Getting ahead of ourselves...

So, yeah... I know it's still way early in the season and it's only been 2 games since my last PHX commentary, but still, the Suns have looked good so far. I know they were *only* against Portland and New Jersey, but PHX has shot .551 and .632 in their last two games. I guess all those concerns about the death of run & gun and where we'll find our offense were greatly exaggerated. Shaq and Amare in a half court can put up just as many points (and at higher %s) than taking quick 3s.

We've also held both opposing teams to under 100 points and played Nash 30 minutes or less. I think htat's pretty good.

I think our early schedule is also very favorable and will allow us to pad our wins while building some team chemistry and momentum. We got 3 more road games coming up, Indiana tonight, then a back-to-back against Chicago and Milwaukee on Friday and Saturday. Then we return home to host Memphis on Monday. I think it's very possible for us to go 4-0 in that stretch, which means our 1st real challenge will be next Wednesday home against Houston and you know Shaq always brings his A game against Yao.

Including Houston, we have 10 more games in Novemeber. The only potential playoff bound (i.e good) teams are HOU, DET, UTH, LAL, and POR again. Let's take the pessimists view and say we go 2-3 against those 5, then drop a random 1 again a scrub team. That'll give us a record of 13-5 (.722) for Nov. I'll take that any year. And that's being pretty conservative imho. We can just as likely run the field against the sub .500 teams and go 3-2 against the elites for a record of 15-3 (.833). I'm going to be conservative and predict 13-5 though. Just so I don't seem too homerish.

On the fantasy front, I'm really not feeling the CBS leagues. The amount of activity in all three of my leagues is annoyingly low. No chatter on the message boards and no trades either. I sent a bunch of offers out this weekend, most of which I thought were fair. They were all promptly denied. I understand being denied, they didn't like my deal/players, that's understandable. But not a single counteroffer? They can't all be happy with their rosters. At least try to rip me off with a low ball or something.

Anyway, I finally get one done on Monday morning, with me trading AI and Big Z for Kidd and Brad Miller, and the trade gets rejected within 48 hours. Mind boggling. We'll see how it goes. I can only imagine the tentativeness to make/allow a trade in fear of making a mistake is only exaggerated even more in the higher $ pay levels. Kinda like how most "expert" leagues you see involving journalists/pundits almost alway have zero trade transactions over the season.

In Yahoo leagues, keep an eye out for Nicolas Batum. He's supposed to be starting for the Blazers tonight. If he can get you 10 pts, 1.5 stls, 1.5 blks... he might just be worth a look in deeper leagues. Also Roger Mason has been playing well off the bench for the Spurs, avg. 12/3/3 with 2 threes. He could be a short term play until Manu comes back or Pop messes with his rotation.

And you've probably seen it in like every other blog by now, but if not, here's Iverson's talking about practice at his intro press conference for Detroit.