Suns fans will miss out on some attractive games

Oct 11, 2011, 4:09 PM | Updated: 5:15 pm

After thirteen hours of negotiations over a two-day period, NBA commissioner David Stern faced the media and made an announcement that basketball fans did not want to hear.

Stern canceled the first two weeks of the regular season, which was slated to begin Tuesday, November 1st with three games.

The Phoenix Suns were scheduled to tip off their 44th season of NBA basketball the next night against the Oklahoma City Thunder at U.S. Airways Center.

With the cancellations already announced by the league, the Suns will also miss home games against Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers (11/4) and the Portland Trail Blazers (11/6). Road games already wiped away include four of a scheduled six-game road trip; at Memphis (11/8), at Minnesota (11/9), at Indiana (11/11) and at Milwaukee (11/12).

The other two scheduled games on that trip, at Detroit (11/15) and at Toronto (11/16) are still on, but those games could be in peril as well.

“Every day that goes by, I think we need to look at further reductions in what’s left of the season,” Stern announced on Monday.

The commissioner also made it clear that he considers these games canceled and not merely postponed, essentially wiping away the possibility of a full 82-game schedule being played this season.

Phoenix Suns

(Photo by Mark Cunningham/MLB Photos via Getty Images)...
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Suns fans will miss out on some attractive games