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A new article came out about the Suns, basically talks about the Suns title hopes for this season, here it is incase anyone wants to read it.

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/suns/ar ... main.html#

Why wouldn't they have high hopes?

I think a lot of the doubters think that we're hoping Shaq would deliver to us a ring and that is just not the case. They think Shaq is all washed up and relying on him to win a championship is just silly. They think our window closed when we traded away Marion and replaced D'Antoni.

I think we rely on Shaq as much as ANY team in the league relies on their center to play their part. I don't seem him as our savior but an important part of our team. And for the doubters who question the Marion trade and replacement of D'Antoni, I think the result of that is a greater emphasis on defense and more depth than we've had in a long time. I'd trade D'Antoni and Marion for defense and depth any day and at the same time get an above average center and an Amare who wants to play defense.

I expect this season to be much like last season in terms of the competitiveness in the West, except that novelty teams like Nuggets and Warriors who relies solely on offense would not make playoffs, and team that still puts an emphasis on defense would prevail. And on that thought, so what if we're 8th seed, I expect the difference from the 1-8th seed to be no more than 10 games. If you think about it, last season we played with Shaq for less than half a season and we had a coach who didn't know how to use Shaq properly and we were still only a few games worse than the number 1 seed. So honestly I don't think it's that big of a deal whether we're 8th seed or 1st seed.

lilfishi22 wrote:I think a lot of the doubters think that we're hoping Shaq would deliver to us a ring and that is just not the case. They think Shaq is all washed up and relying on him to win a championship is just silly. They think our window closed when we traded away Marion and replaced D'Antoni.

I think we rely on Shaq as much as ANY team in the league relies on their center to play their part. I don't seem him as our savior but an important part of our team. And for the doubters who question the Marion trade and replacement of D'Antoni, I think the result of that is a greater emphasis on defense and more depth than we've had in a long time. I'd trade D'Antoni and Marion for defense and depth any day and at the same time get an above average center and an Amare who wants to play defense.

I expect this season to be much like last season in terms of the competitiveness in the West, except that novelty teams like Nuggets and Warriors who relies solely on offense would not make playoffs, and team that still puts an emphasis on defense would prevail. And on that thought, so what if we're 8th seed, I expect the difference from the 1-8th seed to be no more than 10 games. If you think about it, last season we played with Shaq for less than half a season and we had a coach who didn't know how to use Shaq properly and we were still only a few games worse than the number 1 seed. So honestly I don't think it's that big of a deal whether we're 8th seed or 1st seed.

Agree 100%....I think the Suns have always played better as underdogs