My Suns Aren't Shining

The Los Angeles Lakers continue to roll. They edged the Celtics in Boston last night, 110-109, in overtime, even without the resurgent Andrew Bynum, who has again gone down with a knee injury and may not be back in time to help the team come playoff time.

That win snapped the Celtics' 12-game winning streak, and follows a Christmas Day win over the Celtics in L.A. that snapped a 19-game winning streak.

Their 40-9 won/loss record is the best record, percentage-wise, in the NBA. And to make matters worse (for all Suns fans), this Lakers team seems to be better than last year's team that made it the NBA Finals. The guys are playing better together, the team seems to be deeper, and they seem to have a good mix of go-to players and role players.

Meantime, the Suns are in turmoil. What's happened? Last year about this time, they traded forward Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks to the Miami Heat for Shaquille O'Neal. At the time, the Heat had the NBA's worst record (9-37) while the Suns owned the best record in the Western Conference (34-14).

That's right. The Suns were leading the Western Conference. Life was sweet. Okay, so the Suns seemed doomed to another flame-out in the playoffs, and needed a big man, and the Lakers had recently acquired Pau Gasol, and Tim Duncan and the Spurs looked like they still had the Suns' number.

But I was devastated by the trade. In my mind, Marion was one of the most under-rated players in the league. At 6'7", he was grabbing a lot more rebounds per game than the 7'1", 300+ lb. Shaq. Defensively, they could put Marion on anybody. He could run the floor on offense, and he certainly made Steve Nash's life easier.

A year later, it appears that the Suns were also devastated by the trade. While Miami is now in third place in the Southeast Division with a 26-22 record (good enough for 6th place in the Eastern Conference), the Suns sit at 26-21, 13 games behind the Western Conference-leading Lakers, and a half-game out of the final playoff spot.

To his credit, Shaq has once again become a force in the middle. He's even making some free throws (62.2% this season, against a career mark of 52.7%), and he's averaging 17.8 points and 9.0 rebounds per game.

But on January 29th, the Spurs came to town and torched Phoenix, 114-104. Tim Duncan scored 20 points and grabbed 15 rebounds, while Shaq managed only 13 and 6. The Big Fellah only got 6 rebounds? You've gotta be kidding me.

Yesterday, Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski wrote here that the Suns would consider trades for anyone not named Steve Nash, to include Shaq and star forward Amare Stoudemire.

Sadly, the Suns' days as a power in the Western Conference have faded into twilight faster than an Arizona sunset.