{"id":1737,"date":"2007-10-29T20:17:04","date_gmt":"2007-10-30T01:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/phoenix-suns\/"},"modified":"2007-10-29T20:17:04","modified_gmt":"2007-10-30T01:17:04","slug":"phoenix-suns","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/phoenix-suns","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix Suns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Predicted Record<\/strong>
\n58-24 (Tom), 62-20 (Gil)<\/p>\n

Last Year’s Record<\/strong>
\n61-21<\/p>\n

Tom’s Commentary<\/strong>
\nSteve Nash’s ascendancy to NBA royalty has been such a great victory over the odds that the Fates were stunned into letting actor-a-like Jackie Earle Haley receive an Oscar nomination in the midst of a hugely surprising major career comeback. Okay, that’s not such a great joke, but I never thought that Nash would be around playing this well for this long so as to totally exhaust the Randolph Mantooth comparison. In fact, he’s so good that they’ve added famous sports cripple Grant Hill (with no doubt a small retainer to Mike Gminski to help Hill get on and off of the Suns bench) to go with spookily only slightly underperforming Amare Stoudamire and famously put-upon potential world-class psycho Shawn Marion in order to test just how much potential team-destroying circumstance Nash’s karma can hold at bay.<\/p>\n

I think that like the Indianapolis Colts team that won the Super Bowl with their least talented roster in four years, that it might be Phoenix’s year, but that’s only because I’m not required by this exercise to figure out how they beat any of the West’s other good teams four games out of seven.<\/p>\n

Rejoinder From Gil<\/strong>
\nThe cover of the NY Times Magazine Sports Style Supplement<\/em> (?) featured Steve Nash with the cover line “SUBVERSIVE”. I’m not sure what that’s about; maybe it’s his fault that the U.S. dollar is trading below its Canadian counterpart. I didn’t open the magazine, for fear that I’d see a glamour photo of Serena Williams.<\/p>\n

In an SI<\/em> interview, offseason addition Grant Hill said, “I liked that [Phoenix] hadn’t quite won yet, and I can contribute to that.” I found this hilarious.<\/p>\n

Gratuitous Comics Connection<\/strong>
\nTwo-sport athlete Jackie Earle Haley (bicycling, baseball) will be playing Rorschach in the forthcoming Watchmen movie.<\/p>\n

Gratuitous Pharma Connection<\/strong>
\nThe Translational Genomics (TGEN) Institute flew me out to Phoenix for a PR junket in October 2003. I sneaked out of a speech by Bill Haseltine of the Human Genome Project so I could catch the Yankees comeback against the Red Sox in game 7.<\/p>\n

The Bottom Line<\/strong>
\nThey must go into the season just hoping that Tim Duncan will bump knees with Dirk Nowitzki in an April matchup, and that both guys will be unavailable for the playoffs. –GR<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Predicted Record 58-24 (Tom), 62-20 (Gil) Last Year’s Record 61-21 Tom’s Commentary Steve Nash’s ascendancy to NBA royalty has been such a great victory over the odds that the Fates were stunned into letting actor-a-like Jackie Earle Haley receive an Oscar nomination in the midst of a hugely surprising major career comeback. Okay, that’s not … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Phoenix Suns”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1713,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"nba0708index.php","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1737","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P4C7K-s1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1463,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-preview-2006-2007\/nba-2006-2007-playoff-previews","url_meta":{"origin":1737,"position":0},"title":"2006-2007 Playoffs","author":"Gil","date":"April 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Introduction I'm told that the Phoenix Suns are the odds maker's second pick behind the Mavericks to win the NBA Championship. The Spurs are third. Obviously the Western Conference merely has to show up and they'll be handed the trophy by either Detroit or Miami. But I don't care who\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-preview-2006-2007\/nba-2006-2007-playoff-previews#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1748,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/memphis-grizzlies","url_meta":{"origin":1737,"position":1},"title":"Memphis Grizzlies","author":"Gil","date":"October 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Predicted Record 25-57 (Tom), 32-50 (GR) Last Year's Record 22-60 Tom's Commentary Jerry West's era of building a team of support players for some fantasy 7'2'' 30\/15 mega-star that seemingly only played for the team in Jerry West's mind has ended with the Grizzlies giving Marc Iavaroni a chance to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1713,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview","url_meta":{"origin":1737,"position":2},"title":"NBA 2007-08 Preview","author":"Gil","date":"October 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It's time for the race (well, marathon) to see who will keep the Spurs from repeating THIS time! Which is to say, \"The new NBA season is upon us!\" Sure, the league's been pummeled lately, what with the referee-gambling scandal, the Knicks' ugly sexual harassment suit, and the uncompetitive finals.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1746,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/dallas-mavericks","url_meta":{"origin":1737,"position":3},"title":"Dallas Mavericks","author":"Gil","date":"October 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Predicted Record 58-24 (Tom), 62-20 (Gil), 59-23 (Justin Ozuna) Last Year's Record 67-15 Tom's Commentary Devin Harris enters 2007-2008 with a lot of money in the bank and just having had his ass kicked by a fat cripple (Baron Davis in last year\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcs playoffs). Trust someone who knows: this is\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1181,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-preview-2006-2007","url_meta":{"origin":1737,"position":4},"title":"NBA Preview 2006-2007","author":"Gil","date":"November 2, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm the Juggernaut, bitch! ATLANTIC Boston Celtics by Tom Spurgeon New Jersey Nets by Gil Roth New York Knicks by Gil Roth Philadelphia 76ers by Adam Taxin Toronto Raptors by Sam Richezza CENTRAL Chicago Bulls by Tom Spurgeon Cleveland Cavaliers by Tom Spurgeon Detroit Pistons by Tom Spurgeon Indiana Pacers\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-preview-2006-2007#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1755,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/tip-off-interview","url_meta":{"origin":1737,"position":5},"title":"Tip-Off Interview","author":"Gil","date":"October 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"To celebrate the Tipoff of the NBA season, I did an interview yesterday on the Adam Taxin Radio Show on WNWR 1540 AM in Philadelphia. You can download the audio (mp3, about about 3mb) or just read this transcript: Adam Taxin: The baseball season ended not much more than 24\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/tip-off-interview#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1737\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}