Aaron Brooks will never be Steve Nash but with confidence and more time in the system he can make sure the Suns have one less hole to address.

Part of the problem, of course, is that all point guards who go through Phoenix are compared to Nash. It's a no-win approach because few are as adept as Nash at improving everyone else around them.

He'll be gone soon. And the Suns need to figure out ways to make the segue less painful.

"Despite how things went, I think Phoenix is a good place for me," Brooks said. "The players, management, fans; everything about the team I liked. That's not something you always find."

The French national team has obtained insurance for Spurs guard Tony Parker, Blazers forward Nicolas Batum, Bobcats forward Boris Diaw, and Knicks center Ronny Turiaf.

All of the players on the French squad were given medical examinations at the INSEP in Paris last week, including Bulls center Joakim Noah, who has dual U.S. and French citizenship.

Undisclosed questions arose during Noah’s exam. France's basketball federation did not disclose the nature or cause of the problem, but said the injury was suffered toward the end of last season.

Noah struggled to regain his form after suffering a sprained right ankle on March 28 against Philadelphia.

He is rehabilitating the injury in Chicago with the goal of rejoining the French team prior to Eurobasket on August 31.

Suns forward Mickael Pietrus was ruled medically ineligible to play for France because of a previous wrist injury.

When the Orlando Magic pulled off a pair of blockbuster trades with the Phoenix Suns and Washington Wizards in December, Dwight Howard was napping. No one on the Magic asked his opinion. No one asked if he was OK with the trades.

Howard found out when the rest of us did: once the trades were completed.

Turns out, Howard had a problem with that.

“I wanted to be more part of the process a little more,” Howard said in a radio interview with 790 The Zone in Atlanta. “I had to step out on the court and I wanted to make sure that the people I played with wanted to go out and play hard every night. My only issue was the fact that I didn’t really have a chance to be involved, but I think with the guys that we brought in we still have an excellent chance of winning, but we all have to be on the same page.”

Steve Nash, according to Paul Coro, is open to playing overseas during the lockout.

"I'd love to play overseas," Nash said. "It may be difficult with three kids but I'd love to do it."

Nash’s agent confirmed his client’s interest in playing abroad.

"He'd be ready to roll," Bill Duffy, said. "I've talked to him about it in the past. He's a worldwide traveler and maverick. He's committed to playing for the Suns but it's not up to him. If it looks like the season's going to be shut down, everyone's going to be looking for work."

Suns swingman Mickael Pietrus  will undergo minor right knee surgery Tuesday, and as a result will not follow through with plans to play for France in the European Championship starting Aug. 31.

Pietrus missed the final 12 games of the season because of a quadriceps-tendon strain near the same knee, an issue that seemed to start when he landed after an attempted blocked shot on March 23. Pietrus' agent, Bill McCandless, said Pietrus was mentioning discomfort with the knee before he was traded from Orlando in December. At his recent camp in Guadeloupe, friends were telling McCandless that Pietrus was not moving well.

"I'm looking at it extremely positively," McCandless said. "I know the player well and I sensed something wasn't right. He's not a complainer."

Pietrus took a physical upon arrival for France's camp, but the national team recommended he undergo surgery to remove loose cartilage. He is expected to be out of basketball action for four weeks.

France had hoped to have Phoenix Suns sharpshooter Mickael Pietrus in their squad this summer when they attempt to qualify for the London Games but the country’s basketball federation have ruled him out on medical grounds.

All of the players in the French preliminary squad have been given medical examinations at the INSEP in Paris this week, including Pietrus, a 29-year-old swingman who has been hindered by a wrist injury in the past.

The French Basketball Federation said: “Following several medical examinations carried out at the beginning of preparations and after consulting the medical staff of Team France, Mickael Pietrus will not play at EuroBasket 2011 for medical reasons.”

With full empowerment to lay out a strategy, Suns' "defensive coordinator" Elston Turner has some film to study. But it is clear the annual goal to improve the defense has teeth this time, with a commitment to 40-minute defensive sessions to be run by Turner during each practice.

"The emphasis is going to have a tremendous increase," Turner said. "It's something that is going to be constant, and we're going to get better."

Turner, a 14-year NBA assistant, held similar responsibility for Rick Adelman's teams in Sacramento and Houston for 10 years. Houston was not far ahead of Phoenix last season in opponent field-goal percentage (22nd) but finished second and fifth in 2007-08 and 2008-09, when it had Yao Ming playing (with Dikembe Mutombo behind him), Shane Battier and Ron Artest.
On offense, Turner said Houston had one main plan against the Suns.

"We would always attack them and attack the rim," Turner said. "We didn't think there was a great rim presence there. Stay aggressive. Crash the boards. When you flip that, we need better rim protection and rebounding. Those are blanket categories that must improve and are going to improve."

Josh Childress returned to the NBA this season after spending the previous two playing for the Grecian version of the Boston Celtics, Olympiacos.

Now that he's back in the NBA, he was asked if he'd consider returning to Europe to play during the lockout and jeopardize the last four years of his five-year, $33 million deal.

"No, I wouldn't," said Childress. "And I don't know why guys would. I understand that guys really want to play. But you sometimes have to look at what you have and treat this as a business. The only way I could see it making sense is if you're a player from a particular country going back. But for an American player with a good-sized guaranteed deal here, I can't see why you'd do it."

Tony Parker and the rest of France's NBA stars were on hand as the national team got together at the national sports institute in Paris on Tuesday to open their preparations for EuroBasket.

The one notable absentee from Vincent Collet's 15-man squad is Mickael Gelabale, who is in the Antilles following the death of his father. The swingman is expected to join his teammates in due time.

NBA stars Parker, along with Joakim Noah, Nicolas Batum, Boris Diaw, Mickael Pietrus and Ronny Turiaf are all on hand for the training camp.

Suns coach Alvin Gentry confirmed his selection of Elston Turner, a head coach finalist for Phoenix in 2008, as his new defensive assistant coach, a choice that became apparent last week with Jim Boylan re-signing with Milwaukee, Don Newman opting to stay in San Antonio and Pete Myers taking a job with Golden State.

No other candidate had been offered the "defensive coordinator" job, although talks with Boylan also had progressed.

Turner was favored all along for how well he would fit with the Suns on two fronts -- as a defensive coach on offensively driven teams and with a personality that will not ruffle a coaching staff that already has Bill Cartwright, Dan Majerle, Igor Kokoskov and Noel Gillespie in place.