Suns Resting Below Radar

For the first time since 2004, the Suns find themselves confronting unfamiliar expectations. What makes these expectations so remarkable is the fact that they don’t really seem to exist.

Despite not earning a playoff berth for the first time since 2003-04 and not being predicted to finish higher than a playoff bubble team by all of the experts, the facial expressions of everyone in Suns Land were brimming with nothing but positivity on Monday. As smiles, jokes and laughter pervaded the Suns’ Media Day, Valley reporters saw a very confident and optimistic team about to embark to training camp in San Diego.

“I feel almost better than ever about this season even though we’re not being compared to the top teams in the league,” All-Star Amar’e Stoudemire said. “I think flying under the radar with the team that we have and the approach that we take is going to be great for us.”

What has this group of players giddy is that they’re eerily similarity to the team that took the league by storm in 2004. That team, which came into 2004-05 tremendously under the radar, went on to engineer the third-greatest turnaround in league history, the NBA’s best record and a Western Conference Finals appearance.

Steve Nash, who had just come over from Dallas, had been written off as a player that was heading into the twilight of his career. Two MVPs later, Nash is hearing the same doubts after missing his first All-Star Game since you guessed it… 2003-04.

In 2003-04, Amar’e Stoudemire only played in 55 games after severely spraining his ankle. Last season, Stoudemire only appeared in 53 games after suffering a season-ending eye injury.

That season, the organization replaced a more deliberate coach in Frank Johnson with a more up-tempo coach in Mike D’Antoni. The same can be said for Alvin Gentry taking over for Terry Porter.

"As a group it’s probably better to find that hungry desire and commonality from the start regardless of what the word is on the street,” Nash said. “We’ve got to have the attitude to want to make the most of the this great opportunity that we have this season.”

The Suns, who were powered by diesel engine Shaquille O’Neal last season, have made it clear that will be powered by a purely high-octane and turbo-powered engine this season. Although the Suns led the league in scoring at 109 points a game last season, they prefer to average the 117 a game that they did after Gentry took over the helms.

With O’Neal being dealt to Cleveland for two players that were subsequently bought out (Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic), it freed up some money for the Suns’ front office to sign Arizona-native Channing Frye. Known as one of most agile and best-shooting centers in the NBA, Frye will team with Stoudemire to form an extremely mobile frontline.

"Last year, we got kind of sidetracked in trying to play a different style and I don’t think we necessarily announced it,” Nash said. “Through practice, we started becoming something that none of us were really aware or comfortable with in terms of the direction we were going.

“I think having a clear vision of how we’re going to play is important. I think that (up-tempo) has always been Steve’s (Kerr) vision for the club. Fans really enjoy it and it’s entertaining.”

Suns Head Coach Alvin Gentry noted that the run-and-gun Suns isn’t just a phenomenon that appeared with the arrival of Nash, but harkens back to the teams of the early 1990s that included Charles Barkley, Tom Chambers, Dan Majerle and Kevin Johnson. However, in order to play type of style, a team has to be in a certain kind of condition to perform without running out of gas.

So everyone besides Leandro Barbosa and Goran Dragic (playing with their national teams) returned to the Valley before Labor Day to get a jump-start on their cardio-vascular training. Weeks before other players began reporting to their respective teams, the Suns were undergoing running workouts under the supervision of assistant coach Dan Majerle.

“We’ve worked hard and been here all summer training and getting prepared for training camp,” Stoudemire said. “Guys are in great shape for this training camp and for the upcoming season.”

The only other fresh faces on the team besides Frye are rookies Earl Clark and Taylor Griffin. This will be the first training camp under Suns Head Coach Alvin Gentry for every player, but it will be the first training camp as a Sun for both Jason Richardson and Jared Dudley.

Those circumstances seem to sit well with Gentry.

“We know what we’re going to be doing at training camp, as well as from the first exhibition game through the end of the season,” the Suns’ Head Coach said. “I don’t think it’s going to be a learning experience for anyone but Earl and Taylor.

“Our goal is to be the best-conditioned team in the league and play unselfishly. If we can do those things coming out of training camp, we’ll be fine.”

The fact that the team possesses a clear vision heading into camp was one of the most overwhelming themes from the day. After bringing in a new head coach last summer, slowing down the tempo, adjusting to O’Neal’s presence and then trading two of its core players (Raja Bell and Boris Diaw) midway through the season, the team is looking forward to some stability heading into this season.

Gentry said that it's still Nash's team. (Barry Gossage/NBAE/Getty Images)

The vision Gentry has for this team is kind of like a 2.0 version of the 2004 Suns squad. Not only will they push the pace with slashers like Grant Hill and Richardson on the wings, but they’ll add a little bit more depth than that team’s seven-man rotation.

Last season, Gentry regularly played nine guys and even 10 later in the season. He plans on following suit this season, doling out minutes to reserves Barbosa, Dragic, Robin Lopez, Louis Amundson and Dudley.

In addition, with the play of Alando Tucker and Clark during informal workouts, Gentry might even be forced to go deeper than expected. The other way Gentry would like to differ from the 2004-05 is by developing better consistency on the defensive end.

Gentry is completely aware of that annual rallying cry, but maintains that as proficient as the Suns will be defensively, they only need to be in the top half of the league defensively to be dangerous.

“We’re going to be a little bit more demanding defensively,” he said. “I know every year we stand up and say that. But we don’t have to be Cleveland, Boston or San Antonio, because we are so good offensively.”

In the end, it was a much different Media Day from years past. Without the presence of the national media there and constant championship chatter, one could see why the Suns are relishing the role of the underdog.

“I’d rather have it this way than the other way,” Gentry said. “Over the years, expectations have been so high here. We went to two Western Conference Finals and everybody talked about what a disappointment those seasons were.”

But don’t let their jovial demeanors mislead you, this Suns team has a bit of a chip on its shoulder. Despite all of last season's turmoil (including 13 home losses), the Suns only missed the playoffs by two games. Just because expectations by outsiders aren’t high, doesn’t mean that the players agree with them.

“Being doubted can motivate you to accomplish what you want to accomplish,” Stoudemire said. “It takes being doubted to be the best.”

One thing there is no doubt about, after watching the players’ dedication this offseason, if they should fall short of their own expectations, it’s not going to be from a lack of belief.

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