What would you do if you bought a ticket to a U2 concert and Bono didn't show?

	Penny Hardaway hasn't played yet this season, and there's no telling when he will.

I'll tell you what you'd do, you'd probably bum-rush the stage, kick a hole in Larry Mullen's drum set and show the lads from Ireland a thing or two about Sunday Bloody Sunday.

So why is it that the Phoenix Suns can advertise their basketball team with Penny Hardaway, have fans gobble up season tickets, then have it come out that they knew all along that Penny would not be there for quite some time?

I'm no business major, but isn't this some sort of false advertising?

And at a time when commissioner David Stern is doling out severe punishments as if he were a political candidate on a street corner handing out flyers, don't the Suns at least deserve to have their ganglion cysts smacked with a crowbar?

Here's the background: Penny had surgery on his ever-failing knee on May 25, at which time Suns president Bryan Colangelo said Hardaway underwent a relatively minor procedure. I'll spare you all the octo-syllabic medical terms, but the Suns led everybody to believe that Penny would require only eight weeks, max, recovery time.

The Suns said this all summer, as they promoted season-ticket sales. You can bet they didn't tell anybody when they were part of the four-team trade that sent Luc Longley to New York and brought Chris Dudley to Phoenix.

And then, as the season began, and Hardaway was not on the court, and people -- i.e. the media -- began to wonder what, exactly, was going on, Colangelo refused to tell anybody about Hardaway's injury. Just refused. Flat out wouldn't say a thing.

Until Hardaway himself revealed that the surgery he underwent was much more serious, that it could prolong, or even save, Hardaway's basketball career if it proves successful in the long term. Along with that, of course,, comes more healing time.

	“	I can't really worry about what people think. I'd rather they talk bad about me when I'm doing the right thing. ”
		— Hardaway

"This was done to lengthen my career, not to have a sudden impact on it right now," Hardaway told the Arizona Republic. "This is supposed to make me better as a player for the duration, not just the short term.

"If I had just had a regular scope, I'm sure I'd be playing by now. They drilled two holes in the back of my knee and let it bleed, so I couldn't even walk for eight weeks."

Which is the time, you'll remember, that Colangelo said it would take Hardaway to heal fully.

When asked about the reason for the misdirection, Colangelo said, well, nothing.

"We fully expected Penny to be ready by the start of the season," Colangelo told The Republic. "There was a little disconnect in the rehabilitation process when everyone went their separate ways (in the offseason). That's not pointing a finger at anyone.

"The extent of information that we released was discussed with the medical team and with Penny, and that was the choice we made," he said.

So they intentionally chose to mislead the ticket-buying public? I can see that.

Hardaway is probably as much to blame as anybody. He kept the secret going as well, probably because he has received so much bad publicity in recent years about his injuries that he didn't want anymore piled on.

Now that the secret is out, Hardaway says he will not come back to appease his detractors.

"The one thing I'm not going to fall into is that negative vibe I fell into in Orlando," he said. "I'm not going to let anybody put any pressure on me. I know what I had. The surgery I had normally takes about six months to recover from, so that's about where I am.

"I can't really worry about what people think. I'd rather they talk bad about me when I'm doing the right thing."

How about when he, and the Suns, do the wrong thing?

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