The Suns have asked Leandro Barbosa to take the summer off to rest and skip the 2010 Olympic qualifying tournament for his native Brazil.

 Barbosa has complained of some right knee soreness since the end of the season and will be returning to Phoenix in June to have the knee looked at again. But the Suns are confident that the problem is minor and will require only some rest over the summer.

 Barbosa has been playing basketball year-round for several years, and fatigue may have played a role in his decreased effectiveness at the end of the season and postseason. And while a TV report in Brazil quoted Barbosa as saying the injury might be serious, there is no medical indication of that.

 As for rumors that Barbosa might be on the trading block following the departure of Mike and Dan D’Antoni – with New York the reported landing spot – dismiss them. The Suns see him as a solid member of their core and are looking forward to seeing his defense improve under the wing of the incoming coaching staff. And while GM Steve Kerr has said no one on the roster is untradable, Barbosa remains one of the least likely Suns to be moved.

 If you always thought Doug Collins was a smart basketball man, that opinion should only be bolstered today.

 The Valley resident and TNT analyst watched the NBA Lottery last week. He saw the ping pong balls come up roses for the Chicago Bulls – adding superstar point guard Derrick Rose to a young, athletic team that was already playoff-ready with the right man on the bench.

 So Collins put down his TV headset – a job that will always be waiting for him when the coaching itch is scratched – and did what Mike D’Antoni could not – he changed his mind about coaching the Bulls.

 If D’Antoni had taken the Chicago job, there is a very good chance he could have had Rose as his point guard and Collins – his friend for nearly four decades – as his lead assistant.

 And before Phoenix fans blame management for sleeping at the wheel or being cheap when it comes to a contract, know this: Collins didn’t want to coach the Suns. He wasn’t going to coach the Bulls either, until the lottery changed the game.

 With Steve Nash’s best years wasted, Shaquille O’Neal in the middle instead of Shawn Marion on the wing and with a championship window barely cracked open at best, even the prospect of staying home wasn’t enough to risk what is likely his last kick at the coaching can.

 Collins wasn’t going to be the only guy who coached Michael Jordan and Shaq, who have 10 rings between them, without picking up any jewelry. He chose a team that might be a serious championship contender in a year over one that might be one year past that same status.

 The good news for the Suns? They are the only team in the NBA without a coach. The field is now clear. And with D’Antoni in New York and Collins in Chicago, matching those hires on the Richter scale is almost impossible.

 There is no need to consider style over substance.

 Quotes from Suns general manager Steve Kerr have been scarce in the mainstream media during his search for a new coach — which is now in its third week. But Kerr answered a long and varied list of questions from Suns fans for his monthly blog on Suns.com this weekend.

 Among the topics tackled: Yes, Spurs assistant Mike Budenholzer is a candidate for head coach (he will interview when possible as San Antonio is competing for another championship); he doesn’t feel qualified for the head coaching job due to his lack of coaching experience (which doesn’t bode well for other known candidates — Mark Jackson, Jeff Hornacek, Vinny Del Negro, etc. — who are in the same boat); the need to reach Amare Stoudemire “is one of the major themes of the coach search” and any thought of trading Steve Nash is all but put to rest.

 Here’s the entire Q&A session:   http://suns.marqui.com/blog/suns01_05260801.aspx

 In case you haven’t heard, the Western Conference finals are already over.

 The Spurs are dead, done, over, old, slow … whatever.

 Coughing up a 20-point lead in Los Angeles to the Lakers in Game 1 surely stings. Losing a game where Kobe Bryant has two points at halftime and all the Hollywood stars at Staples Center felt like they were back in the middle of the writer’s strike is unacceptable.

 The Suns lost a Game 1 like this to the Spurs in the first round — a game that was theirs and then it was gone –  and they never recovered. They said all the right things, but they were done.

 But count out the defending champions, the team that has won three of the last five titles? Come on.

 Ask the Hornets, who blew out the old, slow, yadda, yadda, yadda Spurs in the first two games of the second round, only to watch San Antonio win four of the last five and win Game 7 in New Orleans.

 The Spurs had 48 hours to prepare for Game 1, and spent about half of that in their team plane that sat on the runway in New Orleans. They lost a game they should have won, but it’s one game and it was on the road. Moments after it was over Gregg Popovich and his players were already talking about how hard it would be to overcome this – knowing it couldn’t be further from the truth.

 The Spurs know they can win this series and another title. They can smell it. And if they do it, the last roadblock to becoming a true dynasty — winning back-to-back — will be removed. If they win Game 2, they go home for the first time in a week with homecourt (where they are undefeated in the playoffs) and a chance to put the squeeze on a team that, outside of Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher, is woefully short on big-game experience. 

 You don’t kill the Spurs in Game 1. And I guarantee a closer examination of the patient will reveal a strong heartbeat. There are still plenty of Tim Duncan bankers, Tony Parker floaters, Manu Ginobili flops and Bruce Bowen and Robert Horry cheap shots left in the chamber — and the Lakers would do well to remember that.

 Mike D’Antoni can’t be a great fan of the NBA Lottery.

 Last year, what could have been the last piece to a championsip team in Phoenix was pick-pocketed when the balls pushed Atlanta to the third pick and allowed the Hawks to keep it away from the Suns.

 Then Tuesday night, after picking the Knicks over the Bulls for his next coaching destination, Chicago cashes in on a 1.7 percent chance to get the No. 1 one pick and — ping! — you can add Derrick Rose to a possible starting lineup that iwould include Luol Deng, Ben Gordon, Joakim Noah and Tyrus Thomas.

 Meanwhile, the Knicks — who needed Rose worse than the Yankees need pitching — slip down to sixth and might be looking at Italian Danilo Gallinari instead of the marquee name Madison Avenue was craving. Do I hear any offers for Stephon Marbury?

 Of course, there is that $24 million contract to help soften the blow for D’Antoni.

 In the wake of Robert Horry’s forearm to David West’s gamey back in Game 6 of the Spurs-Hornets series, the New Orleans Times-Picayune compiled their own list of top 10 “questionable” plays involving the Spurs in recent years. As you might expect, Bruce Bowen and Robert Horry are the Stars and the Hornets and Phoenix Suns get a lot of air time themselves. Have a look:

http://blog.nola.com/gladow/2008/05/history_lesson_top_10_spurs_qu.html

After his news conference in New York Tuesday, new Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni was a guest on ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption” and made his first public comments on his departure from the Suns to hosts Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser:

 Q: What went wrong?

  D’Antoni: Honestly, before the jump ball with the San Antonio series, I thought that I would finish my career in Phoenix. I was already to start fishing around for an extension. Just things happened during that series that we got on a different page. There was a trust in my mind, and I could be the cause of it, but there was a trust broken. And I didn’t think it was fair to the fans and it wasn’t fair to the players and it definitely wasn’t fair to (managing partner) Robert Sarver, who was paying me a lot of money to come back, to not have the feeling I had before. Once it got to that point emotionally, I just decided, ‘You know what? This is better for everybody if I just go.  I didn’t want to take the money, I didn’t want to make it where they had to fire me. I wanted to find a way that I could coach and exit gracefully, get the money that is due to me, and it worked out. I didn’t want to leave anybody with a bad taste in their mouths. I thought we had four great years, but this is best for me and best for Phoenix that I’m in New York.

 Q: Coaches like to say that they don’t like to look at one event for causing a chain reaction. But is it possible looking back on Game 1 of the San Antonio series (which the Suns lost in double overtime), that series was so epic and left such a disappointment — Steve Nash told us it on this show it was like a kick in the groin to lose Game 1, who knows what happens the rest of this postseason, it is likely you’re still playing?

 D’Antoni: I agree with you 100 percent. That’s probably the crux of it. There’s so much frustration over the previous years. We had the suspensions the year before we thought we were the better team; Joe Johnson having his face broken four years ago, not being able to play against the Spurs. It really got to the point where we had them, we could’ve beat them in Game 1. We blew it. I’ll take responsibility for it. We blew the game, but from there it unraveled, and it unraveled in different ways. Maybe I was paranoid. Maybe people were out to get me. Whoi knows, but I do know there was a trust broken and once it’s gone, it’s like a divorce, it’s hard to go back. I didn’t think it was fair to anybody that I went back there and did a job I didn’t feel I could go back and do my best.

  Q: If you absolve the owner, and you sat it has nothing to do with the owner, it leads to the conclusion that it’s got to be a personality conflict between you and the gneral manager, Steve Kerr. Would that be fair to say?

 D’Antoni: I don’t know if it’s a personality conflict. Maybe it was a difference of opinion on certain things that happened. He even said he made some mistakes he would do over. I made some mistakes I should do over. We just got on different pages. He didn’t hire me, and I didn’t have that comfort level that he hired me. So already, the situation wasn’t the greatest to start with, and it kind of went south and it looked good, and I thought it was fine toward the end of the year, but that Game 1, I think, threw a wrench into the works, and here we are.”

 Q: The player most associated with you success in Phoenix is Steve Nash. How did he take the news of you leaving?

 D’Antoni: We talked, we had a long talk. He thanked me, I thanked him. He was terrific and I thought it was just a great blend of two guys that were on the same page and could get the max out of the team and out of (ourselves) individually. He’s one of the best people I’ve been around and associated with and I can say that about a lot of the Suns players. We had a unique group that I was just privileged to coach. I really want to thank the Colangelos, the Sarvers, all of them. It was a great run.”

 Is this the NBA playoffs or the NCAA Tournament?

 Two months after all four No.1 seeds reached the final four in college basketball, what was supposed to be the most competitive NBA playoffs in history is going exactly, and boringly, along seeding lines.

 The higher seeded team won all eight first-round series. The closest we had to some excitement was the Atlanta-Boston series, but even the Hawks never came within a mile of winning a game on the road — a bad thing since the Celtics had four games on their home floor.

 Now we’re in the second round, and the top two seeds in each conference are in command of the four series. So much for parity. New Orleans FEELS like an upstart, but they finished second in the West. Amazing how, as jumbled as the West was this season, that it may wind of going down in order. Of course, that leaves the Celtics and the Lakers in the NBA Finals, which means we’ll get to watch more stories and highlights of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird than Pau Gasol and Ray Allen.

How funny was it to hear Charles Barkley bashing Mike D’Antoni this week for “trying to have his cake and eat it too” and “holding (the Suns) hostage” because D’Antoni didn’t resign and leave $8.5 million on the table?

 This, of course, is the same Barkley who has been whining for a decade that the Houston Rockets still owe him $5 million because he took a pay cut one year in order for the team to sign Scottie Pippen to a free agent contract.

 Chuck wanted one final swipe at that elusive championship in Clutch City, but he still wants the money. Isn’t that having your cake and eating it too?

  This is business. It happens every day, not only in sports but every walk of life. And now one should understand that better than Barkley, who’s been giving people the business his entire life.

 I don’t know where Mike D’Antoni is going. I do know he’s not coming back to the Suns, unless both sides are prepared to engage in the strangest relationship this side of “Desperate Housewives.”

 But if I’m D’Antoni and I have a choice between the Chicago Bulls and the New York Knicks, I’m heading for the city that never sleeps in a heartbeat.

 Yes, the Bulls have a more talented roster, a more stable organization and are much more equipped to embrace D’Antoni’s up-tempo mantra. But assuming D’Antoni isn’t going to guide either team to an NBA championship — a pretty safe bet from here — there are a lot of reasons why I’d take Manhattan:

 *Finances: Let’s start with what makes the world go ‘round. The Bulls are going to have a hard time matching the $4-5 million a year D’Antoni was making in Phoenix. In fact, since owner Jerryt Reinsdorf has to send Scott Skiles a $4 million Christmas card 90 miles away in Milwaukee, scratching the next check will be even harder.

 The Knicks can find $30 million for five years by flipping over the seat cushions over at Cablevision. D’Antoni made some money coaching in Europe and Phoenix, but a deal like that is a life-changer.  

 *Expectations. Before slipping last year, the Bulls reached the second round of the playoffs – knocking off the defending champions from Miami – and anything less than a return to that level would be seen as a disappointment. And while they are talented, the Chicago locker room already has some problems (Joakim Noah) and the contract situations of Luol Deng and Ben Gordon remain in limbo.

 In New York, D’Antoni could run for mayor with a 40-win season. As long as he talks to the press, keeps his hands off the female employees and doesn’t add “defendant” to his resume, he’s golden. And since the Knicks realize they don’t have the correct pieces for his offense – his first season will be viewed as a mulligan while Donnie Walsh retools the roster.

 *Management. Much like Steve Kerr, both Chicago GM John Paxson and owner Jerry Reinsdorf have championship rings earned by defense (and Michael Jordan). How long before the same questions that dogged D’Antoni here pop up in the Windy City?

 In New York, D’Antoni will be coming in with Walsh, might have some influence on the choice for the new GM and while the great Knick teams have been steeped in defense, any philosophy that doesn’t include losing 104-59 to the Celtics will fly right now.

 *Press. Yes, D’Antoni is sensitive to criticism and the New York tabloids can be brutal. But Chicago isn’t much better. If I’m going to have either Peter Vescey or Jay Marriotti lobbing grenades at me anyway, I’m getting my $6 million a year.

 There you have it, Mike. Take the money. Roll the dice. If it doesn’t work out, hey, you’ll be rich and you’ll always have Treviso.