Curse the Suns for becoming political

by Robert Robb - May. 7, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Curse the Phoenix Suns for becoming a political organization.

I had been so enjoying this season.

I believed in this team when virtually no one else did. At the end of last season, I wrote on my blog that, if the Suns added a center with an outside shot, I thought they could contend.

They did and they have. It's been a joy to watch, not because my amateurish instincts were proved right, but because of the way this team plays basketball, the best of all spectator sports.

I've been particularly enthralled with the Suns' second unit, which plays the best team basketball in the NBA, classically making their whole considerably more than the sum of their parts.

Then the Suns had to go make a big political statement in opposition to the state's new immigration law.

I'm not a supporter of the law. I wrote in opposition to it.

And I have no problem with being "Los Suns" on Cinco de Mayo, in honor of the Valley's Latino culture and even as a subtle statement about the new immigration law.

But the Suns weren't interested in symbology or subtlety. They made it clear that, to a man - ownership, management, and players - they wanted to make an in-your-face statement in opposition to the new law.

And then, in their public comments, they demonstrated that they didn't understand what the new law actually does and, more importantly, what it does not.

The most egregious was General Manager Steve Kerr.

I think Kerr has been a lousy GM. Shaq was an obvious misfit. Kerr correctly diagnosed Mike D'Antoni's deficiencies but Terry Porter was another clear misfit as coach. Kerr's incessant dangling of Amar'e Stoudemire as trade bait has to reduce the chances of retaining one of the most potent offensive forces in the game.

Kerr's reputation has been rehabilitated partially this year, but only because Alvin Gentry, an accidental choice, has turned out to be a remarkably good coach for this particular group of players.

I know Kerr is a lousy public-policy analyst and historian. Here's what he said about the new immigration law: "It's hard to imagine in this country that we have to produce papers. It rings up images of Nazi Germany."

Now, the only requirement in the new state law that anyone carry papers, legal foreign residents, is already a federal law. So, if Kerr believes that makes for a Nazi state, he already lives in one.

And perhaps Kerr has never been stopped by the police. But the first thing they asked for prior to the new immigration law was identification. So, that's nothing new. And the new law is not intended to allow anyone to be stopped for any reason they couldn't have been stopped before. Under the law, no one can be stopped just to check out their "papers."

What the law requires is that, in the course of a stop for other things, police follow up on a reasonable suspicion that someone is in the country illegally. A valid Arizona driver's license precludes that line of inquiry.

One can argue whether this is wise policy. But a Nazi state it does not make.

There are democratic countries in which all legal residents are required to carry identification cards at all times and produce them to authorities without the limits of this country's Fourth Amendment or the additional limitations contained in the new state law. Israel is one of them.

So, according to Kerr's logic, Israel is a Nazi state.

The statements of team owner Robert Sarver and the players weren't as egregious, but could be similarly parsed with similar results.

I probably will still watch the Suns and, if so, still hope that they will win. But the joy is gone.

That's because I am no longer just watching a team I believed in when others didn't, playing a game I love to watch the way it should be played, doing things I couldn't do in my wildest dreams.

Instead, I will also be watching a bunch of would-be politicians who say dumb things about subjects I know well.

Reach Robb at robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8472. Read his blog at robbblog.azcentral.com.

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