 1969-1992  1992-2000  2000-2008  2008-Present
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Quick facts: Founded: 1968 Arena: Footprint Center Division Championships: 6(1981, 1993, 1995, 2005, 2006, 2007) Pacific Division: 8(1981, 1993, 1995, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2021, 2022) NBA Finals: 3(1975, 1993, 2021) NBA Titles: none Playoffs: 33 Best Season: 2020-21 64-18 .780 Worst Season: 1968-69 16-66 .195
Paul Westphal.
Westward Expansion:
Following the merger between the BAA and NBL the NBA had one western team, the Denver Nuggets, but the Nuggets left the NBA after one season and it took another 11 seasons before the Lakers moved to Los Angeles and became the lone NBA outpost in the west.
By the late 1960s the NBA began to expand westward. First to Seattle, than San Diego and in 1963 the relocation of the Warriors to San Francisco. Still the NBA needed more teams out west to even out travel schedules, so the choice was made to expand to other cities.
Phoenix was an unlikely choice because of its remote location and the city was small, but still growing. What helped the cities cause was that the rival ABA began to expand in the west as well and placed teams in other western cities such as Denver, St Louis and Salt Lake City.
Phoenix and Milwaukee were awarded expansion teams starting in the 1968-69 season. The city quickly showed it could support an NBA franchise as it become one of the most successful franchises in the NBA.
Still, despite their success, the Suns remained the only professional sports franchise in the state of Arizona until 1988 when the NFL's Cardinals move to Phoenix. The Cardinals were followed by the Coyotes of the NHL and the MLB's Diamondback.
forward Tom Chambers
Best Team without a Title:
Statistically speaking the Suns are the best team to never win an NBA title. The Suns have had a .500 record or better in 32 of their 47 years and have only had a .250 or worse record once, their inaugural season.
Difficult 80s:
The 1980s are general regarded as one of the greatest times in NBA basketball history. The sport had seen a surge in popularity behind the faces of Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan. But for the Suns it was a very different era filled with frustration and tragedy.
On the court the Suns enjoyed as much success as anyone not named Boston, LA or Detroit, but it was the off the court issues which plagued the Suns and nearly brought the franchise down.
The NBA had a drug problem as early as the 1970s but the league was working on a way to get rid of it. In 1987 the Maricopa County Attorney's Office indicted 13 people on drug-related charges, three of whom were active Suns players: James Edwards, Jay Humphries and Grant Gondrezick.
The prosecution's star witness was another Suns player, their all-star guard Walter Davis. No defendant ever went to trial in the case as all 3 accused players received diversionary programs and Humphries and Edwards went on to have solid NBA careers. Gondrezick's career, however, would never recover. He struggled with cocaine addiction and was out of the league before the 1990 season.
Most people see this drug case as nothing but a witch hunt because of the big named involved in the case. A few of the cases have even been overturned. Still, it lead to increased drug testing in the NBA.
Tragedy would strike the Suns again in 1987 when center Nick Vanos was amongst 148 people killed when Northwestern Flight 255 crashed upon takeoff in Detroit.
guard Jason Kidd
guard Kevin Johnson vs John Stockton
Point Guards:
The Suns have always had a knack for finding extremely good point guards. The first really good PG was Paul Westphal who helped the team make its first NBA finals appearance in 1976. Than followed Kevin Johnson in 1989. Following Johnson the team was able to trade for Jason Kidd, and the last of the great PGs has been Steve Nash who won 2 MVP awards as a member of the Suns.
Devin Booker scores 70:
Devin Booker became the youngest player in NBA history to score 70 points when on March 24, 2017 he dropped 70 on the Boston Celtics in a 130-120 losing effort.
Bookers 70 points are the most ever for a player when scoring more than 50 points for the first time in their career.
The 70 points is also a franchise record, surpassing the 60 points scored by Tom Chambers in 1990. It is also the most points by one player the Celtics have allowed since Elgin Baylor scored 68 points in 1968.
The City not the State:
The Phoenix metro area has had 4 teams in all 4 of the major professional sports, but the Suns are the only one who represent the city and not the state. The NFL's Arizona Cardinals were the Phoenix Cardinals from 1988 until 1993, but have been Arizona since. Likewise, the now defunct Arionza Coyotes of the NHL were the Phoenix Coyotes from 1996-2014 until changing to become the Arizona Coyotes until 2024 when they relocated to Utah. The MLB's Arizona Diamondbacks are the only one to have never had Phoenix in their name.
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An often-debated topic among NBA circles is "Who is the greatest franchise in NBA history?". There are lots of very good teams to chose from. Could it be the team with the most NBA titles in 17, the Boston Celtics? Could it be the team with the most consistency in winning titles; the Los Angeles Lakers? Maybe it could be the most consistent team in terms of overall winning the San Antonio Spurs? The Warriors, Bulls, and 76ers also get honorable mentions. All these teams have one thing in common - multiple NBA titles.
One thing not often discussed is who is the greatest NBA franchise who has never won a title? The list is actually quite short, as only eleven NBA teams have yet to win an NBA title. Five of those teams to never win a title are recent having just joined the NBA in the past 35 years. Six of the eleven teams have yet to even make an NBA-finals.
Three of the four teams from the ABA have never won an NBA title, though the Indiana Pacers and Brooklyn Nets have both gotten close
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With the recent unrest in America, a lot of current and former NBA players have made comments online and let their feels and opinions be known. For some, this is seen as the players stepping out of their industry; for most it is just the players exercising their 1st Amendment rights. But, players getting political is nothing new. Many former athletes have left the court and gone on to have very successful playing careers.
Most people will recognize that several former football players have made some very high profile runs of office. The most famous of these, and successful, is former University of Michigan star Gerald Ford. Ford served 25 years in the House of Representatives, before in 1973, being nominated by Richard Nixon to become the Vice President. When Nixon resigned the office following the Watergate scandal, Ford became the 38th President of the United States. Ford would lose his re-election bid in 1976 to Jimmy Carter.
Another famous football star, Jack Kemp ran for the office of president in 1996 as the Republican challenger to Bill Clinton. Kemp, a star quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, selected another former athlete to be his running-mate. Kemp selected former New York Knicks forward Bill Bradley to be his Vice-Present.
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On October sixth, the NBA lost one of the great pioneers in league history. Connie Hawkins was a four time NBA all-star and former ABA MVP, who's legal battle with the ABA and NBA helped change the landscape of professional basketball. Few athletes in American history have ever been as victimized by the system as Hawkins was. In 1961, while Hawkins was a freshman at Iowa and ineligible to play on the Hawkeyes varsity team due to NCAA regulations at the time, a humongous college betting scandal erupted and Hawkins was kicked out of school. The scandal involved 22 different schools and 37 players, but Hawkins was not implicated. The scandal mostly focused on players associated with Jack Molinas, who had escaped the CCNY betting scandal a decade and a half earlier. Hawkins, growing up in New York City, knew many of the players involved and had borrowed $2,000 for school expenses from Jack Molinas, but Hawkins brother had paid Molinas back before the scandal erupted.
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