (SEE: 50 years without a championship.) I’d much rather take the approach that all of this is a ridiculous coincidence and everyone is over analyzing and be pleasantly surprised than get my hopes up and be crushed.

Durant isn’t joining the Suns. What do you think?

Should I raise my daughter as a Suns fan?

While trying to figure out what to write this week I was sitting with my 1 year old daughter in my home office. The room is decorated wall to wall in a combination of my childhood Suns memorabilia and the stuff I accumulated while working for the team. As we sat there my little girl pointed to a picture of Charles Barkley on the wall and asked who it was. I told her and she started pointing and saying “Bah-Klee”. It was cute and, in a bizarre way, an extremely proud moment.

But am I doing my daughter a disservice by raising her as a Suns fan? When I was growing up it was a foregone conclusion, you rooted for your hometown team. It was part civic pride and part necessity. You couldn’t easily follow another team or player unless they played on the Sunday nationally televised NBC game.

Now with League Pass, the Internet and social media you can be the fan of any team, anywhere and any time. So is it really necessary for me to raise my little girl as a fanatic of the Purple Gang from Phoenix? As a good parent isn’t it my job to protect my child from unnecessary heartbreak, aka the Suns specialty?