Phoenix Suns: New Marketing Campaign a Harbinger of Sorrow for 2011-2012?

The fourth highest winning percentage in NBA history.

29 playoff appearances.

30 All-NBA Selections.

Zero confidence in the immediate future.

For those living in the Phoenix area, you may have caught some of the recent radio or TV ads that the team is making for 2011-2012 season ticket sales. The pitch centers on the prospective buyer becoming a part of the team’s decorated legacy.

On the surface, it's a terrific reminder of what the Suns have done in their history. While no one can dispute what the team has accomplished since 1968—and it's certainly worthy of celebration—one thought immediately comes to mind: Darth Vader admonishing one his admirals, “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”

Take a moment to think through the team’s marketing direction. Instead of selling fans on the promise of success and hope next season, like most any halfway successful team does, they are instead running out a flashy campaign recounting the glories of yesteryear. 

The campaign's subtext here shows that they clearly, but indirectly agree with the view that a great number of NBA experts have expressed—the Suns' future is bleak.

That in and of itself isn’t the disturbing part. As a marketer, you have to sell the sizzle, not the steak.

The tragedy is that this outcome was mostly avoidable.  

The Suns should never have gotten to the point where it sinks to the level of numerous other cellar dwelling teams.  

When the future is going to suck, live in the past—and then try to sell that as a worthwhile product to your fan base.  

There have been plenty of teams across the four major sports that, when faced with a ominous season that will be nigh impossible to sell, turn their marketing efforts to either their past accomplishments or the opposing teams on their schedule.  

The Suns are now in the same company as the Kansas City Royals, Detroit Lions and many others.

Since drafting Amar’e Stoudemire in 2003, name a young player the team has drafted that has become a major factor? Heck, I'll even accept a valuable role player. Go ahead, I'll wait.  

Robin Lopez? Surely you jest.

The Suns have shown an alarming disdain for grooming young players and building a foundation for the franchise. Instead, they have preferred to patch their holes with veterans via free agency and trades. 

That strategy, if done near perfectly, can and has provided near-term success, but failing to build a sustainable foundation ultimately ends up with a team headed for disaster.

Which then begets ad campaigns rooted in history instead of a viable present and future. 

So here we are, with the team in a dogfight for the eighth and final playoff seed. They are led by the still elite but 37-year-old Steve Nash. As for the rest of the team, Charlie Sheen and his Adonis DNA have a better chance of receiving a Hanukkah card from Chuck Lorre than anyone else on the Suns’ roster has of making an All-Star appearance in the future.    

The exact and grisly details of how this has happened—terrible signings like Hedo Turkoglu, botched trades and the annual selling of draft picks—have been well recorded in my earlier columns and countless other sources already, so I’ll spare you the mugging of your sensibilities with that trip down the dark memory back alley.

What I can't spare you from is a team's demise that grows closer with each exertion of a 37-year-old's knees. Suns fans deserve better than to be duped into "becoming a part" of a legacy when it's the present and future that matters in sports.

They should be spending $65 a ticket to see either a contender or a young team on the rise, not closing their eyes and imagining that Charles Barkley and Kevin Johnson are still running the floor.

They shouldn't be cajoled into spending their precious dollars on tickets to see a team whose management is trying to awe them with yesterday's heroes in one hand while polishing the brass on the Titanic with the other.

This isn't solely a rant...er...examination about a single marketing campaign, it's a eulogy for a once proud team that used to have legitimate excitement and prospects to promote.  

It's an indictment of the poor management that has now reduced this team to live in the past for the foreseeable future.

Do you believe in the Aaron Brooks to Channing Frye combo leading a post-Nash renaissance in the desert? Yeah, Suns management doesn’t either. 

But hey, if you renew your season tickets you get an exclusive "legacy" poster. Sweet!

Be sure to follow me on Twitter @PHXSuns29 for the latest Suns insight from Bleacher Report