The Phoenix Suns have dug themselves a pretty decent sized hole in the standings. They are much closer to being last in the Western Conference than being in the eighth and final playoff spot.
It's bad, but according to Robert Sarver and Steve Nash, it's not over yet with 32 games left on the schedule.
azcentral.com blogs - Coro's Orange Slices - PaulCoro - Sarver, Nash keep playoff hope
"I’m disappointed," Sarver said. "I think we haven’t performed up to the level of our potential...I think we’re potentially a playoff team but we’re going to have to show it."
"You never know if we got on a five-, six-, seven-, who knows, 10-game winning streak, what it does to your chances. I don't know if we're good enough to do that but we're good enough to win some of these games we've lost. And if we do that, you never know when you'll get a little break or a nice bounce and you put yourself in the playoffs," Nash said.
Many fans would rather not hear Sarver and Nash talk about trying to make the playoffs. They would rather hear about trading Nash for any kind of future asset that he could net before the March 15 NBA trade deadline.
But that's not (likely) going to happen.
And when we look back on the first half of the season we are once again faced with the age-old dilemma: optimist versus pessimist.
The optimist looks at seven or eight losses that could have or should have been wins and the improvements in some defensive stats and says, "Why not us?" with a full half-season left.
The pessimist looks at those same blown opportunities and different stats and responds, "Because, you're just not that good."
No one can tell you how that will turn out. Sports history has been full of turnarounds and more full of bad teams fulfilling their lottery destiny.
The bottom line, this season is likely to be remembered as a year of transition. Nothing great will happen but there will be enough good to avoid making it historically bad.
Perhaps a trade of some kind will spice things up in the next few weeks but it's just as likely that this Suns season coasts home with very few memorable shots fired.
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