Out here in Phoenix the daily story is about whether the Suns can catch the Dallas Mavericks for the final NBA playoff spot. The Suns are currently sitting 3 1/2 games back of the Mavs and both teams keep losing games to keep things close.
As a Mavericks and Suns fan, I understand that the teams have to keep trying to win games and not give up on this year. It's awful as a fan to watch your favorite team tank the final part of a season in a display of complete hopelessness. The teams need to keep fighting.
But as a fan, I can accept the harsh reality. What's the point for either team battling it out for this final playoff spot? The winner gets to play the top seeded Lakers where they will most likely be swept out of the playoffs before they can blink.
Such is life in the NBA where there is anything but parity and to me it shows exactly why the NBA playoffs are less entertaining than the playoffs in any of the other major pro sports.
In the NFL the Giants barely made the playoffs and went on to win the Super Bowl. Just this past year the Cardinals went from being called the worst playoff team ever to a Santonio Holmes away from a title.
In the NHL any team can upset another team at any time during the playoffs. While botto
m seeds don't usually make it all the way to a championship, it is possible as evidenced by the Stanley Cup run that the Edmonton Oilers had as the final playoff seed a few years back. The Oilers just missed and lost to Carolina four game to three in the finals, but it was close.
Major League Baseball may have the same playoff contenders every year due to it's ridiculous financial set up, but even with the Yankees and Red Sox dominating the headlines there are different champions most of the time.
Not so in the NBA. It just doesn't happen. Remember how crazy everyone got a few years back when the Golden State Warriors upset the top seeded Mavericks in the first round? 
Remember what happened after that historic upset? The Warriors were easily flipped out of the playoffs four games to one by the Utah Jazz.
There are no historic championship runs in the NBA. If your team is good during the season, they will probably advance in the playoffs. If they are a bottom seed, they won't. It's a great league for anal-retentive control freaks. Very few surprises.
So while I can enjoy the newspaper's ludic way of pretending it matters if the Suns or Mavericks make the playoffs, I know that in the end it's just a matter of a few extra games. In fact, I'
d almost rather both teams lose that final playoff spot and take their chances in the lottery. That's how a championship team is built. See Duncan, Tim or James, LeBron.
Maybe I'm a bad fan for thinking like this. But I know that while the Dallas Mavericks are most likely going to make the playoffs, the Suns just need to wait a week before inviting the Mavs players to join them on the golf course. That's just the way it goes in the NBA and it bores me to death.
One o
f the great mysteries in sports is when a team officially should admit that the current crop of championship puzzle pieces just aren't fitting together anymore. Generally, this is followed by the team trading off key players for future draft picks and then trying to prevent the fan base from storming the castle as the team slowly sinks into the abyss.(Unless, of course, the team is called the New York Yankees. Then it's all about buying so many stars that the playing field is tilted in your favor forever. I imagine the Yankees as Joaquin Phoenix from Gladiator, stabbing every other team before they meet in battle. But for this article, we're going to assume a team does not have unlimited fund
s in the broken financial system that major league baseball has.)
It's incredibly dicey to blow up a team since it will mean years of a bad product and limited fan attendance. But in most cases the alternative is watching a team die slowly in front of your eyes. I personally don't like seeing teams I like hang around the playoffs for years without any real shot of making a championship run.
As Def Leppard lamented mused: it's better to burn out than fade away.
Which leads me to my point: the Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks are dead. They aren't bad teams, but they aren't championship teams either, and the door is closing ever faster.
The Mavs will probably make the playoffs this year, but they won't make it past the second round. Dirk is still in his prime, but not for much longer. Josh Howard is officially a knucklehead and the Mavs blew up their future with a panic trade where the team mortgaged it's future on a 35 year old point guard. It didn't work.
The Suns are even worse off this year because it became official that the team has lost it's All-Star forward for the rest of the season. The hope was that Amare Stoudemire might make it back from eye surgery and be able to help the Suns during the playoffs while wearing some sort of martial goggles to protect his eyes. Without hope of his return, the team probably won't make the playoffs this year which means they will look to next season. And it doesn't look good: the superstar center and MVP point guard are in their mid-30's and breaking down. There's
nothing left around but role players. Talented ones, but no good without an engine.
So both the Suns and Mavericks are faced with a decision this off-season: dismantle the team and suffer through some awful seasons in the near future, or keep the core together and hope that a key draft pick or free-agent pickup will vault the team over the top.
I pick the first choice, though I know it's miserable when a team officially gives in to reb
uilding. I grew up in Dallas during the early 90's when the Mavericks could have been beaten by a college team and it was ugly. But the alternative is to waste time as the current team picks a few half-hearted runs into the playoffs and then rebuilds anyways.
I don't consider the dismantling of a team as surrender. I see it as foresight while remembering that the ultimate goal is a championship title.
