Nash, Dudley leading Tweeter of the Year race

@SteveNash and @JaredDudley619 are leading the way in the voting for HoopsHype’s Tweeter of the Year award for 2011.

As of this writing, Nash leads with 4,676 total points; JD is just behind in second at 4,127. Dudley leads all players with 140 first-place votes whereas Two Time has 45. Fans can vote for them here at HoopsHype.

Nash won HoopsHype’s inaugural Tweeter of the Year award last season, and Dudley was recognized by the site as the league’s most valuable tweeter in December 2009.

But as Nash said in a Facebook video today, “No big deal,” although it’s surely something Jared Dudley and the gang will give Nash a little light-hearted grief over when the Suns come back for pre-training camp workouts.

The Arizona Republic described the lap dance like this: “The video shows him seated in a chair on stage as Minaj runs her hand through his hair and caresses his chest from behind before straddling the chair and grinding into Nash while he just sits there with a look that says, ‘I wonder if I should have let this happen?’”

There’s no word yet on whether Minaj feels the Suns should continue to build around Nash or trade him to jump start the rebuilding process.

Mauer, Dowdell fined for March incident

Suns guard Zabian Dowdell and referee Ken Mauer received fines, according to SBNation, for a March 30 incident in which Mauer “disrespected” Dowdell according to the player before ejecting him.

Mauer reportedly called Dowdell an inappropriate term that begins with a “B,” as Zabian said what happened was “uncalled for” and that he had never been treated that way by an official.

The league told SB Nation, “While we do not believe Mauer used the language that was reported, his actions were still deemed to be inappropriate.”

The Suns did not ask the league to look into Mauer’s actions and head coach Alvin Gentry considered the issue closed in his mind by the time the team showed up for its next game.

If ‘Real Housewives’ comes to Scottsdale, Nash’s ex may star

According to The Arizona Republic there are conflicting reports on whether the popular “Real Housewives” series will be coming to Scottsdale.

No, this blog is not turning into Perez Hilton for the summer, that is only newsworthy because the potential housewives include Alejandra Nash, Steve’s ex, and Tina Dwyer, Dan Majerle’s ex.

Considering how private Two Time has been about his divorce and the events surrounding it, the last thing he must want is for Alejandra to parade around a reality show. If this show airs, however, it would be interesting for fans to get an inside look at her life.

Nash rooting for his former teammates

During Tuesday’s Game 2 between the Knicks and Celtics, Two Time tweeted, “Gotta say I want to see @Amareisreal and Mike D’antoni get the win tonight…”

Nash previously tweeted Jason Richardson: “@jrich23 good luck in the Playoffs!! Last year seems so long ago now. We’re all hoping you win it!!”

Like many Suns fans, Nash must feel that if Phoenix isn’t in it why not root on some former Suns?

Friday he provided a counter to LeBron once again, this time opposing the surprising comments James made Thursday night in Phoenix supporting contraction.

Dudley made himself heard — where else? – on Twitter and Players Association President Derek Fisher spoke out as well.

LeBron said:

“Hopefully the league can figure out one way where it can go back to the ’80s where you had three or four All-Stars, three or four superstars, three or four Hall of Famers on the same team. The league was great. It wasn’t as watered down as it is [now].

“[Contraction] is not my job; I’m a player but that is why it, the league, was so great. Imagine if you could take Kevin Love off Minnesotaand add him to another team and you shrink the [league]. Looking at some of the teams that aren’t that great, you take Brook Lopez or you take Devin Harris off these teams that aren’t that good right now and you add him to a team that could be really good. Not saying let’s take New Jersey and let’s take Minnesota out of the league. But hey, you guys are not stupid, I’m not stupid, it would be great for the league.”

And Dudley’s response:

“I was reading about what Lebron said on the concept of contraction, basically wanting the NBA to get back to the old days with great on good teams..Like the Pistons, lakers, bulls, and rockets.I disagree.I feel like maybe some teams should be moved!! But cutting teams I don’t like. In this league u don’t need necessarily great players to win.. How bout the Pistons with Billups,Prince,R.Wallace or the Heat with Wade an older Shaq, G.Payton and walker towards the end of their careers.. Lebron had a shot with Cleveland when he made it to the finals. U don’t need 3 or 4 superstars..U just need really 1 maybe 2 and a lot of great role players.The game has change let’s look forward not back.”

I would assume LeBron’s viewpoint was a very unpopular one amongst his union since he’s arguing for eliminating some of his colleagues’ jobs. The league surely would be more intriguing if a .500 team like the Suns could go out and add a Kevin Love for nothing and the competitive balance at the top would be even stiffer in such a scenario, but for a healthy league contraction should never be an option.

Obviously Fisher must comment on this since he’s the president, but it will be interesting to see if more players chime in along with JMZ.

@JRich23 — It’s been a great 2 1/2 yrs Suns fans! My family and I enjoyed out time around such a great organization and fans. I’m excited about opportunity to play in Orlando! Thanks for all the love and support you guys showed me. God Bless!

@MickaelPietrus — Very excited to play with Hall of Fame Steeve Nash and joining the PHX Suns .Looking forward to it and meeting Charles Barkley …..Bye

@SteveNash — Everyone wish @jrich23 the best in Orlando. Great player and great teammate! He will be missed. Damn.

@SteveNash — Just found out Earl Clark @TheReal_E55 is in the trade. Nobody worked harder this year, improved and deserves a chance more. Good luck, E!

@RealGrantHill33 — It was an honor to play with @jrich23 over the last 2 years. Unbelievable player… Even better person… We’ll miss you!!! Good Luck!!

@JaredDudley619 — Man I’m goin to miss my boy @jrich23 .. Great teammate, good luck in Orlando boy do work

@HDubb21 (Warrick) — Just wanna wish @jrich23 @TheReal_E55 and Turk the best of luck n Orlando …

@JChillin (Childress) RT @JaredDudley619: Man I’m goin to miss my boy @jrich23.. Great teammate, good luck in Orlando boy do work>>>unbelievably great teammate!

We will be offering two free tickets to the Tweetup, and once again you will need to put your prognostication hat on to win.

Since the night features a private postgame Q and A with Mr. @JaredDudley619 himself, I figured it would only be fitting to center it around him. And since Dudley’s the kind of player whose contribution cannot be quantified by a traditional box score, a guy I once called “The Plus Minus Monster” in an article about his postseason success, here is what you must predict:

What will Jared Dudley’s unadjusted plus/minus rating be in Tuesday’s game at Portland?

Once again you can answer in two different ways, but please only enter if you can attend the game. Either:

1.  Comment with your answer on this post.

2.  Tweet me your answer @ValleyoftheSuns.

In the likely event of a tie, the tiebreaker round will take place during Wednesday’s tilt against Memphis with another @JaredDudley619-themed question.

For the season the Suns have lost 44 points in the 369.65 minutes Dudley has been on the floor over 20 games, according to Basketball Value, but the Suns were 91 points better in his 376.77 playoff minutes last season and 214 points better when Dudley played last regular season. Dudley struggled to get much playing time throughout November, but he has received more minutes in the last two games (30 against Indiana, 25 vs. Washington) than he had in any previous game.

If you don’t win, you would still be wise to buy a ticket and head on over to the Tweetup as there will be lots of fun stuff going down in US Airways Center. You can enter @USAirwaysCenter early to watch the Suns warm up, receive a free #SunsTweetup T-shirt that you can vote on now and be on the inside of the private postgame Q and A with JMZ.

And best of all (or perhaps not), I’ll be on hand, and I look forward to meeting meeting many of you.

The third annual #SunsTweetup promises to be another fun night, and if your prediction powers are up to snuff you could be going for free.

That of course won’t happen, but when Amare Stoudemire signed with the New York Knicks on Monday we did get one more indication of just how close this team was last season.

Although I’m sure every member of the Suns was disappointed that Amare’s gone, many of the key players tweeted what he meant to them:

Steve Nash: “@Amareisreal congrats on your new contract and team. It was a dream playing with you. We’ll be wishing you the best. NYC’s going to love u!!”

Grant Hill: “Congrats 2 @amareisreal for your new deal. It was a pleasure and honor to play with you. Black Dynamite!!! Minister of Information!!!”

Jason Richardson: “Congrats 2 my bro @Amareisreal on the new deal. Shake them critics n haters off n do work in NY.”

Jared Dudley: “I just want to congradulate @Amareisreal on his Max deal with the Knicks.. He help us win a lot of games with the Suns..Happy for him.”

“Now all the current Sun players have to get a little better this summer.. Cuz no one person can replace Amare.. Can’t wait for next season!!”

Amare tweeted: “Again, I would love 2 take the time 2 say thanks,2 all the Fans of PHX. You guys where great. I hope that U all remain fans of mine. Thanks.”

However, some player-related negativity came from former Suns bench warmer Paul Shirley, who tweeted: “Congrats, James Dolan. You just paid $100 million for the house from ‘Poltergeist.’ Sure, you can live there, but there are demons, man.”

And perhaps the funniest Amare-related tweet of the week comes courtesy of The Sports Guy Bill Simmons: “Stephen A. Smith reports that N.Y. became sold on Amar’e after seeing Shawn Marion’s staggering success upon leaving Steve Nash.”

Could Amare Stoudemire be asking official Ron Garretson for some advice about his free agent future? (AP Photo/Don Ryan)

The question has dogged the Suns for two seasons now — will Amare stay or go?

Be it through trade or free agency, there has been endless speculation about Stoudemire’s geographic future. Phoenix? Miami? Mars? No one really knows … not even Amare.

In anticipation of his looming decision over whether or not to pick up his player option (and $17.7 MILLION DOLLARS!) or test the free agent waters on his boat solidified by an All-Star season and Western Conference Finals run, it seems Stoudemire needs your help.

Yes, you … assuming you are one of his roughly 77,000 followers on Twitter. Much like Toronto’s Chris Bosh did a while back, Stoudemire turned to the popular social networking micro blog to get some input on his future …

Amareisreal I think about Free Agency Everyday. Should I Stay in Phoenix or should I leave? This the question of the Summer. What do you guys think?

It remains to be seen if Stoudemire will consider any of the thousands of replies he is bound to receive from the tweet, but it’s clear Stoudemire was trying to accomplish something (regardless of how important that something may be).

Was the tweet a true look at where Amare is at in his decision — conflicted, deep in thought and in need of guidance to determine his landing spot for 2010-11. If it was, then there is hope for Suns fans, most of whom seem to be expecting his departure. But it seems a bit … unusual … to seek the guidance of your social networking friends, who are non-expert strangers. Not too likely he’s putting Twitter feedback high on his list of sources for solid advice.

Or maybe the tweet was Stoudemire’s attempt to gauge just how much Suns fans adore him and really want him to stick around. Maybe Stoudemire has been hearing all the Dirk Nowitzki talk and needed to make sure he’s loved in the Valley.

Or maybe it is just a cry for attention now that the Suns are an afterthought of the 2009-10 season and all the attention has shifted to LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Tom Izzo … oh, and the NBA Finals.

ESPN’s chronically connected blogger Bill “The Sports Guy” Simmons has a theory of sorts about the tweet in question, though he didn’t name any names …

Sportsguy33 Signs you might be a dick, Vol. 138: you ask your Twitter followers whether you should stay with your NBA team or sign elsewhere.

Well, I guess Simmons doesn’t trust in the Twitter method for deciding your basketball future. Wonder if Jordan would have tweeted for the fans’ input…

Cavaliers

Suns

PHOENIX — With nine of the next 11 games at home, you would think the Suns would finally have a chance to take a deep breath. But according to Alvin Gentry, there is no room for relaxation.

Gentry explained that there is no way that his team can think about its home record and become complacent during games at USAC, especially considering the level of competition the Suns have coming up on their schedule.

The Cavs, the Thunder, the Clippers, the Lakers and the Celtics will all travel to Phoenix to wrap up the month of December, starting with the Cavs tonight.

Cleveland is coming off of a road loss to a Mavericks team that was without Dirk Nowitzki, but King James is in town, Shaq Diesel returns and the Suns have won 19 straight at home. If they can’t get up for this game, they deserve to lose.

“It’s a big game (tonight),” said Amare Stoudemire. “We’ve got to make sure we take care of King James and the old Shaqtus.”

The last time these two teams met on Dec. 2 it was the Cavs that came out firing, blowing the Suns out of the water early. LeBron and company took a 28-point lead into the Q locker room and coasted to a 107-90 victory.

But tonight’s game has more implications than the first meeting in Cleveland, starting with the return of the big man formerly known as Shaqtus. The Big Fella’ will be back in US Airways Center for the first and only time all season.

He averaged 17.8 points and 8.4 boards per game last year with the Suns — far better than his current averages of 10.9 and 7. But half-jokingly, Amare mentioned some Twitter rift between @Amareisreal and @THE_REAL_SHAQ.

“I’m not talking to Shaq at all, not even a little bit,” Stoudemire said with a smile on his face. “He needs to follow me on Twitter — he hasn’t followed me on Twitter yet. I’m upset with Shaq right now.

“He’s good he’s just got to make sure he sends out a tweet saying follow Amareisreal on Twitter, and once he does that we’re friends again. But until then I’m not talking to Shaq.”

There will certainly be some added buzz in the air with Shaq in the building, but I don’t expect him to be too big of a factor. In fact, I think the combination of Shaq and Zydrunas Ilgauskas at center will create a matchup problem for the Cavs.

Channing Frye will pull the immobile centers away from the hoop with his precision home-shooting — 15.3 points per game on 55.6 percent from the field and 58.7 percent (37-of-63) from three-point range.  The Phoenix offense should produce, but it will be interesting to see how the Suns will try to handle LeBron.

I would expect to see Grant Hill, some Jared Dudley and maybe even some Earl Clark mixed in. But no one man, nor monster, could stop LeBron, so STAT, Channing and the other bigs need to do a good job of rotating over from the weak side if they hope to capture their 20th consecutive win at home.

The Suns are 10-0 at home this season and gained some momentum from a convincing win two nights ago against the Wizards. They have been great at USAC and that added boost from the home crowd should certainly help the Suns tonight.

“If you can take advantage of playing at home and getting the crowd behind you, I think it allows for you to have a good season,” Nash said. “It’s important that we started well at home, and we’d like to build that environment where people dread coming in here. It’s been good to us so far, we just have to continue to take advantage of it.”

What to watch for…

• How the Suns try to defend LeBron James.
• Will Goran Dragic continue to thrive with LB sidelined?
• Will Shaq be a factor?
• Stoudemire is averaging 23.8 and 11.4 over his last five games. Will he continue to dominate?
• Will the Suns continue to cruise at home or is their home record a byproduct of the mediocre talent they’ve faced?

PHOENIX — The Suns’ marketing team coined the phrase Planet Orange a few years back to encompass the idea that all Suns fans share an almost familial bond on this planet.

At the #SunsTweetUp during Tuesday’s game against the Spurs, Suns tweeters came together like a bunch of long-lost cousins at a family reunion.

Unfortunately I didn’t really get to share in this family bonding until the question and answer period at the end because my last-minute seats were way up in the nosebleeds away from many of the tweeps.

But the question and answer session saw tweeps finding out that the random stranger walking in front of them is somebody they talk to all the time after a glance at their name tag. Others you could tell by their Twitter profile pic (either that or you’ve been doing a bit too much Facebook stalking …..)

One tweeter, @CWebbie, flew all the way from ATLANTA to be a part of the festivities, which makes me ashamed for thinking that US Airways Center is far from my North Scottsdale home, and she took pictures with all the tweeters she encountered.

I asked her what made her become a Suns fan all the way over in Hawks territory, and she said it started with her being a Grant Hill fan since he was a Dukie but that the Suns were the first team she really fell in love with.

A check of my Twitter page after the game showed a multitude of Suns tweeps expressing how excited they were to finally meet their Twitter friends in real life while lamenting the fact that there wasn’t enough time to meet all the tweeters in attendance.

Like Jeramie McPeek was talking about in the preview of this event, meeting face to face takes that connection to a whole new level. On one hand, you feel like you’ve known these people all your life, and on the other hand you just met.

For example, i rant with @ZoDogg34 about Suns basketball and University of Arizona sports all the time, but it was nice to meet the man behind the Twitter handle.

It really did feel like a big family reunion, only the US Airways Center ushers were shooing us out before we had a chance to meet that one final long-lost cousin.

The speaker of the night, to me at least, was Suns head coach Alvin Gentry. He was his usual humorous self, a side that the media gets to see of him during pregame chats in his office but that the general public doesn’t always get to see. He looked like he would be happy to answer questions all night.

His funniest response came to a fan who asked him about clearing some space for his upcoming 2009-10 Coach of the Year award. He replied that he’s happy to be November Coach of the Month, but he doesn’t want win the year award because the last handful of coaches to earn that honor have since been fired.

He also joked that 10 of his autographs equal one Phil Jackson autograph and he asked a fan questioning how he keeps his cool when the refs stink if they watched the Denver game. Gentry also said Kobe should be the MVP at this point and gave the Suns’ team MVP award to the whole squad before invoking the name of Steve.

Jared Dudley came out for a quick taping of JMZ — Fan Edition. Dudley has developed something of a cult following in Phoenix between his hustling style of play and the unprecedented inside access he provides the fans.

I think JMZ is one of the greatest things a pro athlete has done for fans in terms of taking them behind the curtain, BUT — and you knew one was coming — he seemed more concerned with promoting all he’s doing than really interacting with the fans tonight.

I’ll be the first to say that I LOVE all of his inside access, it’s the kind of stuff fans were missing even a year ago. It’s just that his talk was all about getting fans excited about what Dudley was doing instead of being more of a give and take. I do have to give him credit for his perfect display of showmanship to the adoring crowd, and signing a fan’s “Dudley No. 3″ headband as he walked off was a nice finishing touch.

Finally, the main man Amare came on with his two little kids by his side, and he did not disappoint. One of STAT’s first questions was about how far out he was when dunking on Duncan, and later he said he felt like he’s 100 percent healthy at long last, and he really looked it during tonight’s game.

It was interesting to see a mix of questions the media would ask and questions the media would never ask. We also got the predictable question about whether Amare will stay in Phoenix past this season, and we got a predictable, “Absolutely.” I just wonder what Amare would say if he were speaking to New York fans.

One last interesting note from Amare, he was asked about the Hebrew words he sometimes tweets. STAT said that he studied Hebrew during his recovery from eye surgery when he had to sit face down for 22 hours a day for 10 straight days. It looks like Sun Tzu spent time catching up on the education he never got in college this summer when he could not work on his game.

As the #SunsTweetUp reunion came to a close, my only disappointment was not getting to meet more citizens of Planet Orange.

An odd sight

You see your regular stream of Amare, Nash and Hill jerseys at any Suns game, but I was surprised to see a girl wearing a homemade Goran Dragic jersey as I was entering US Airways Center. I asked her why she fashioned a shirt after the Dragon and she said he was her favorite player.

I thought it was a little strange at the time being that it wasn’t like she was his girlfriend or anything, but after Goran’s 18-point explosion I promise not to doubt anybody wearing homemade Goran Dragic jerseys again.