In an attempt to extend a sellout streak that has now reached 117, the Suns announced Friday that they will open an additional 500 seat locations to season-ticket buyers for 2008-09.

The Suns capped season tickets at US Airways Center at 15,000 last season and had about 1,000 on a waiting list. With a renewal rate over 90 percent, there were still fans left wanting season tickets for this season, and this will open the doors for many of them.

With the economy sagging, the Suns are also bringing back partial season-ticket plans - half-season and three different 11-game min-packs - for fans who can’t handle season tickets but want a break over single-game prices.

The new seat location season tickets will go on sale at 10 a.m. Sept. 8.

After finding no room on the roster in Phoenix after two seasons with the Suns, forward/center Sean Marks signed a one-year contract, believed to be for the veterans’ minimum, with the New Orleans Hornets.

He will be in uniform when the Suns open the regular season home schedule against the Hornets on Oct. 30.

“We’re excited for Sean to join our team,” New Orleans GM Jeff Bower said. “He is a veteran leader who has been on winning teams and will be a great addition to our frontcourt.”

In Marks’ last game as a Sun, he put up 16 points and a career-high 13 rebounds in an April 16, season-ending win over Portland. But as in San Antonio, his role in Phoenix was as a practice player and cheerleader. He’s averaged 3.1 points and 1.9 rebounds over his nine-year NBA career with stops in Toronto, Miami, San Antonio and Phoenix.

Fresh off his impressive scouting job for the gold-medal-winning U.S. men’s basketball team, Suns advance scout Todd Quinter was promoted to the title of Director of Player Personnel.

Video scouting coordinator Noel Gillespie was also promoted, taking Quinter’s former job as advance scout.

Quinter has been with the Suns for 23 years, the last 15 as an advance scout, and has taken on an assistant coach’s title for the past two seasons. He will now direct the Suns’ scouting department and assist Suns senior vice president of basketball operations David Griffin in all aspects of draft preparation.

It was at Quinter’s urging, after seeing him play extensively in Europe, that the Suns traded for and signed Goran Dragic this summer to serve as the backup point guard.

Suns general manager Steve Kerr said: “Todd has done a terrific job for this organization over the past 22 years, both as an advance scout and as a talent evaluator. His knowledge of both the NBA and the international game will be critical for us as we look to sustain the success of our franchise.

It’s a good thing the Suns plan to have Steve Nash play fewer minutes and take a few nights off during the season - with all the mentoring he has in front of him this season with Goran Dragic and Sean Singletary behind him, he’s going to need the rest.

Singletary looks good on film and had a nice college career at Virginia. Like Dragic, he is a pure point guard and specializes in the kind of floor generalship the Suns crave. But neither has played an NBA game, and for a veteran-laden team to lean on such inexperience at a key position is a roll of the dice — especially if this group fancies itself for one more kick at the championship can.

It made sense for the Suns to part with D.J. Strawberry. His offense simply wasn’t improving, and his defensive prowess might have been a little overblown. He has some nice, energetic sequences against some top players, but to call him a stopper or the next Bruce Bowen is overblown. He needs to play consistently and that wasn’t going to happen here.

The front office is hoping that Dragic will hit the ground running and that Singletary has some real promise. But it’s curious that the Suns didn’t bring in one veteran hand for the backcourt.

Maybe they were worried about griping for playing time. Maybe it was money. But can Dragic and Singletary allow the Suns to follow through on plans to sit Nash 18 minutes a night and 10 games over the course of the season?

The Suns have a new coach, two new assistants and five new players. But the same question remains until training camp - have they finally found some help for Nash?

After filling their holes on the court this summer, the Suns have filled one off the floor with ex-Sun Scott Williams taking over for Dan Majerle as a television analyst. Majerle is now an assistant coach under Terry Porter.

Williams, who did Milwaukee Bucks telecasts for FSN Wisconsin last season, will split color duties with Eddie Johnson. Tom Leander (Channel 45) and Gary Bender (FSN Arizona) will handle the play by play. On radio, Tim Kempton returns to team with Al McCoy, who embarks on his 39th season with the Suns.

Once again, all 82 Suns regular-season games (as well as the preseason outdoor game in Palm Springs, Calif.) will be televised in HD. Channel 45 will broadcast 41 games, FSN Arizona has 29 and the remaining 12 will be seen exclusively on national television via TNT, ESPN or ABC.

The Suns certainly haven’t made all the right moves during Robert Sarver’s ownership reign, but bringing Goran Dragic to Arizona a year early is a broadside hit for fans who think they are being short-changed by the front office.

If Phoenix had signed a point guard to the veteran minimum, the league would have picked up all but about $700,000 of the salary and that figure was not subject to doubling despite the Suns’ status as luxury-tax payers. But Sarver listened to his basketball people and pulled an expensive trigger on a guy who may or may not be NBA-ready.

First, the Suns had to fork over $500,000 and a second-round pick to San Antonio just for the right to draft Dragic. Then they shelled out another $500,000 as part of Dragic’s buyout agreement with Tau Cerimaca and locked themselves into a three-year guaranteed deal that would covered the rest of the approximately $2 million Dragic had to pay to leave Spain.

And of course Dragic’s contract for this season ($1.5 million to $1.8 million) will cost the Suns double thanks to the tax. So if you’re keeping score at home, that’s $1 million in trade and buyout money and another $4 million in salary and luxury taxes forked over by an owner whose team finished in the red for the first time since he took over in 2004.

Risky? You bet.

Foolhardy? Perhaps.

Cheap? Even the staunchest Sarver critic can’t go there.

Two neutral-site games between the Suns and the Nuggets - one outdoors on an Indian Wells, Calif., tennis court (Oct. 11) and the other in the Carrier Dome (Oct. 17) at Syracuse, N.Y. - are the highlights of Phoenix’s eight-game exhibition schedule, which was released Tuesday.

The Suns will do some traveling. In addition to the flight to upstate New York, the Suns have a home-and-home series with Joe Johnson and the Atlanta Hawks - two teams that have been closely tied since that trade in the summer of 2005. The Suns open the exhibition season against the Hawks on Oct. 8, then return the favor with a flight to Atlanta on Oct. 15.

The Charlotte Hornets and the Oklahoma City franchise are the other two home opponents for the Suns, who will have seven days at home to iron out the final kinks before kicking off the season Oct. 29 in San Antonio.

The game in Palm Springs - originally announced Feb. 19 - is the first outdoor NBA game in modern history and will take place at Indian Wells Tennis Garden. The 16,000-seat stadium is an NBA-style arena with no roof that annually plays host to the Pacific Life Open tennis tournament.

Here is the full exhibition schedule:

Oct. 8:  Atlanta @ Phoenix   7 p.m.

Oct. 9:  Phoenix @Utah    7 p.m.

Oct. 11: vs. Denver @ Indian Wells    7 p.m.

Oct. 15:  Phoenix @ Atlanta    4 p.m.

Oct. 17:   vs. Denver @ Syracuse, N.Y.   4:30 p.m.

Oct. 20:  Charlotte  @ Phoenix 7 p.m.

Oct. 21:   Phoenix @ L.A. Clippers   7:30 p.m.

Oct. 23:   Oklahoma City @ Phoenix  7 p.m.

The Suns will open the regular season on Oct. 29 at San Antonio, the team that has eliminated them from the playoffs three of the last four years, and will also host the Spurs on Christmas Day at US Airways Center.

The season opener is the first half of a doubleheader on ESPN, with the Clippers vs. the Lakers making up the nightcap.

The Suns will make 15 appearances on ESPN/ABC this season. Only the defending champion Celtics (16 times) will be seen more, with the runner-up Los Angeles Lakers, Spurs and Suns all making 15 appearances and the Dallas Mavericks making 14 appearances.

The Suns open their home schedule the next night (Oct. 30) against the New Orleans Hornets, a game that will be broadcast on TNT.

The Suns will play on Christmas for the second straight year after facing the Lakers in Los Angeles last year. The Suns-Spurs game will be on ABC (12:30 tip-off) and is part of a four-game NBA slate that begins with New Orleans at Orlando in the morning on ESPN. An NBA Finals rematch (Boston at Los Angeles) follows the Suns game on ESPN, and the night is capped off with Washington visiting LeBron James and Cleveland on TNT.

The entire NBA schedule will be released shortly. Check back for more Suns info on the 2008-09 schedule.

The NBA All-Star weekend is Feb. 13-15 in Phoenix, with the All-Star Saturday set for Valentine’s Day and the All-Star game on Feb. 15 on ABC.