The Suns by and large have enjoyed great fan support for close to 50 years now. Players who've only been on the team for a few years and who didn't grow up cheering for it don't really know anything about anything. It's also pretty ridiculous for Markief to tell a fan that "you have to take the good with the bad" when he can't even handle a dip in crowd enthusiasm.
I used to point out the disadvantages Phoenix sometimes has a market compared to others with larger corporate based and fewer transplants, but the reality is that after having lived in a number of cities with "storied" franchises, I don't find Phoenix's supposed bandwagon nature to be all that unique. Fans get frustrated everywhere, and "unwavering" support almost never holds true across all of a city's teams.
Great post. All this whining about "the fans" is laughable. I grew up 30 mins outside Manhattan. Went to college 45 mins outside of Boston. Lived in Dallas and Chicago. And now Phoenix for the past 14 years. And I find the fan situation here in Phoenix not unlike anything I've seen in previous places where I lived. With the exception being the Cubbies and to a much lesser extent, the Blackhawks, Bruins, Red Sox, Giants, Bears and the Rangers, and to an even lesser extent the Cowboys....
But make no mistake, the Yankees, Mets, Knicks, Nets, Rangers, Devils, Islanders, Jets, Bulls, White Sox, Mavericks, Stars, Texas Rangers, all of the Houston teams, Celtics - all suffer from dropped attendance when their teams suck.