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Valley of the fun
Updated: Monday October 15, 2001 5:45 PM
By Jon Wertheim, Sports Illustrated Sitting in the stands watching his team scrimmage on the second day of training camp, Suns general manager Jerry Colangelo watched as 36-year-old Dan Majerle received an outlet pass from Stephon Marbury and throw down a fierce dunk. "Did you just see what I saw?" Colangelo asked incredulously. "Who was that?" That's the question Phoenix fans will no doubt be asking when the regular season commences, as the team underwent a cast overhaul worthy of ER. Following a lethargic 2000-01 season, during which the Suns played largely uninspired basketball, saw three players make the police log, and lost in the first round of the playoffs, management blew up the franchise. Phoenix traded Jason Kidd and Chris Dudley to the Nets for Marbury and throw-ins Johnny Newman and Soumaila Samake. They giftwrapped Cliff Robinson to Detroit in exchange for John Wallace and Jud Buechler. They also acquired Majerle, a long-time fan favorite, who did stints with Cleveland and Miami since his first tour of duty in Phoenix ended in 1995. "This isn't the conservative Suns," says Colangelo. "We had to do something to give this franchise a shot in the arm." Marbury, in particular, will help inoculate the team against apathy. Though he has lapses defensively and, unlike Kidd, has never stood accused of making his teammates better, Marbury is a prolific scorer who will make a half-dozen spectacular plays a game. Whereas Kidd betrayed a stoicism on the court, Marbury lets few emotions and thoughts go unexpressed. In early practices, his voice echoed through the cavernous arena after Buechler drilled 3-pointers, forward Shawn Marion dunked, and Samake dropped three consecutive passes. The knock on Marbury is that he doesn't suffer lesser-skilled teammates gladly. If this were kindergarten, his rap would be: doesn't play well with others. In five seasons, Marbury has never been on the winning end of a playoff series and his bristling, public critique of teammates hastened his departure from Minnesota and New Jersey. He claims that in the past, his fits of pique were born of a disdain for losing. Now that he's on a team with talented players, coming off a 51-win season, that won't be an issue. "When you're in New Jersey and getting beat, it can get frustrating," he says. "Here, it's all good." It will be better still if Marbury's backcourt mate, Penny Hardaway, regains his health after missing all but four games last season with a left knee injury. Once on the short list of candidates to fill the Jordan vacuum, Hardaway has been a Norm Peterson- regular on the injured reserve over the past six seasons. Though he had declared himself healthy, played in two summer leagues and worked out with Michael Jordan, Hardaway departed three days into camp for Canada to receive treatment on his knee. Tom Gugliotta's career has also been scuttled by injuries After an All-Star selection and two seasons averaging more than 20 points a game, Gugliotta has been a lightning rod for ill fortune since his arrival in Phoenix. In three years in the desert, he has torn his left knee to shreds, suffered a near-fatal seizure on a team bus and lost his mother. To the delight of Colangelo and head coach Scott Skiles, Gugliotta, 32, reported to camp in superb shape. "I'm ready to sort of claim my career back," he says. "I'm motivated anyway, but it gives you an added push when you look around and everything feels new and exciting." Worth noting The Suns are holding their training camp at the Skydome, the mammoth athletic facility at the University of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff. Meant to psych out the opposition, a banner hanging in the bleachers reads "Catch your breath. You're at 7,000 feet." ... Wallace, regarded as a prolific scorer all but genetically incapable of playing defense, has been a pleasant surprise as has rookie Charlie Bell, who was undrafted out of Michigan State but has been, as Marbury puts it, "tearing it up" in practice ... Iakovos Tsakalidis married his wife, Veronica, on the balcony of Colangelo's office last year ... Marion has been nicknamed "The Matrix" by his teammates. Asked if he has a nickname of his own, Skiles responded, "My ex-wife has a few nicknames for me but I doubt if I can repeat them." Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertheim covers the NBA for the magazine
and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.
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