Amare Stoudamire is the key to the door to the NBA Championships. In the loss to the Timberwolves, he looked sluggish and tired. But tonight, he played with vigor and passion that we haven’t seen in a long time, scoring 24 points and recording 23 REBOUNDS! That is unheard of! The man is a beast. But the real story here is what he does for the Suns.

Without Amare, the Suns are just another good team in the West. Now, granted, I personally think that this team is built perfectly and each individual component plays a huge role, but stick with me. In the Wolves game, Amare played poorly, we lost because of the outstanding play of a big man. If we look back to the losses to the Mavericks and Rockets, the same is the case. Amare was still getting his court-legs back and we couldn’t hold them down. But now, with Amare almost back to full strength, the Phoenix Suns will be unstoppable. There is not one team in this league that could beat them in a seven game series, and I am willing to bet the mortgage on that one. (But take into perspective the fact that I do, in fact, live in a dorm room.)

On a completely separate note, both last night and today, wandering around ASU campus in a sleepless haze, I ran into a group of the young Sun Devil basketball players. This says to me that this team is developing great team unity, especially when this morning Coach Sendek was spending significant time hanging out with the players at the Memorial Union. He was an impressing man, shaking my hand, looking me in the eye, and actually thanking me for being a season ticket holder. Now, I don’t think he was quite as cordial when he got thrown out of the game tonight (another loss, I don’t want to talk about it), but it just shows a little fire and passion. It was an interesting experience, and an enlightening one at that, they have a long long way to go from 6-15, but it has the potential to happen, and happen soon.

Original post by Administrator and software by Elliott Back

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