Bull session

(Editor's Note: The lack of comprehensive structure in this mess is appalling. However, I think there are some points I wanted to make buried inside it. Please, you three or four readers, at least give it a chance, despite its length.)

My fears were realized: the suspensions were handed down, the Suns lost in 6 and we basketball fans (we few, we happy few) were robbed of one more game between these two titans. I guess I feel the need to wrap up the Suns season, not so much in a "what do they need to do to get over the hump" sense, but more in a "what they meant to me" sense.
I badly wanted to see them win the championship this year because I knew it was the last year I would seriously watch them during Nash's prime. By the time I get out of law school, assuming everything goes well, Nash is going to be laying on his back covered in gym warmups and towels in an assisted living center. And even if the Suns are still a good team, they won't be as fun to watch or as heartbreaking.
So although I never saw Phoenix as the prohibitive favorites, I had a vision that they could best all comers and actually win the title, sending my past three years of fandom out on the highest of high notes.
But rather than that, they actually faltered sooner than in the past. There are hundreds of questions jangling around the minds of those who follow this team: trade Marion, trade Stoudemire, concern about the personnel moves after Brian Colangelo left, Diaw's contract is too big, where will the Hawks draft pick end up, can Nash still lead the team at his age, can they ever beat Dallas or San Antonio in a big series.
But I really don't care about those. I'm interested more in the soul of the Suns. Their quiet determination to play their way and not be bothered by the actions of others. And that is what I didn't like about the Spurs series. The Suns tried to prove their toughness, something they had never really tried to do before. Their answer to someone roughing them up was to outrun them, rather than stand and fight. And when they tried to fight, they fell into the trap that teams like the Spurs love to set.
It comes down to whether one likes to see the Suns as my preferred "beautiful failure" or a "faceless conqueror." To date, Phoenix had always decided to play their style, whatever the costs, whatever the rewards. But against the Spurs, they shed their ethic and tried to bully a bully. I wanted it to work, but to some degree, I missed the old Suns.
And that's really the point I have been trying to get at in this discussion: can nice guys finish first? It appears the answer is no, and that leads to the second point: is it still the right thing to do to remain a nice guy?
This week I was speaking to someone who knows me through my work, but not through my outside activities. We were talking about me going to law school (because that is the only thing anyone ever talks to me about during work hours) and this person wondered if I really had the chops for the daily battles of the law. "You're not really a very competitive guy," he said in a manner that was not a question but more a statement of fact. I think I said "Well, uh ..."
In point of fact, he was pretty much correct. I am not overly competitive in anything. I usually rationalize this away by saying I don't have to try to kill somebody to win when I can just out-think them. That's what I try to do on the basketball court. But I can't say that I care a whole lot either way if I win or lose a pickup game. I'm more interested in having fun and playing well. And when I think back to when the games "mattered," I don't really remember how badly I wanted to win. I have always felt that I didn't do as well at anything (basketball, academics, etc.) when I was unhappy. Getting mad doesn't make me do better - it just makes me angry. So my goal has been to be calm and focused.
What I currently struggle with is whether it is better to have a lawyer who is willing to kill to win for his client or one who can stay calm and focused no matter what happens. Obviously, it is an adversarial system, so there is something to be said for wanting to win. I often tell myself that I will find the competitiveness when I'm being paid to help someone win a case. I think that may still be true, but I'll have to find out.
How does this all relate to the Suns? It probably doesn't - since it's my blog, this is about me. But it may be tangentially connected. The Suns are extremely competitive and badly want to win, but they always did so in a manner that was honorable. I don't know if the last series was honorable: too much complaining to the officials, too much woe is me because of breaking a rule that everyone knows; too much flopping and too much disgust. I know the Spurs did all of these same things and instigated an ugly incident that maybe won them the series, but that's what they do. Everyone knows that. They are a personality-free band of automatons who actively work for the elimination of all joy in basketball thanks to the efforts of their fundamentally sound but aggressively boring big man, a point guard so uninteresting he gets called by his wife's name and a scorer off the bench who regularly gets fouled by the lamps in his home. And this lack of fun is all overseen by an Air Force Academy grad coach who only knows three things: discipline, being tough and the fact that he looks exactly like a serial killer.
I can't help it - I like to have fun with the Spurs. But getting back to my point - they say that to be the best, you have to beat the best. They being professional wrestlers, I guess. But they don't say to be the best you have to be LIKE the best. And that is the Suns mistake, they have come to know their enemies so well, they are trying to become their enemies. Not unlike Luke in a light saber duel with his father, he felt the need to be evil in order to defeat the face of evil.
But I'm asking for the Suns to remain good (in the space opera/comic book sense). And this was their year to prove nice guys can finish first. But it didn't happen, so I guess my thesis is blown. And it won't happen for the Suns anytime soon. They do have to trade Marion because the team won't pay the luxury tax. And despite which rookie they get, it's still a rookie. This was their time: Nash still had it in the tank and they had all-stars and semi-stars around him. But it didn't happen.
And that's OK. Winning a championship isn't everything. It's important, but it's not everything. Charles Barkley never won one, thankfully, because it has led to lots of great jokes on the TNT set.

And now, a prose poem in honor of the death of the Suns 2006-07 and the birth of my new future:

They couldn't really change
Nice guys can't finish first
But they won't be forgotten or considered less than great.
I cannot change either
First is unnecessary, I'd just like to pass the bar
I don't need to be remembered, just paid enough to cover my loans