Phoenix Suns
The Phoenix Suns are an American professional basketball team based in Phoenix, Arizona. The Suns compete in the National Basketball Association as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. They are the only team in their division not to be based in California. The Suns play their home games at the Mortgage Matchup Center.
The franchise began play in 1968 as an expansion team. Though their early years were mired in mediocrity, their fortunes changed in the 1970s after partnering Dick Van Arsdale and Alvan Adams with Paul Westphal. The team reached the 1976 NBA Finals, in what is considered to be one of the biggest upsets in NBA history. However, after failing to capture a championship, the Suns would rebuild around Walter Davis for a majority of the 1980s, until the acquisition of Kevin Johnson in 1988.
Under Johnson's leadership, and following the acquisition of perennial All-Star Charles Barkley, the Suns became a consistent playoff team. With contributions from Tom Chambers and Dan Majerle, the Suns reached the playoffs for a franchise-record thirteen consecutive seasons and reached the 1993 NBA Finals. However, the team failed to win the championship and entered into another period of mediocrity until the early 2000s.
In 2004, the Suns signed free agent Steve Nash, and returned into playoff contention. With Nash, Shawn Marion, and Amar'e Stoudemire, and under head coach Mike D'Antoni, the Suns became renowned worldwide for their quick, dynamic offense, which led them to tie a franchise record in wins in the 2004–05 season. Two more top two Conference placements followed, but the Suns again failed to attain an NBA championship, and were forced into another rebuild.
After ten consecutive seasons without a playoff berth, the Suns reached the 2021 NBA Finals after acquiring Chris Paul, who formed a quartet with their young core of Devin Booker, Deandre Ayton and Mikal Bridges, but would eventually lose to the Milwaukee Bucks in six games. In 2023, the Suns acquired 13-time All-Star and two-time NBA champion Kevin Durant and three-time All-Star Bradley Beal.
The Suns own the NBA's fifth-best all-time winning percentage, have the highest winning percentage of any team to have never won an NBA championship, and have the most NBA Finals appearances without a championship. 13 Hall of Famers have played for Phoenix, while two – Barkley and Nash – won NBA Most Valuable Player while playing for the team. Additionally, their Gowdy Award Winning radio announcer Al McCoy is the longest-tenured broadcaster in NBA history.
History
1968–1976: Team creation and early years
The Suns were one of two franchises to join the NBA at the start of the 1968–69 season, alongside the Milwaukee Bucks from Milwaukee. They were the first major professional sports franchise in the Phoenix market and in the entire state of Arizona, and remained the only one for the better part of 20 years until the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League relocated from St. Louis in 1988. The Suns played their first 24 seasons at Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, called the "Madhouse on McDowell", located slightly northwest of downtown Phoenix. The franchise was formed by an ownership group led by Karl Eller, owner of a public enterprise, the investor Donald Pitt, Don Diamond, Bhavik Darji, Marvin Meyer, and Richard L. Bloch. Other owners with a minority stake consisted of entertainers, such as Andy Williams, Bobbie Gentry and Ed Ames. There were many critics, including then-NBA commissioner J. Walter Kennedy, who said that Phoenix was "too hot," "too small," and "too far away" to be considered a successful NBA market. This was despite the fact that the Phoenix metropolitan area was growing rapidly, and the Suns would have built-in geographical foes in places like in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle.After continual prodding by Bloch, in 1968 the NBA Board of Governors granted franchises to Phoenix and Milwaukee on January 22, 1968, with an entry fee of $2 million. The Suns nickname was among 28,000 entries that were formally chosen in a name-the-team contest sponsored by The Arizona Republic, with the winner awarded $1,000 and season tickets for the inaugural season. Suns was preferred over Scorpions, Rattlers, Thunderbirds, Wranglers, Mavericks, Tumbleweeds, Mustangs and Cougars. Stan Fabe, who owned a commercial printing plant in Tucson, designed the team's first iconic logo for a mere $200.
In the 1968 NBA expansion draft, notable Suns pickups were future Hall of Famer Gail Goodrich and Dick Van Arsdale.
Jerry Colangelo, then a player scout, came over from the Chicago Bulls, a franchise formed two years earlier, as the Suns' first general manager at the age of 28, along with Johnny "Red" Kerr as head coach. Unlike the first-year success that Colangelo and Kerr had in Chicago, in which the Bulls finished with a first-year expansion record of 33 wins and a playoff berth, Phoenix finished its first year at 16–66, and finished 25 games out of the final playoff spot.
Both Goodrich and Van Arsdale were selected to the All-Star Game in their first season with the Suns. Goodrich returned to his former team, the Lakers, after two seasons with the Suns, but Van Arsdale spent the rest of his playing days as a Sun and a one-time head coach for Phoenix.
The Suns' last-place finish that season led to a coin flip for the number-one overall pick for the 1969 NBA draft with the expansion-mate Bucks. Milwaukee won the flip, and the rights to draft UCLA center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, while Phoenix settled on drafting center Neal Walk from Florida. The 1969–70 season posted better results for the Suns, finishing 39–43, but lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs. The next two seasons, the Suns finished with 48- and 49-win seasons, but did not qualify for the playoffs in either year, and did not reach the playoffs again until 1976. The major draw for the franchise in this era was the dramatic play of Connie Hawkins.
This era was also marked by the arrival of longtime Suns play-by-play and Naismith Hall of Fame announcer Al McCoy, hired by Jerry Colangelo before the start of the 1972–73 NBA season. Soon locally renowned as "the Voice of the Suns", his broadcasts were simulcast on both television and radio from 1972 until 2003 when he became exclusive to the Suns Radio Network. He was still broadcasting Suns home games on radio as of the 2022–23 season, having called all three NBA Finals appearances for the franchise.
Colangelo called Al McCoy "the greatest salesman for the game of basketball in our entire state" and said that "he had as much to do with the success of the Suns as any player, coach or manager".
1975–1976: Trip to the NBA Finals
The 1975–76 season proved to be a pivotal year for the Suns as they made several key moves, including the off-season trade of former All-Star guard Charlie Scott to the Boston Celtics in exchange for guard Paul Westphal, a member of Boston's 1974 championship team. They also drafted center and eventual fan favorite Alvan Adams from the University of Oklahoma and guard Ricky Sobers of UNLV. The Suns and Buffalo Braves made a midseason trade, with Phoenix sending forward/center John Shumate to Buffalo in exchange for forward Garfield Heard.Phoenix had an inconsistent regular season, starting out at 14–9, then went 4–18 during a stretch where the team sustained several injuries. The Suns then went 24–13 in the final 37 games to finish 42–40, clinching their first playoff spot since 1970. The Suns faced the Seattle SuperSonics in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs, winning the series four games to two, and beat the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference finals, four games to three, to advance to their first NBA Finals.
The Suns faced an experienced Celtics team, led by eventual Hall of Famers Dave Cowens, John Havlicek and Jo Jo White. Game five of the 1976 NBA Finals took place at Boston Garden, where the Suns came back from a 22-point first-half deficit to force overtime. Havlicek made what was supposed to be a game-winning basket, but due to fans rushing the floor before time officially expired, officials put one second back on the clock with Phoenix having possession of the ball, but under their own basket. Instead of attempting a desperation heave, the Suns' Westphal intentionally called a timeout that they did not have, a technical foul, giving the Celtics a free throw, which Jo Jo White converted to put them up 112–110. However, this advanced the ball to half-court, and once the Suns had possession, Garfield Heard made a buzzer-beating turnaround jump shot to force a third overtime. The Suns' hard-fought battle was short-lived, as Boston's reserve player Glenn McDonald scored six of his eight points in the third overtime to lead the Celtics to a 128–126 win. Boston eventually won the series in six games, clinching the championship at the Coliseum, defeating Phoenix in game six, 87–80.