Observations

• Paxson drilled a jumper to beat the first quarter buzzer as well.
• The Suns did not score in the final 2:23 and they had so, so, sooooo many chances to do so. Barkley missed a shot at the rim, a very long Majerle three nearly rolled in (but why was he shooting so far out in the first place?), Frank Johnson missed a wide open jumper and Majerle could not drain an open mid-range shot.
• With the Bulls having scored just seven points in the quarter, Jordan went coast to coast in five seconds to score the bucket that cut the lead to two with 38 ticks remaining. Just a catastrophic defensive breakdown to let MJ score that easily.
• You all know what happened on the Paxson play.
• The Suns had that game won at the end, and as we all know it’s heartbreaking they could not finish it off.

Charles Barkley was an all-time great, but he could not get past Michael Jordan in 1993 to win his elusive title.

Every time Charles Barkley turns on a championship matchup — be it the Super Bowl, World Series or NBA Finals — he knows it’s coming.

He calls it “the s— list,” the list of great players who have never won a ring that taunts Barkley whenever a member of this exclusive list plays on the biggest stage for a chance to leave this objectionable club.

“Every time I see Dirk or some of these guys, I pull for the guys who are on the s— list,” Barkley said last week on the B.S. Report with Bill Simmons and Chuck Klosterman. “I call it the s— list in every sport because I know every year in the NBA playoffs or some sport that’s happening … they’re going to start showing the list of the greatest players to never win it.

“And I always root for those guys because I’m on that list, it is what it is. I can’t take it personally, it is what it is. Dirk is on the list right now. Jason, Karl, John, Elgin Baylor, Patrick Ewing, we’re all on that list.”

Barkley said every year when he watches a major sporting event on television he knows the list is coming and kind of laughs to himself when it blares across his screen.

Since the “no rings” argument seems to define so many great players who never could break through with a title, the Chuckster was then asked if it’s a valid criticism to say a star’s career missed something because he didn’t win a championship.

Barkley replied, “I don’t think it’s a valid criticism for the simple fact is they only say that if you’re a really great player. They never say that to a guy who can’t play. When you look at the list you’re like, ‘Wow, I’m on the list, people think I was a great player.’ It’s a backhanded compliment to a certain degree.”

This argument is topical with three players on the “s— list” competing for their first championship starting Tuesday with the Mavericks and Heat meeting in the NBA Finals.

It seems like the only thing missing from the resumes of Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd is a championship. Dirk has been taken his game up a few notches this postseason and is the biggest reason by far the Mavs thrashed the rest of the Western Conference. Kidd is certainly past his prime, but he has been a steady contributor at the point guard spot for Dallas throughout the run as well.

On the other side of the matchup, LeBron James is already being compared to Michael Jordan yet he’s an eight-year veteran without a ring. Barkley said James will start hearing his name mentioned on the “s— list” if he doesn’t hurry up and win a title soon.

Of course, Suns fans are plenty familiar with this list because along with the all-time Suns great Barkley, Steve Nash is one of the oldest active player who’s a member of the list with no likelihood to move off it in the immediate future.

So far as Barkley is concerned, he always felt like he was the best player in the league before his meeting with MJ in the 1993 Finals. He always thought that Jordan, Magic and Bird just had more help than him so when he was traded to the Suns for a chance to play with Kevin Johnson and Dan Majerle, he told former Suns exec Cotton Fitzsimmons, “I’m the best basketball player in the world, we’re going to the Finals.”

Cotton said, “Well, Michael’s going to be there.” Barkley responded, “Cotton, I think I’m better than Michael Jordan,” and Cotton said, “We will see when you get there.”

Barkley genuinely believed this up until Game 2 of the Finals when his best wasn’t good enough against MJ’s best. Barkley played a superb game by tossing up a 42-13-4 but Jordan one-upped him by going for 42-12-9 as the Bulls took a commanding 2-0 lead in the series on Phoenix’s home floor.

Barkley’s only regret from the series, though, came down the stretch in the decisive Game 6 when the Bulls doubled the ball out of his hands on three late possessions with Phoenix nursing a slim lead in a game they infamously lost after leaving John Paxson open for the clinching trey. Sir Charles averaged 27.3 points, 13.0 rebounds and 5.5 assists on 47.6 percent shooting, but he was out done by Jordan’s 41.0-8.5-6.3 on better than 50 percent shooting.

“I played well in ’93,” Barkley said. “We lost to a team that won six championships. We lost to the champs three years in a row (after losing to the Rockets the next two years). That’s all I wanted. The only regret that I have about my career honestly is I wish I had left Philadelphia sooner because I played there for eight years and I was a much better player in Philadelphia than I was in Phoenix. I wish I could have got a couple more looks at it when I was younger, but I got three great looks at it.

“The Bulls were better than us. We weren’t better than the Rockets. The Rockets won back-to-back championships. I don’t think you can win back-to-back championships as a fluke. They didn’t just beat us, they beat everybody.”

They did indeed, but the Barkley Suns were oh so close to taking down the champs in all three of those years from 1993-95 just as the Nash Suns came so close to taking down the champion Spurs in 2005 and 2007 and last year’s Lakers.

Barkley was a great enough player throughout his career and close enough to the promised land during his Suns tenure that he will always be mentioned on the s— list whenever a new player comes close to leaving it, but it’s doubtful that masks the pain from coming so close to a title but being left with merely a backhanded compliment.

You all know by now that Amare leads Andrew Bynum by about a gazillion votes, and surely the viral campaign had something to do with it (getting listed as the Suns’ “center” probably had more to do with it, though).

To Amare, at least, it has been a success.

“Fans have stopped me in the street, sent notes on my Twitter and Facebook pages and have checked out Vote4Amare.com,” Stoudemire said in a release. ”I truly appreciate their support. I had a great time working with David Spade and I am glad the fans have enjoyed the videos as well.”

I do find it interesting how two stars in Phoenix’s locker room differ so much in terms of their approaches toward gaining All-Star votes from the fans, who can continue voting online for Nash and Amare until Monday (hint, hint, Two Time could use your vote).

Amare went all out with a high-budget campaign to try to win a race that he didn’t really need much viral support to win. Nash honestly and truly could not care less if he gets voted in, going so far as to create a video that playfully mocks players like Amare who put so much time and effort into their viral efforts.

Efforts such as the video below, the finale of Amare and Spade:

Oh yeah, and Thunder Dan is en fuego

A little bit of Charles Barkley on Saturday Night Live before we get back to talking about the Suns blowing leads again.

I bet KJ's mayoral opposition couldn't do this.

KJ, Kevin Johnson will always have a special place in my heart for his killer crossover, dunking on Hakeem and for that 25-9-7 while playing 62 minutes in Game 3 of the 1993 NBA Finals.

But who would have ever thought he would become Mayor KJ?

“Today the country elected the first African-American president, Barack Obama. Sacramento also made history today by electing the first African-American mayor,” Johnson told the Sacramento Bee after being elected mayor of Sacramento. “Obama and myself, we ran on the promise and the theme of change. No more business as usual.”

If Johnson brings the city of Sacramento the kind of change he brought the Suns franchise, he will live up to his campaign promise.

The Suns finished 1987-88 – the season in which KJ was acquired in a midseason deal – with a 28-54 record to cap off four straight seasons in which the Suns averaged a 33-49.

Phoenix immediately became a perennial contender starting with a 55-27 season in 1988-89 and won at least 53 games each of the next seven years. KJ’s Suns failed to clear the 50-win benchmark just three times, one being the strike-shortened 1998-99 season.

The driving thrust of all those clubs was a point guard who could blow by defenders at will, nail midrange jumpers and dish out assists with the best of them.

If I had to pick a politician out of the bunch of those mid-90s Suns I would have said Charles Barkley without hesitation.

The Chuckster has spoken for years about running for governor of Alabama, and with his popularity and outspoken nature, well, let’s just say I’d vote for him.

And you never know with Barkley, maybe he still will become a future governor of Alabama and help those ’93 Suns continue to make as big an impact in the political world as they did for the Suns franchise.

If I had to pick a current Phoenix Sun as most likely to follow in KJ’s footsteps, I’d tab his heir apparent of the Phoenix point guard throne, Steve Nash.

Nash has never been afraid to take a stand on issues he believes in, wearing a T-shirt to the 2003 All-Star Game that read “Shoot baskets not people,” and anyone who’s ever seen him direct an offense knows his leadership abilities are off the charts.

Grant Hill, an ardent supporter of Obama, wouldn’t be a bad choice, either.

Speaking of Obama, a noted basketball player, I’d think twice before inviting the new mayor of Sacramento over to the White House for a friendly game of one-on-one.

It was the day I became a Phoenix Suns fan.

On that sunny Sunday afternoon, every man, woman and child in the Valley of the Sun was glued to their TV sets to see if the Suns could complete a comeback from two games down in the “Westphal Guarantee” series against the Lakers. It took them overtime, about the time I started watching, but history of course tells us they prevailed.

Then the Suns knocked out the Spurs in six games on Barkley’s face-up jumper on David Robinson in the clincher and the Sonics in seven when Sir Charles exploded for 44 and 24 in Game 7.

By this point 7-year-old me had become a full-fledged member of the purple and orange bandwagon.

Paxson breaks my heart.

In the 1993 Finals, the Suns ran into the Chicago Bulls dynasty and gave Michael Jordan and Co. the best test of any of their three-peats. Phoenix won a triple-overtime thriller in Game 3 and kept the champagne on ice in Chicago in Game 5, but when John Paxson sunk that fateful game-winning 3 in Game 6, I felt the biting sting of a championship season derailed.

As my Lakers fan friends like to often remind me (yes I regrettably admit it, I have some friends who cheer for the Lakers), this would not be the last time I felt such pain, from the Barkley Era to Nash. The Suns have come oh so close enough times to make my head spin in the ensuing 15 seasons, but as we all know they have never won the franchise’s elusive first championship.

As the Suns embark on their 41st NBA season aiming to bring home that first title, ValleyoftheSuns.com will be there every step of the way, providing commentary, analysis and news updates on anything and everything Suns basketball, delving into realms beyond the scope of the daily newspapers.

And when they finally do bring home the hardware?

May 9, 1993, won’t be the first date I think of when discussing my Suns fanhood.