Attention, Suns bandwagoners.  The 7SOL Express is pulling into Grand Central Station.  Please disembark here.  Do not let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.  Thank you for choosing 7SOL.

There's a whole lot of hating on the Suns outside our little purple and orange enclave here at BSOTS.  Porter was a lame hire.  Lopez was an awful pick.  Steve Kerr is the second coming of Isiah Thomas minus the comedy.  The Suns are dead.  Have fun with the rebuilding process.

To these sentiments, I say "Hooey!"  Hey, folks, we get it.  The dream is dead.  The revolution will not be televised.  For a bright and shining moment, Generalissimo Mike D'Antoni and his cadre of elite sharpshooters were on the verge of blitzkrieging the NBA into an era of offensive egalitarianism.  It was going to be glorious.  Defense?  We didn't need no stinking defense, just one hell of an air attack: long range 3-point bombs and thundering dunks facilitated by a visionary floor general and troop movements that left the enemy wondering how they could possible defend their positions.  It was going to be the basketball equivalent of Brazilian soccer's beautiful game.

And it almost came to pass.  The highwater mark came a billionth of a billionth of a second before Robert Horry's hip check sent Steve Nash into the scorer's table.  There's no need to recount what has transpired since that fateful foul.  It is only important to note that that is effectively the day 7SOL died.  Disillusionment set in.  The disenfranchisement began.

First, Kurt Thomas gets the boot for some fish sticks and spare change.  Then, injuries be damned, an aging Grant Hill comes to town.  And finally, the stake in the heart: Goodbye Shawn Marion, hello Shaquille O'Neal.  The Suns panicked.  They choked.  Instead of maintaining their guerilla campaign against the Association, they sold out and tried to go legit.  The policy of appeasement backfired and the revolution ended with a pitiful whimper.  (Bill Simmons has a much more comprehensive and compelling version of events here.)

But here's the rub.  The system didn't work. It was tantalizing.  It was seductive. You can argue that it came this close to succeeding.  Certainly, bad breaks were abundant enough.  But it didn't succeed.    Like Icarus, 7SOL could reach dazzling heights, but it only went so far.  The wax melted, the team plummeted, the fans mourned.  Many people still grieve.  So the anger is understandable.

But things change.  Dylan went electric.  U2 went electronic.  Britney Spears went crazy.  As Suns fans and not system fans, we have no choice but to embrace the change.  We can't stop it.  We can either get on board with the new sauce or let the future pass us by.   The team is in flux right now.  It's awkward and unsexy.  I don't blame you for looking at the shiny new toys in Portland or New Orleans.  I get it. The rest of us - the ones who were here before the revolution - are looking to the future.  Sure, it's not as bright as it once was, but neither is it a looming trainwreck.  We've still got a roster loaded with talent, old or unproven talent perhaps, but enough to provide some cautious optimism. 

So, all you smallball Che Guevaras and acolytes of Almost Greatness, do us a favor and move on.  The Generalissimo is in the Big Apple now.  Take your patronage and bitterness there, and have fun with that roster while you're at it.  We will not miss you.  The dream didn't die because of a lack of belief.  It died because it wasn't good enough to carry on.  As Arnold Schwarzenegger (almost) said in The Running Man: "Here is 7SOL.  Now, plain SOL."