I give them props for their willingness to put it all on the line, whether I agreed with that bet or not. Better to risk and fail than risk nothing.
Did I agree with the bet? At first, not at all. For the obvious reasons. The same reasons that now make the Suns look silly for making the deal. But then I became more interested in the process of making it work. I began to follow their progress to see if they could gel or would run out of time before the playoffs started.
The Spurs core -i.e. Manu, Duncan, and Parker- are so well adjusted to each other, they could almost play together blindfolded. They've played together for years. The Suns in this formation have played together for months. That's the difference in this series. But the Suns could and should have known that, so in retrospect we can say they made a poor bet.
Suns may have put too much faith in D'Antoni, who was hopelessly outcoached in this series. Playoff series are about making adjustments. If he made any, none of them worked.
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