5MM goes to once a week now that I’m employed and the Diamondbacks’ season is long gone. There will be more about the Suns next week, but for now you get two quickie notes:

• I thought about doing an in-depth Suns preview before the start of the season, but there really wasn’t much else to talk about that we didn’t address a few months ago. Instead, you get a haiku.
  Phoenix basketball
  Rebounding’s an issue here
  Nash and Hill, stay well
• We saw a bit of vintage Steve Nash (damn you, Michael Cole!) in the season opener as he took over the fourth quarter, scoring 15 points and not missing a shot. He set up Leandro Barbosa on the go-ahead three with 27 seconds remaining, and after Rasual Butler hit his own three over some decent defense by Amare, he exploited the Clippers’ unwillingness to let him make a big pass by driving all the way to the hoop and making a nifty little left-handed layup (with a lot of spin) to ultimately win the game. Sure, his 37 minutes are a concern, but I imagine that’ll drift back down when Jason Richardson comes back and LB isn’t forced to play starter’s minutes. Also, Goran Dragic looked really good in the opener, so maybe Gentry will give him some more run.
• Don’t look now, but the Arizona Cardinals are leading their division again. Yes, the NFC West is awful, but a lot of prognosticators loved the Seahawks or the 49ers to win it. Seattle’s done, while San Francisco still has a legitimate shot — Frank Gore is healthy again, and the addition of Michael Crabtree essentially gives them a big-play receiver addition out of nowhere. If Alex Smith plays like he did in the second half last week, look for the Niners to go pace for pace with the Cards down the stretch.
• The hottest team in hockey right now is…the Phoenix Coyotes?? Okay, technically the Colorado Avalanche are off to a better start (10-1-2) — and they were almost as bad as the Yotes last year. But the Coyotes are 8-4-1 in an early schedule that forced them into nine of their first 13 games on the road. Their young players are bringing a lot of energy, Aucoin has helped the defense and Bryzgalov is back to his exceptional 2007 form in the early going (three shutouts). Whether anyone will actually go see the team when it’s home for a while remains to be seen.
• Meanwhile, the Arizona Diamondbacks…no, there’s no good news about them. It looks like the team will pick up Brandon Webb’s option, a no-brainer decision for what is essentially $6.5 million. The only big news this week is that the D-backs and Eric Byrnes might go their separate ways. Byrnes stands as the posterboy for Jeff Moorad’s mistakes — he signed a .260-hitting journeyman to a $10-million-per deal and somehow expected different results than he got. Byrnes is an affable, outgoing, charitable guy, but it seemed like he couldn’t handle the pressure with earning that big money. Combine that with the injuries he battled for the better part of two years, and you have a very out-there figure wilting in the public spotlight. It’s hard to blame fans for booing his abysmal performance since 2008, but it’s probably for the best that the organization and Eric cut ties and move on.