April 25, 2012 in by Andrew Lynch On one level, last night’s 100-88 loss to the Utah Jazz marked this season as no different from the last for the Phoenix Suns. If anything, it was a slight improvement, given the right (read: properly distorted) frame of reference; the 2010-11 Suns finished six games out of the playoffs. The 2011-12 edition will finish no worse than three games behind the eighth seed In every other way — every way that actually matters — this season is completely different. It is, in every conceivable scenario, the end of Steve Nash’s career in Phoenix. That strikes two powerful blows. The Suns, assuming Nash leaves, are about to get really bad. And they’re about to lose one of the most important players in franchise history. They only have one player outside of Nash who would start for most teams, in Marcin Gortat, and a solid role player in Jared Dudley. Nash and assistant coach Elston Turner have done magicians’ work in making the rest of the pieces look passable on offense and defense, respectively. Shannon Brown’s play has improved since the All-Star Break, particularly when he joined Nash in the starting backcourt due to the loss of Grant Hill to an injured knee. Sebastian Telfair went from awful to “actually decent looking, you know, in the right kind of light and depending on how strong the well drinks are,” and he credits his improvement to the examples set by Nash in the locker room and on the floor. But all of that is going to collapse the instant Nash decides to sign elsewhere this summer. Phoenix will have a decent amount of cap space once that happens, but the free agency market doesn’t appear to be quite as strong as we all assumed. Which player or players on that list can the Suns reasonably expect to make a run at?* Deron Williams? Not happening. Chris Kaman? …that’s actually a pretty Suns thing to do. Goran Dragic? Also a pretty Suns thing to do. *If you say Jamal Crawford, I swear… Barring a miracle, the Suns are going into “Get Bobcats bad”-rebuild mode, and that’s something that hasn’t really happened in Phoenix before. The longest postseason drought in franchise history is five seasons, and that came in the third through seventh seasons of the team’s existence. Since 1977, and including this season, Phoenix has only missed the playoffs eight times. The Suns have never won the championship, but they have the fourth highest overall winning percentage of current NBA teams. Phoenix consistently put together enjoyable teams who won a fair amount of games and, occasionally, made a deep run or two to the Western Conference or NBA Finals on the back of outstanding offense and average defense. Nash was the epitome of that since he signed in the Valley. Even in the relatively lean recent years, he kept the team entertaining almost by force of will. His departure is about more than just an incoming lull in basketball in Phoenix, then. It’s about the death of an identity — one that gave rise to books and a style exemplified by an acronym, SSOL, and always entertaining games of basketball , one that adapted when coaches came and went — which always revolved around the player for whom it seemed designed, and who seemed designed to run it. Nash, for almost a decade, has been the Phoenix Suns. Until they are good again, he will remain the Phoenix Suns, an ever-looming shadow that colors and shades the perception of everything Suns-related. He is their victories over the Kobe Bryant-led Lakers and their losses to Ron Artest offensive rebounds. He is his own bloody noses and the black eye of Tim Duncan 3-pointers. He will fittingly play his final game tonight, at home, against the San Antonio Spurs. Could it have been any other way? The time Nash spent as a Sun always had a Moirai feel to it. Many besides Mark Cuban felt that Nash’s back ailments meant his playing days were numbered. Yet through personal dedication to fitness and health, his skillset and the by now well-documented methods and successes of the Warlocks on the Suns training staff, the threads of life for Nash as an elite player kept spinning. He said he wants to play for another three years, at which point Clotho is bound to get bored and potentially fall asleep at the spindle, rendering Nash some sort of basketball demigod capable of one day, in the year 2043*, vanquishing the unassailable records of John Stockton. *Math not accurate. While the thread kept on spinning into the future, the Spurs were always there to determine precisely what Nash’s Suns would do with his time on this basketball-playing plane for his journey to the Elysian Fields.* Phoenix and San Antonio met four times with Nash in purple and orange, and the Spurs three times decided that they’d seen enough of the Suns in the playoffs. Forget questioning David Stern’s allotment of suspensions for the aftermath of the Robert Horry hipcheck heard ’round the world; Gregg Popovich was the true arbiter of Phoenix’s fate, measuring their legacy to his liking. *Potential locations for the Elysian Fields, as reported by a recent special on History (formerly known as The History Channel, so you can definitely see why this was a necessary name change): “Miami, New York, Dallas, Orlando, Utah, Indiana [...] pretty much anywhere that isn’t Phoenix.” I’m probably not alone in having several years ago assumed that the severer of Nash’s ties with the NBA, and with the Suns, would be an injury or old age. For him to continue to play at this level, this consistently and for this many games even in an abbreviated season, is spectacular. It also affords Nash a unique opportunity; he gets to cut himself loose of his own accord and determine his own destiny for the rest of his career. He will get the Ray Bourque treatment, only better, as he won’t even have to demand a trade. He’s both thrilled NBA fans and served his obligation to Suns fans. Few, if any, will begrudge his inevitable decision to play Atropos and untie his binds to the Suns. He’s (likely) going to a better place, where championship dreams can become reality, and Jared Dudley — Shammgod bless him — isn’t the third best player on the team. After last night, Suns fans began to brace themselves from the upcoming fall from grace. Awful basketball is the outlook for the future. It will be a kind of culture shock for Phoenix, which is accustomed to at least being entertained by the basketball team. It will have nothing, though, on the emptiness that comes from losing a basketball icon. We’ll still watch him, wherever he signs. We’ll cheer for him, too, hoping that he gets that ring. And we’ll be a little jealous, too. After all, not many get to choose their own fate. It’s probably pretty nice. 外电来源：http://tinyurl.com/7osmy7d 心得：还是换老板比较实际.... 谁来帮忙翻译阿....我看得懂不分但是翻不出来阿QQ 跪求翻译~"~ -- → otld:他在想啥... 04/24 00:17 推 organ63521:五楼都拿电极棒 肛四楼 04/24 00:17 → piercepaul:盖 04/24 00:18 推 ts00854768:盖 04/24 00:18 → ts00854768:干 04/24 00:18 → organ63521:楼上拿电极棒 刚自己..... 04/24 00:18 --

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