Arizona basketball, dare we debate Dickie V., isn't quite all the way back to Awesome. Takes more, for some, than the Wildcats in the Final Four.

	Kidd has just recently begun to take over and score more for the Suns.

When the Suns are only fourth in their division.

As even non-Valleyites can surmise, lots more was expected from the local pros. If not quite a consensus preseason powerhouse like Lute Olson's roller-coaster kids, the Suns shouldn't be clinging to a seventh seed in their West, checking back over their shoulders at Houston and Seattle, chasing a much more modest four score than the 'Cats. As in four consecutive victories.

But that's where they are -- still one win away, actually. The longest stretch of Phoenix prosperity since a 7-1 start, just a four-game win streak, will be attained only if the Suns follow Arizona 87, Illinois 81 by beating the Lakers on Monday night. Which would mean avoiding their usual pattern -- bracing for What Next? -- to capitalize on LA's lack of rest and Kobe Bryant.

	“	No one here is feeling sorry for themselves. Between injuries and incidents, it hasn't been favorable this particular year. Most disappointing are the [off-court] things we just have to eliminate. But as these things come at us, I think Jerry [Colangelo] has said, rather than fold it up, let's face them head on. "We're still right there, hovering around the top-10 teams in the league, which I think says something about the makeup of our team. And there's certainly a lot to look forward to in terms of having a year free of injury. ”
		— Suns prez Bryan Colangelo

"We've only had our full team in uniform with Penny [Hardaway] for a very short time," said the Suns' Jason Kidd. "Every time we get going a little bit, someone gets hurt.

"Or something freaky happens. Hopefully we've gone through the worst of it."

Freaky, frankly, is a very charitable description for the string of off-court controversies that engulfed the Suns over the winter ... and still lingers. It started in December, when Hardaway was charged with intimidating the mother of his 8-year-old with a handgun. The charge was ultimately dropped, but the trend was cemented. The headlines only got more harsh.

Next Kidd, in January, was charged with striking his wife, Joumana, during an argument about feeding their 2-year-old son, T.J. After a four-game break from the team, Kidd returned to jeers of "wife-beduh" in Boston. There have been numerous public apologies, a commendable frankness and patience displayed at All-Star Weekend when he was besieged by media inquisitors and lately, some of Kidd's most brilliant basketball ever. He knows, though, that image repair takes time.

And even before Kidd could reach a plea agreement -- in which the charge will be dropped if he completes counseling and avoids further trouble for a year -- Clifford Robinson was arrested for marijuana possession and driving under the influence in February. Which made it three strikes amounting to a last straw for many Phoenix fans, who've had enough disappointment simply dealing with the Suns' never-ending injury woes.

	Marion

	Gugliotta

If it's not Hardaway potentially facing an enforced retirement because of ongoing knee trouble, it's Tom Gugliotta struggling to recover from an NFL-style knee reconstruction that followed a near-death seizure. Or it's Shawn Marion spiraling to the floor in a frightening crash that mercifully left him with no more than a concussion.

"No one here is feeling sorry for themselves," insists Suns president Bryan Colangelo. "Between injuries and incidents, it hasn't been favorable this particular year. Most disappointing are the [off-court] things we just have to eliminate. But as these things come at us, I think Jerry [Colangelo] has said, rather than fold it up, let's face them head on.

"We're still right there, hovering around the top-10 teams in the league, which I think says something about the makeup of our team. And there's certainly a lot to look forward to in terms of having a year free of injury."

The Suns are certainly due for one of those years. They most definitely didn't need a new-millennium negativity epidemic, after it took so much work for Jerry Colangelo to restore the franchise name after the 1986-87 drug scandal -- in which five active and former Suns were indicted. Keeping only Jeff Hornacek, and acquiring Kevin Johnson and later Charles Barkley, Colangelo built Phoenix back up from a 24-58 doormat in 1987-88 into an organization that hasn't missed the playoffs since.

If the streak survives another season, as it now appears, much of the credit will go to Kidd and coach Scott Skiles, who's even grittier and guttier than you remember after all he has been through in less than two seasons since supplanting Danny Ainge. Despite Hardaway's unavailability, Gugliotta's stuttering return to the form and the maddening inconsistency of Robinson and Rodney Rogers, the 41-27 Suns are still on a 49-win pace.

Kidd has been especially special in recent weeks, responding to urgings from Skiles and others to be more me-first minded. The result: 30 points or more in three straight games, for the first time in his career. Catch a Suns road game and you might spot something else new -- Kidd working through a pre-game shooting routine with assistant coach Frank Johnson. The old Kidd routinely took the latest possible team bus to road games and rarely worked on his shot during warm-ups.

And at home, where Joumana is pregnant with twins?

"Jason acknowledged that he has issues that needed to be worked on and he has tackled those issues," Bryan Colangelo said. "I think he and Joumana are doing everything they can. From Day 1 [since the incident], Jason didn't hide under any sort of veil."

	Rogers

	Dudley

Neither are Kidd's bosses, incidentally. The Colangelos, long known as two of the league's most proactive executives, might not be as hamstrung by the Suns' high salaries as many suppose. Hardaway, if he can't play again, can be scratched from the payroll after one more season, along with Chris Dudley and the recently retired Rex Chapman. Those departures potentially create some significant wiggle room to build on the reconfigured nucleus of Kidd, Marion and promising center Iakovos Tsakalidis, who's starting to look worthy of last summer's pre-draft hype.

Which also assumes they keep Kidd ... a seemingly safe assumption. Shaquille O'Neal, Monday's big-name opposition, has openly championed a Kobe-for-Kidd swap, but the Lakers would have to unravel in thoroughly nuclear fashion before that becomes a serious discussion. As for those persistent Kidd-for-Stephon Marbury rumblings, they also sound a bit nuclear. Dangerous, indeed, to link the cursed Nets and tortured Suns in one combustible deal.

Not that the desert dwellars have had much luck avoiding danger on their own.

"There's no one to blame but ourselves if we don't make the playoffs, but we're not looking at it like we're not going to be there," Kidd said. "The funny thing out of all this is, probably nobody would like to see us in the first round because we have so much talent.

"When we do play our best, we're as good as any team in this league. When we don't, we're only as good as Chicago."

Marc Stein, who covers the NBA for The Dallas Morning News, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.