Alvin Gentry is now in his second full season as the head man in Phoenix and with a number of players having left the team (Amar’e Stoudemire, Leandro Barboasa) there was little hope outside of landing LeBron James or one of the other high profile free agents. But with your franchise center bolting for the bright lights of New York, there was little hope for the aging team. Steve Nash turns 37 this season, Grant Hill is now 38 and Hedo Turkoglu is 31. That leaves Jason Richardson (29 years old) and Robin Lopez (22 years old) as the youth of the starting lineup.
But depth is at the heart of this team and with the additions of Hakim Warrick and Josh Childress, Nash should have plenty of running mates to pass the ball to. "We should have great chemistry," said Nash, who will turn 37 in February. "We have great guys, unselfish guys that get what it takes to be a good teammate and how important that is. Depth and chemistry should be our strength."
Come on out and support your Phoenix Suns as the attempt to retake the Western Conference one game at a time.
The Terry Porter as a head coach experiment in Phoenix came to an end as the team finished 2nd in the Pacific Division with a subpar 37-31 record. The franchise moved interim coach Alvin Gentry into full time status. In the draft, the Suns chose Earl Clark with the 14th overall pick in the draft, Taylor Griffin with their 2nd round pick and traded the rights for Emir Preldzic to the Cleveland Cavaliers. They then went out and resigned Grant Hill and Louis Amundson along with Channing Frye who replaces center Ben Wallace whose contract was bought out. On July 28th, the franchise resigned All-Star point guard Steve Nash to a 2-year contract extension. In late December, the franchise pulled the trigger on one more trade, sending guard Alando Tucker along with a conditional 2010 2nd round draft pick to Minnesota for veteran guard Jason Hart who was immediately waived. This cash-crunching move was an insurance to keep center Jarron Collins in a Suns uniform for
many more seasons.
The Phoenix Suns came into existence on in the 1968 expansion of the National Basketball Association and have played for 41 seasons in the league. They have had eighteen 50+ win seasons and have gone into the Western Conference Finals eight times while advancing into the NBA Finals twice.
Jerry Colangelo was hired away from the Chicago Bulls as their player-scout and made the first General Manager of the team. Johnny “Red” Kerr was brought in as the first head coach of the franchise. While the franchise would struggle as most expansion clubs do, the Suns would have to only wait until the 1975/76 season to climb into the finals. In that eventful season, the team traded for Boston Celtics guard (and NBA Champion) Paul Westphal, drafted Alvan Adams and Ricky Sorbers and pulled off a midseason trade that sent PF John Shumate to the Buffalo Braves for F Garfield Heard.
The team would finish the year with a 42-40 record and clinched their first playoff spot since 1970. In the playoffs, the Suns would take out the Seattle Supersonics in the first round, beat the defending NBA Champion Golden State Warriors in the Conference Finals and would eventually meet the defending Eastern Conference Champion Boston Celtics. The Suns would take the Celtics to six games but would finally succumb to them, with the champs beating the Suns in Phoenix 87-80 to clinch the title.
The 1992/93 Suns moved into a new arena in downtown Phoenix, the America West Arena. In another huge move, the franchise moved Jeff Hornacek, Andrew Lang and Tim Perry to Philadelphia for the “Round Mound of Rebound” power forward Charles Barkley. They would then add former Celtic Danny Ainge, center Oliver Miller and Richard Dumas finally joined the team (drafted in 91 but suspended). The franchise also hired former Sun on the championship team Paul Westphal as the new head coach. Charles Barkley would beat out 2-time MVP Michael Jordan to win the season MVP.
The team would win 62 games and would meet the 8th seeded LA Lakers in the first round of the playoffs, the Spurs in the 2nd and the Seattle Supersonics in the Western Conference Finals. In the NBA Finals, the Suns met the Chicago Bulls, led by Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and would lose to the world champions in six games.
The franchise would continue their success for three seasons going a combined 178-68 and would continue to attract star talent such as Danny Manning, Wesley Person, Elliot Perry, A.C. Green and Wayman Tisdale. In the 1995/96 season, the franchise drafted Michael Finley. In the playoffs, as Finley went down with an injury, the Suns season went down with him as they were eliminated in the first round by the San Antonio Spurs.
Due to a strained relationship with GM Jerry Colangelo, Barkley was traded after the season to the Houston Rockets for Sam Cassell, Robert Horry, Mark Bryant and Chucky Brown and would pick up point guard Steve Nash in the 1996 NBA Draft with the 15th overall pick. Nash would stay with the team for two years and would then be traded to the Dallas Mavericks for Martin Muursepp, Bubba Wells, the draft rights to Pat Garrity and a first round pick which was used to select forward Shawn Marion.
In the 2000 season, the term Backcourt 2000 began being used as Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway joined the club. This team would eliminate the San Antonio Spurs in a best of five series 3 games to 1. The team would eventually lose to the eventual champion LA Lakers 4 games to 1.
At the end of the 2001 campaign, the Suns traded Jason Kidd to the New Jersey Nets for Stephon Marbury. They would draft Amar’e Stoudamire who would help the team post a 44-38 record but would face the Spurs in the playoffs who extracted redemption for the season prior. The Spurs would eliminate the Suns en route to their third championship
The 2005 season saw the only GM the franchise ever knew announce the selling of the team. The team would finish the year at 62-20 and home court advantage throughout the playoffs. They would dispose of the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round in a 4-game sweep, beat the 4th seeded Dallas Mavericks 4-games to 2 and would again meet the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Finals. The Spurs would come out swinging and take a 3 games to nothing lead, would win game 4 in San Antonio but then lost game five at home and were knocked out of the playoffs.
The 2005/06 Suns featured Boris Diaw, Raja Bell and Kurt Thomas taking up the slack as Stoudamire missed the season with a micro fracture surgery. Steve Nash would win his second consecutive NBA MVP award and the Suns managed to string together a 54-28 record. In the playoffs, the Suns eliminated the LA Lakers in five games, the LA Clippers in 6 games and met the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference Finals. The Mavs would blow out the Suns in six games as they dominated the Phoenix squad.
In June of 2007, former Chicago Bulls and San Antonio 3-point Specialist Steve Kerr joined the team as the new GM and President of Basketball Operations. Later in the month, they would draft SG Rudy Fernandez with the 24th overall pick, sign Grant Hill to a 1-year deal, and traded Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks to the Miami Heat for Shaquille O’Neal. The team would again be eliminated by the San Antonio Spurs in 5 games in the 2008 Western Conference Finals.
On June 9, 2008, Terry Porter was named the new head coach of the Suns.
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