Over the next couple of weeks with the beginning of pre-season NBA basketball looming, numerous publications will release their season predictions. From all indications, most people are sellers of the Suns this season ranging from 6th in the Western Conference to not making the playoffs at all. I am however taking a contrarian view of this year’s Suns. Last year many considered the Suns a complete failure; I however saw last season’s failures as the easiest way to jettison the Suns biggest flaw: Shaquille O’Neal. The Suns went from the #1 team in the Western Conference upon Shaq’s arrival to not even making the playoffs the following season.

Shaquille O’Neal of course should not take all of the blame here; as Steve Kerr and Robert Sarver forced Mike D’Antoni out of town. To Kerr’s credit, he has realized that turning a Steve Nash lead team into a defense minded, half-court offense is a mirage. With the hiring of Alvin Gentry and the “Big Cactus” pulling up his roots from the paint and heading to Cleveland, the Suns will return to a dominance force on offense. The widely ignored acquisition of former University of Arizona Center Channing Frye will give the Suns another mid-range shooter (All indications out of training camp in San Diego is that he is shooting the lights out of the gym). Amare Stoudemire is going to once again have a open lane to drive as well as Steve Nash that was previously clogged by Shaq.  Grant Hill and Jason Richardson are both back and that can only help the chemistry of the team that has one of the best court generals of all-time in Steve Nash.

The Suns have an interesting pre-season that will help show how this team has progressed from subtraction.The Philadelphia 76ers and Phoenix Suns will match up in Monterrey, Mexico on Oct. 18 and in other games with an international flair, Partizan Belgrade of Serbia will play at Denver (Oct. 3) and Phoenix (Oct. 5).

Whatever place you think the Suns will be in at the end of this season, everyone is anticpating that this team is going to be a dynamic scoring machine. Where do I think the Suns will end up? You will have to wait till next time…