Playing on the super extreme team?

Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Sir Charles Barkley (a former Phoenix Suns player), Patrick Ewing and John Stockton. The list of basketball greats who played on 1992’s Dream Team was breathtaking.

Now some observers are wondering if the Suns are putting together a Super Extreme Team. That’s because the team has taken an odd shift in tone over recent months, including the stalled contract negotiations with Eric Bledsoe and the re-signing of wing P.J. Tucker after he was charged with “super extreme” DUI.

You might recall last year’s plea deal reached between Tucker’s criminal defense attorney and prosecutors. In the deal, the combination guard and small forward pleaded guilty to a reduced charge and received a sentence that included three days in jail, 11 days of home detention, $2,750 in fines, five years of probation and agreement to have an ignition interlock device in his car for 18 months.

If he had pleaded guilty to “super extreme” DUI the mandatory minimum in jail would have been 45 days.

He was arrested last year in Scottsdale. Law enforcement officers said his blood alcohol content was 0.22 percent. The legal threshold in Arizona is 0.08 and the threshold for “super extreme” DUI is 0.2 percent.

CBS Sports reported that the Suns said they knew of his legal problems at the time they extended his contract. Would they have still offered millions of dollars after a “super extreme” finding of guilt? We’ll never know, but it seems reasonable to speculate that they would have had second thoughts about investing $16.5 million in him, as they did last summer.