Of the few sports I do watch and attempt to understand, my favorite is probably basketball. I don’t have the whole “I grew up with them and they be my boyz, dawg!” thing, primarily because my dad skipped on the father-son-bonding-with-sports experience. But when I started watching regularly, my friends were Phans (the awesome name I just came up with for Phoenix Suns fans), and, being born and raised in Arizona, I decided to jump on the bandwagon.

Having watched the Suns consistently for over a year now, I feel I may have put my money on the wrong stallion. I don’t want to give up on the guys yet, but what excuse do they have for their inconsistency as a team?

First, we have Steve Nash. THE Steve Nash. Yes, he is recognized for his outstanding free-throw percentage, his winning personality and his wicked awesome skills as a point guard. (ESPN even named him the ninth greatest point guard in the history of the NBA.)

More important than all of this, however, is that a) the guy is Canadian, and b) he got an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Victoria. That makes him both a doctor and a lawyer, right? Dr. Nash is like Dr. J, but he can rep you on and in the court. If the Suns would just give the man some support, the team would function much better as a whole.

Reason #2: Jason Richardson was one of the most anticipated trades when we got him this past season. But 2009-10 Suns basketball has found our man struggling to the point where head coach Alan Gentry pulled both him and Channing Frye off the starting line-up in favor of the unproven duo of Leandro Barbosa and Robin Lopez. Barbosa has been rather shaky and injured this season, and Lopez looks like an [expletive] alien. Both J-Rich and Frye should be ashamed of themselves.

This just leads into my overall opinion that the Suns have good players on the team: Nash, Grant Hill, Amar’e Stoudemire, J-Rich and a bench that is only getting better. So explain to me why the team just isn’t hacking it.

Maybe Stoudemire just isn’t getting his ego rubbed the right way. Maybe Gentry just isn’t bringing them together as a team. Attribute their losses to a rough traveling schedule, but the four-game losing streak that caused the Suns to lose 11 of the last 12 road games is embarrassing, to say the least.

None of these excuses hold any weight when we lose to the Golden State Warriors, and then turn around to beat both the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers.

But chief among the reasons the Suns should be a good team is the well-known fact that Goran Dragic sold his soul to the devil near the end of the 2008-09 season. What? You didn’t know? How else can you explain his improvements this season? And the Suns wanting him to take over for Nash as the starting point guard when the little-big man steps down? The sale was reported in Sports Illustrated, people. Look it up.

Bottom line: Pull it together, gentlemen. Remember your team is repped by an orange- and purple-clad gorilla, and you have an important responsibility to make that monkey dance with joy accordingly.