Featured Post: How to discern the five greatest teams in Phoenix Suns' history

[GMATCallahan]

bwgood suggested that a long post about the five greatest teams in the history of the Phoenix Suns would be worthwhile, and I agreed. However, I took a different approach—a long statistical exploration—as opposed to the usual whimsical list at a blog or sports web site.

The likely current narrative

When contemplating the five greatest teams in the history of the Phoenix Suns, most people probably follow a hype-based media narrative that sees the Phoenix franchise in the following manner: about a quarter-century’s worth of Dark Ages, followed by the glorious arrival of Sir Charles Barkley and a trip to the NBA Finals in 1993, followed by more Dark Ages after Barkley’s departure in 1996—punctuated only by Jason Kidd’s triple-doubles (because, after all, triple-doubles are all-powerful)—followed by another glorious chapter stemming from Steve Nash’s return in 2004, with Nash’s departure in 2012 ushering in another dark period. Supposedly, the only great and championship-caliber clubs—and the five best in franchise history—could have come from the tenures of Barkley and Nash.

That conclusion may or may not be correct, but clearly the method is insufficient—something more scientific and systematic is needed, especially in the case of a franchise that made the playoffs twenty-one times in a span of twenty-four seasons from 1978-2001, including eight consecutive trips from 1978-1985 and then thirteen straight postseason appearances from 1989-2001. And while the Suns indeed entered an extremely barren era following Nash’s free agent defection in 2012, Phoenix actually missed the playoffs in his last two seasons with the Suns and in three of his last four years with the franchise. Success, then, is never entirely contingent upon any one player, especially in an organization that—one could easily argue—has never featured a great true big man.

Method used to determine results

The most compelling scientific and systematic method for assessing seasonal value in the history of the Phoenix Suns—and for drawing lessons from the past in order to successfully build for the future—may be “Yearly Schedule-Adjusted Offensive and Defensive Ratings.” In other words, take each team’s net Offensive Rating (points scored per possession, or 100 possessions to create a user-friendly number) and net Defensive Rating (points allowed per possession, or 100 possessions to create a user-friendly number), combine the two for a total net points per possession, and then adjust it for the caliber of the competition. The measurement gauges net efficiency, and what a team wants is to be as efficient as possible. The more efficient it happens to be, the better its chances of making the playoffs, advancing in the playoffs, and winning a championship.

That is not to say that the most efficient regular season team will always win the championship or even the most games in the regular season, or that there is always an exact relationship between efficiency and winning games. Sometimes winning games will also be affected by experience or the lack thereof, by whether a club features a so-called “closer,” and by other little nuances and nebulous intangibles such as “toughness.” Sometimes a team will come together in the playoffs in a way that it did not during the regular season, or a defending or recent champion (the 1995 Houston Rockets, the 2001 Los Angeles Lakers, the 2010 Boston Celtics) will dramatically elevate its performance level in the playoffs by drawing from its reservoir of experience, regaining its motivation, healing from injuries, or gelling after alterations in personnel.

Conversely, sometimes a team will squeeze out wins in the regular season that obscure how the club was not actually playing that well in many of those games, or how it was failing to play up to its potential, or how it was barely overriding major flaws that would eventually come back to undermine the squad in the playoffs. In those cases, examining “Yearly Schedule-Adjusted Offensive and Defensive Ratings,” or net efficiency (as I will refer to the measure from now on), can provide a better gauge, akin to the proverbial canary in a coalmine.

What we do know is that when the Chicago Bulls won six NBA championships in the decade of the 1990s, they led the league in net efficiency during the regular season in five of those six years and ranked in the top two all six times. Clearly, those championships were no flukes. (The one year that the Bulls won the championship without leading the league in net efficiency during the regular season was 1993, but Chicago still led the Eastern Conference in net efficiency, and the only club that finished better than the Bulls was not the Phoenix Suns, whom Chicago would meet in the NBA Finals. So for all six of their championships, the Bulls never faced a more efficient opponent in the playoffs.)

The chart that follows only runs through 2012 and only starts with 1986; hopefully we will see an update in the future, one that accounts for the latest results and also a complete historical sweep. But 2012 takes us through the San Antonio Spurs’ first four of five total championships with Tim Duncan, and the Spurs led the NBA in net efficiency during the regular season for three of those four championships (1999, 2005, 2007). When they won the title in 2003, San Antonio ranked third in net efficiency. The Spurs also led in net efficiency during several seasons when they did not end up winning the championship: 2001, 2004, and 2006—San Antonio actually led the league in net efficiency for four straight regular seasons from 2004-2007. Thus for whatever luck the Spurs may have occasionally enjoyed en route to the title, they were unlucky in other years where they may have possessed the best team, or a team that was about as good as anyone else’s, yet they suffered a major injury or came down on the wrong end of a fluky play or lost some really close, could-have-gone-either-way games (such as Game Five of the 2004 Western Conference Semifinals at home versus the Lakers, where Derek Fisher followed Tim Duncan’s miraculous shot with a miraculous shot of his own that—supposedly—beat the buzzer after there were only 0.3 seconds remaining when he caught the ball, or Game Seven of the 2006 Western Conference Semifinals at home where Manu Ginobili committed the mistake of fouling Dirk Nowitzki on a dunk attempt despite the Spurs being up by three, allowing Nowitzki to complete a three-point play that tied the score and sent the contest to overtime, where the Mavericks prevailed).

The point is that featuring the most efficient club in the NBA, or one of the two or three most efficient clubs, will not guarantee a championship, but that kind of perennial ranking is likely to lead to championships here and there, at least. When the Boston Celtics won a league-best 67 games and the NBA title in 1986, they led the NBA in net efficiency. When the Los Angeles Lakers won a league-best 65 games and the NBA title in 1987, they led the NBA in net efficiency. In the NBA Finals that year, they defeated the Celtics in six games, but whether they would have beaten the 1986 Celtics is more questionable. After all, although the 1987 Celtics still finished third in the NBA in net efficiency, they actually ranked second in the Eastern Conference behind Atlanta and their net of 6.6 points per 100 possessions was down substantially from their net of 8.8 points per 100 possessions the previous year.

In 1988, Boston would lead the league in net efficiency again, but the weary Celtics lost to the younger, fresher, up-and-coming Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals. (Indeed, intangibles and head-to-head matchups can make a difference, which is why championships result from playing games rather than simulating expectations on spreadsheets.) But the fact that the Pistons nearly dethroned the defending champion Lakers in the NBA Finals—almost certainly would have dethroned them had the referees not whistled Bill Laimbeer for a phantom foul on Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at the end of Game Six or if Isiah Thomas had not played Game Seven on a badly sprained ankle—is not surprising at all when examining the net efficiency standings. For in 1988, the Pistons actually finished second in the NBA—behind only Boston—while the Lakers ranked third at 4.8 net points per 100 possessions, down substantially from their 8.1 the previous season.

http://www.sports-reference.com/blog/2012/06/yearly-schedule-adjusted-offensive-and-defensive-ratings/

So how about the Phoenix Suns?

89-92 teams

Contrary to the media hype, what becomes clear from these rankings and figures is that the Suns were a much better team in the years before Charles Barkley arrived that most people acknowledge or understand. In 1989 (Tom Chambers’ and Dan Majerle’s first season in Phoenix, and Kevin Johnson’s and Mark West’s first full season in Phoenix), the Suns finished second in the NBA—and first in the West—in net efficiency at 6.6 points per 100 possessions. Unsurprisingly, then, the Suns dominated the first two rounds of the playoffs, beating the Nuggets and Warriors by a combined tally of seven wins against one loss and winning by at least eighteen points three times while scoring at least 130 points four times. But Phoenix fell to the Lakers, who had won the last two championships and five NBA titles in the decade, in the 1989 Western Conference Finals, losing four close games in a sweep. Here is where experience can make a difference. No one possessed more experience than the Lakers, whereas the Suns constituted the seventh-youngest team, in terms of average age, in the NBA—the second-youngest in the playoffs that year (ahead of only the New York Knicks in the East). The Lakers finished fourth in net efficiency that season at 6.3 points per 100 possessions, so they were only marginally more inefficient than the Suns during the regular season. In the Western Conference Finals, their vastly greater experience allowed them to overcome that difference.

The great shock of that postseason, by the way, was how the most efficient team in the NBA, the 57-win Cavaliers at 8.1 points per 100 possessions, lost in the First Round to the tenth-most efficient team, the 47-win Bulls at 2.2 points per 100 possessions. Eddie Johnson recently stated the Suns that year actually tried to model themselves on the Cavaliers to some extent, seeing Cleveland as a team whose standard Phoenix needed to meet. But Cleveland’s All-Star point guard, Mark Price, missed the playoff opener with an injury, and the Cavaliers lost. In Price’s first two games back, he combined to shoot 6-30 from the field and 1-10 on threes, totaling 17 points and 8 assists against 7 turnovers as Cleveland fell into a 1-2 hole in the best-of-five series. Then, with the Bulls trailing by one point in Game Five, Michael Jordan hit the series-winning shot at the buzzer over Craig Ehlo—to cap a performance of 44 points (17-32 FG, 1-1 on threes, 9-13 FT), 9 rebounds, 6 assists, and just 2 turnovers. Again, in the playoffs, a combination of bad luck and a great player’s ability to rise to the moment can counter a differential in efficiency.

In the next year’s playoffs, in 1990, the Suns memorably came back to whip the Lakers in the Western Conference Semifinals, four games to one. Supposedly, this shocking victory represented a great upset, but was it, really? Again, Phoenix had actually constituted the more efficient team the previous year, only to lose out to the Lakers’ experience in the Western Conference Finals. Then, in 1990, the Suns led the entire NBA in net efficiency at 6.9 points per 100 possessions. Actually, the Lakers tied the Suns at 6.9 points per 100 possessions, but the Suns must have broken the tie at a subsequent decimal. Sure, Los Angeles won nine more games than Phoenix in the regular season, with a league-best 63 wins to the Suns’ 54, but that difference suggests how regular season records can sometimes be misleading and how net efficiency may constitute the better, more revealing measure. The regular season records indicated that the Lakers were clearly a better team, but the net efficiency suggested that the two teams were even, with the Suns (if anyone) possessing the slight edge. And the playoff results indicated that the regular season net efficiency figures, rather than the regular season records, told the true story.

Consider that the Lakers proved extremely healthy that year—aside from reserve forward Orlando Woolridge, who missed 20 games, their top nine players all played in at least 70 games, and their top four scorers (Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Byron Scott, A.C. Green) all played in at least 77 games. The Suns, conversely, started the season slowly. Kevin Johnson missed 8 games early in the year after suffering a pulled hamstring 6 minutes into a game against Washington, and the referees ejected him and Magic Johnson for fighting 3 minutes into the third game of the season. (In the 72 games where K.J. played more than 6 minutes in ’89-’90, he averaged 23.0 points and 11.7 assists per contest.) The Suns also missed the services of defensive-minded forward Tyrone Corbin, who had become a starter in the second half of the previous season, only to be plucked by Minnesota with the Wolves’ second pick of the 1989 expansion draft. (Meanwhile, the Lakers only lost a marginal player in the expansion draft, a guard named David Rivers who would average 3.4 points on .398 field goal shooting in a three-year NBA career.) Not until the middle of December, when the Suns dealt Armon Gilliam to Charlotte for Kurt Rambis, was Phoenix able to adequately replace Corbin’s defense and intangibles. By late December, with Rambis integrated into the team and K.J. back for good from his injury (he averaged 23.7 points, 11.5 assists, and 8.6 free throw attempts per contest over the final 63 games of the season), the Suns started to right the ship. Following a 9-12 start, Phoenix went 35-7 (.833, a 68-win pace per 82 games) over its next 42 contests, including a 20-3 (.870, a 71-win pace per 82 games) mark from the last game of January through the midpoint of March. Those success rates matched up more with where the Suns would finish in net efficiency and what they would do to the Lakers in the playoffs. But late in the year, Jeff Hornacek underwent arthroscopic knee surgery and ended up missing a month’s worth of action—14 games—as he ended up playing in 67 games that season. While Hornacek was out, Dan Majerle separated his shoulder and missed 9 games. During their nine-game stretch without both Hornacek and Majerle (basically their shooting guards), the Suns went 5-4, including an overtime home defeat to the second-year Charlotte Hornets.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/199003210PHO.html

But when healthy, that Phoenix team was a juggernaut, as the Suns proved in the playoffs.

So why did Phoenix, the best team in the league that year according to net efficiency, fail to go all the way and win the championship or even reach the NBA Finals? First, due to some of those regular season injuries and circumstances, the Suns never held home-court advantage in a series that year (the West was very strong), and that factor may have caught up to them in the Western Conference Finals, where they lost three games in Portland by a total of 9 points and lost the series in six games despite out-scoring the Blazers by a margin of 34 points overall. Again, tough-luck plays and losses can sometimes undermine an advantage in efficiency. For instance, the Suns were leading by five points in the fourth quarter of Game Five at Portland, 106-101, when the Blazers enjoyed a two-man four-point play: as Clyde Drexler was hitting a three-pointer, the referees whistled Mark West for a foul on Blazer center Kevin Duckworth, who hit the subsequent free throw. That possession probably made the difference in a game where the Suns still led by one point, 114-113, inside forty seconds to play, as can be seen in this highlight video:

Watch on YouTube

Then late in the second quarter of Game Six back in Phoenix, Kevin Johnson pulled his hamstring on a fluke play where he hit an acrobatic, back-to-the-rim, left-handed layup while sliding off Duckworth’s chest as K.J.’s left leg popped up in the air. The Suns were leading 56-50 after he completed the three-point play (giving K.J. 16 points and 6 assists in 14 minutes of action), but he soon had to exit the game and could not return. The Blazers ended up winning by three points to claim the Western crown. Had that fluke injury not occurred, perhaps the Suns’ edge in net efficiency would have ultimately won out, not just in that game, but in the series.

The next two seasons saw mild slippage in Phoenix’s net efficiency, as the Suns ranked fourth in the NBA in both 1991 and 1992—and the Suns failed to return to the Western Conference Finals despite winning 108 total regular season games (55 and 53, respectively) after winning 109 (55 and 54) in 1989 and 1990; once again, net efficiency ratings can constitute a truer indicator of a club’s ability than win totals. Without some terrible late-game officiating calls in the 1992 Western Conference Semifinals versus Portland, though, the Suns may have won that series, as –for multiple reasons—they had become a different team that year following an awful 3-8 start marked by a six-game losing streak. Either way, according to net efficiency, Phoenix was a top-four NBA team in each of the four seasons prior to Barkley’s arrival, helping explain why the Suns won the fifth-most regular season games during that stretch, along with five playoff series victories. And if not for some bad luck in the 1990 and 1992 defeats to Portland, the postseason results might have been even better. (Additionally, in 1991 when the Suns suffered a 3-1 First Round playoff defeat to Utah, they were banged up. Tom Chambers had a bad back, Dan Majerle had a spinal cyst that caused numbness in one leg, and Kevin Johnson was playing with a bad hamstring that might have been related to the knee defect that would cause him to undergo the NBA’s first known Microfracture procedure after the season.)

Acquisition of Barkley

Following the 1992 season, of course, Phoenix traded three starters (Hornacek, Tim Perry, and Andrew Lang) for Charles Barkley. Statistically, the goal should have been to return to the number-one/number-two level of net efficiency that the Suns had been at in 1989 and 1990—and this time, perhaps due to Barkley’s elite rebounding ability in the trenches and his low-post scoring ability, or just better luck—win the championship. However, on the eve of the ’92-’93 campaign, Seattle’s Eddie Johnson, who had of course played a major role on the 1989 and 1990 Phoenix teams that reached the Western Conference Finals after respectively finishing second and first in the NBA in net efficiency, offered a revealing comment. He stated that with Barkley, and without the players that they had traded for him, the Suns—already an elite offensive club—would probably become better offensively, but they would likely grow worse defensively.

As matters turned out, Eddie Johnson was correct. The Suns, who had finished fifth in Offensive Rating and eighth in Defensive Rating in 1992 (after ranking third in Offensive Rating and eighth in Defensive Rating in 1991, third in Offensive Rating and sixth in Defensive Rating in 1990, and second in Offensive Rating and fifth in Defensive Rating in 1989), led the NBA in Offensive Rating in 1993, while ranking ninth in Defensive Rating—still good, but their lowest standing in five years. Overall, Phoenix finished fourth in net efficiency, their same finish as the previous two seasons. The 1993 Suns’ net differential of 6.3 points per 100 possessions was better than their previous season’s 5.6 net (again, the 1992 team began the year very slowly), but it was actually lower than the 1991 Suns’ 6.4 net.

To be sure, the 1993 Suns defeated Seattle—the most efficient team in the NBA that year—in seven games in the Western Conference Finals. But the fact that they lost to the Bulls, who ranked second in the league in net efficiency at 6.7, is logical. Based on net efficiency, the Bulls were a slightly better team than the Suns that year (despite winning five fewer games in the regular season), and the NBA Finals played out in that manner, with Chicago winning in six games and taking Game Six by one point. (All of Chicago’s four victories came by single digits, three by six points or less—the Bulls were just a little more efficient.)

By 1994, what Eddie Johnson had discussed really began to manifest itself. The Suns again ranked first in Offensive Rating, but they now slid all the way to sixteenth (out of twenty-seven teams) in Defensive Rating. Phoenix ranked fifth in net efficiency at 4.8 points per 100 possessions, which means that the Suns were slowly heading in the opposite direction of the result that the Barkley trade was supposed to create. Yes, Phoenix finished slightly ahead of Houston in net efficiency (the Rockets ranked sixth, at 4.4 points per 100 possessions), so the Suns certainly should have been able to beat the Rockets in the 1994 Western Conference Semifinals, especially after going up 2-0 in the series by winning the first two games in Houston. But the fact that the Suns ended up losing narrowly to the Rockets in seven games is no big surprise, either—based on the net efficiency standings, that series constituted something of a coin flip. Certainly, based on net efficiency, the fact that Phoenix failed to win the championship in 1994 is no surprise, either. Whereas inexperience or bad luck doomed some of the pre-Barkley Sun clubs in the playoffs, the 1994 Suns—because of their suddenly mediocre defense—did not have a strong championship recipe in place. Based on net efficiency—or playoff results—one would be hard-pressed to seriously argue that the 1994 Suns constituted a better team than the 1989 or 1990 Suns, who respectively ranked second and first at 6.6 and 6.9 net points per 100 possessions—about two points better per 100 possessions than the 1994 Suns. The 1994 Suns may not have been better than the 1991 or 1992 Suns, either—more talented, sure, because of Barkley’s presence, but not necessarily better and quite possibly worse. Not only did the Suns win the first two games of the Western Conference Semifinals in Houston, but they led the Rockets by ten points early in the second half of Game Three at Phoenix:

Watch on YouTube

Then the Suns allowed 77 points in the second half, on their home court, and the series fundamentally changed.

In 1995, the trend continued. Despite all manner of missed games by major players, including 35 by Kevin Johnson (playing with at least one undiagnosed sports hernia, or tear in his abdominal wall), Phoenix still ranked third in Offensive Rating—the Suns’ seventh consecutive season as a top-five offensive club, with six of those finishes in the top three. Aided by the shortened three-point arc, which encouraged more three-point shooting, Phoenix set a franchise record for Offensive Rating at 114.5 points scored per 100 possessions, one that would not be matched until the 2005 Suns and not be surpassed except for the 2010 Suns at 115.3. But for the third consecutive season, since acquiring Charles Barkley, Phoenix’s place in the Defensive Rating standings declined. The Suns now ranked nineteenth among twenty-seven clubs in Defensive Rating, rendering them a clearly below-average defensive team. In terms of net efficiency, the Suns now placed seventh (with a differential of 3.9 points per 100 possessions)—a far cry from their first-place finish (with a differential of 6.9) five years earlier. A seventh-place team in net efficiency could win the championship, but should one really expect it to or be surprised when it fails? Sure, the defending champion Houston Rockets ranked just eleventh this time, but when the Suns allowed 74 points at home in the second half of Game Seven of the Western Conference Semifinals versus the Rockets, they again failed to reach the Western Conference Finals.

By 1996, Phoenix was down to twenty-third among twenty-nine teams in Defensive Rating, and the Suns’ net efficiency fell to sixteenth as Phoenix lost in the First Round. When the Suns traded for Barkley, they were a fourth-place club in net efficiency. When they traded Barkley four years later (to Houston, incidentally), the Suns were a sixteenth-place club in net efficiency after never finishing better than fourth with Barkley. All of these facts beg the question of whether Barkley actually improved the Phoenix Suns. By some measures, he certainly did. Phoenix won two Pacific Division titles with him, after never having done so in the previous four years. The Suns won the most games (62) in the NBA in Barkley’s first season in Phoenix—an unprecedented feat for the franchise—and then won 56 and 59 games the next two years, all higher marks than what the Suns had won in the four years prior to Barkley’s arrival, with the 59 wins in 1995 constituting the second-highest total in franchise history up until that time.

And of course, in Sir Charles’ initial year as a Sun, Phoenix reached the NBA Finals for just the second time in franchise history. Barkley deserves great credit in that regard, as he propelled the Suns to the top seed and home-court advantage through the playoffs, but one should also recognize that the West proved a bit weaker that season than during the previous three years. For instance, in 1990, when Phoenix led the NBA in net efficiency, the Suns were one of five Western Conference clubs to win at least 54 regular season games, and all of the others—the Lakers, the Blazers, the Spurs, the Jazz—would reach the NBA Finals and constitute the West’s top seed during the decade, with at least two primary players from their 1990 teams. (The Lakers were the top seed in 1990 and reached the NBA Finals in 1991 with Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Byron Scott, A.C. Green, Mychal Thompson, and Vlade Divac, among others; the Blazers were the top seed in 1991 and 1992 and reached the NBA Finals in 1990 and 1992 with Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Jerome Kersey, Buck Williams, Kevin Duckworth, and Clifford Robinson; the Spurs were the top seed in 1995 and won the championship in 1999 with David Robinson and Sean Elliott, although by 1999, they had of course added Tim Duncan; the Jazz were the top seed in 1997 and 1998 with Karl Malone and John Stockton.) Conversely, 1993 represented a bit of a down year for the West, with only three clubs winning more than 50 games. Portland had fallen off due to age and exhaustion, San Antonio slipped after power forward Terry Cummings underwent knee surgery following the 1992 season (while swingman Willie Anderson had broken down), and for whatever reason (perhaps Dream Team fatigue suffered by Malone and Stockton, the latter of whom was coming off a broken leg suffered on the Dream Team), Utah won a relatively modest 47 games that year, the only season from 1989-2001 that the Jazz failed to win over 50 games or to win at a 50-plus win rate (to account for the 1999 post-lockout season). The West did feature two other legitimate championship contenders in 1993 besides Phoenix, namely Seattle and Houston, both of whom won 55 games. The Sonics led the league in net efficiency that season and would do so again in 1994, when they won the most games in the NBA as well. Eventually, in 1996, they would reach the NBA Finals—after winning the most games in the West for the second time in three seasons. The Rockets, of course, would win the championship in 1994 and 1995. But the (temporary) deterioration of the West’s depth in 1993 gave the Suns an easier route to the NBA Finals than would have been the case over the previous three years.

Teams that genuinely or significantly improve tend to enjoy sustained runs. For instance, after the Jazz traded for Jeff Hornacek in February 1994, Utah reached the Western Conference Finals in four of the next five seasons (the one year that the Jazz missed, 1995, it won 60 games while leading the NBA in net efficiency) after only previously reaching the conference finals once with Malone and Stockton (in 1992). And after Utah reached the NBA Finals in 1997, the Jazz returned to that stage in 1998. But in Phoenix, Kevin Johnson, Dan Majerle, Mark West, and Tom Chambers all played in more Western Conference Finals without Barkley than with him, even if they played in the NBA Finals with him and not without him. That convoluted statement suggests the ambiguity of Barkley’s impact in terms of actual on-court improvement. Again, regular season records do not necessarily represent the best gauge when compared to net efficiency.

In Barkley’s first season after being traded from Phoenix, 1997, the Suns ranked fifteenth in net efficiency at 0.2 points per 100 possessions (compared to sixteenth at 0.3 points per 100 possessions in Barkley’s final season as a Sun). In terms of net efficiency, Barkley’s presence both joining the Suns and leaving the Suns—taken in isolation, of course—rendered him more or less a “zero sum” player. That is not to say that Barkley constituted a net-neutral player in the abstract, just that on a team with Kevin Johnson, he moved the needle much more in terms of media hype than in actually making a club more efficient on the basketball floor, especially relative to the rest of the NBA. By 1998, Phoenix had moved back up to seventh in net efficiency with a differential of 4.9 points per 100 possessions, a higher figure than in any of Barkley’s last three seasons with the Suns. (Granted, the value of exact figures is only fully relevant to the given year.)

The Return of Steve Nash

So what of the Steve Nash-led championship contenders? In Nash’s first season back in Phoenix, 2005, the Suns led the NBA in wins with 62 and finished second in net efficiency with a differential of 7.4 points per 100 possessions. The only team that Phoenix trailed was San Antonio at 8.9 points, and the Spurs dispatched the Suns in five games in the Western Conference Finals. Of course, Phoenix missed Joe Johnson for the first two games of the series, but the Suns still went just 1-2 after Johnson returned, and based on regular season net efficiency—rather than regular season wins—the Spurs were simply the better team (and perhaps the only team better than Phoenix that year).

In 2006, without Amar’e Stoudemire for all except three games, the Suns ranked fourth in net efficiency at 5.6 points per 100 possessions. In the Western Conference Finals, the Suns lost in six games to Dallas, who had finished third in net efficiency at 6.8. Once again, the Western Conference Finals results had been anticipated by the regular season net efficiency results.

In 2007, the Suns placed third in net efficiency at 7.6 points per 100 possessions; the Spurs finished first at 9.3. By that measure, Phoenix had not closed the gap between itself and San Antonio since 2005, even though the Suns again won over 60 regular season games and again won more regular season games than the Spurs. Of course, Phoenix’s bad luck in the 2007 Western Conference Semifinals versus San Antonio is by now infamous, with a bleeding Nash unable to remain on the court at the end of Game One and the NBA’s letter-of-the-law suspensions for Stoudemire and Diaw in Game Five, both of which Phoenix lost at home. With better fortune, the Suns might have won that series in five games. (And one could also mention some poor officiating in Game Three, although I do not believe that that element is what ultimately cost the Suns in that game.) But net efficiency suggests that Phoenix needed luck on its side, that the Suns could not overcome adverse or fluky circumstances in a matchup with San Antonio. For in Game Six, the Suns were back to full strength, whereas the Spurs were still without the suspended Robert Horry (suspended for both Games Five and Six), who was an important player for San Antonio in that he allowed the Spurs to play “big and small” simultaneously. In other words, Horry would come off the bench as a “stretch four” who created more floor spacing and three-point shooting for San Antonio on offense, but with his height, length, defensive savvy, and shot-blocking, the Spurs did not need to sacrifice defense while achieving better offense. In the 2007 playoffs, for instance, Horry was a much more valuable player than fellow big men Fabricio Oberto and Francisco Elson.

http://www.82games.com/0607/playoffs/0607SAS.HTM

But the Suns still lost Game Six—if they had necessarily been the better team, they should have won that contest against the still short-handed Spurs and brought the series home for a Game Seven.

Statistically, in terms of net efficiency, San Antonio was still the better team. The Suns could have won, but they were not where they needed to be. Conversely, consider the 1990 Suns. Their net efficiency was even with that of the Lakers for the top spot in the NBA, with Phoenix leading on a decimal tiebreaker. With their overall level of efficiency, the Suns could overcome some adversity. For instance, they defeated the 55-win Jazz in the First Round even though Kevin Johnson only played 9 minutes, scoring 0 points, in Game One due to a terrible case of the flu. K.J. played 39 minutes in Game Two and scored 22 points on 7-14 field goal shooting and 8-9 free throw shooting, but he still was not quite totally recovered, and he committed 7 turnovers against 7 assists. No matter: the Suns still won by 18 on the road, holding the Jazz to 87 points on their home court. In winner-take-all Game Five back in Utah, K.J. suffered a hip pointer following a collision with the Jazz’s 7’3” mountain man of a center, Mark Eaton. After he hobbled through that injury to hit the series-winning jumper, the Suns went to Los Angeles to face the Lakers. Still feeling the effects of the hip pointer, K.J. only averaged 10.5 points on .368 field goal shooting in the first two games—but the Suns still won the opener, because in addition to K.J. being able to do other things, Phoenix could play defense, ranking in the top six in Defensive Rating for the second year in a row, and generate crucial stops. To overcome some adversity and bad luck, you need that ability. Likewise in the 1993 playoffs, Charles Barkley—contrary to the popular myth—often struggled and, despite the occasional huge game, performed inconsistently, shooting .429 from the field or lower in 12 of the 24 games (as an MVP power forward, of course). Yet in those 12 playoff games where Barkley shot .429 from the field or lower, the Suns managed to go 6-6, in large part because they were good defensively and thus could win games and break even when their leading scorer and best offensive player struggled. In fact, in the 1993 Western Conference Playoffs, Phoenix actually went 6-4 (.600) when Barkley shot .429 from the field or lower.

And that matter raises another question about net efficiency and the Nash-led Phoenix teams, which is the question of balance. You generally want to be as efficient as possible in whatever way possible, but ideally, you also want to be balanced, so that all your eggs are not in one basket—offense or defense. If you are a very efficient team overall yet mainly because your defense is so dominant, what happens if you end up in a playoff situation where the other team, or the other team’s great player, is on fire and you just cannot stop your opponent from scoring? In that case, you need to be able to score at a high level yourself. Or what happens if you are a very efficient team overall yet mainly because your offense is so great, and you wind up in a playoff situation where you, or one of your best offensive players, is off the mark and not hitting the shots? That will happen to great offensive teams and players at times; it happened to Steve Nash, one of the greatest shooters ever, occasionally. Can you compensate by clamping down on the opponent?

For instance, the Nash-led Suns who ranked second in net efficiency in 2005 and third in 2007, winning over 60 games both seasons, proved so efficient on the basis of overwhelming, top-ranked offense. While finishing first in Offensive Rating both seasons, they respectively ranked seventeenth and thirteenth (out of thirty teams) in Defensive Rating. That thirteenth-place finish represents Phoenix’s highest defensive standing over the last fourteen seasons—since the start of the ’03-’04 campaign—and it resulted from a Defensive Rating of 106.4 (points allowed per 100 possessions), compared to the league average in 2007 of 106.5. So Phoenix proved average defensively that year, and average is the best that the Suns have been since the ’02-’03 season, when they ranked eleventh in Defensive Rating at 102.5, compared to a league average of 103.6. That is a very long time—nearly a decade and a half—for a franchise to never be better than average on defense, and that is something that needs to change in the future.

By the same token, just focusing on defense will not be the answer, either. Phoenix finished first in the NBA in Defensive Rating in 1978 and 1981, but plagued by mildly below-average offenses, the Suns failed to win a playoff series either year despite totaling 106 wins in those two regular seasons, including a Western Conference-best 57 wins in 1981. The Suns ranked fourth in Defensive Rating in 1982 and actually won their First Round playoff series, but they did not win a game against the Lakers in the Western Conference Semifinals. The Suns again ranked fourth in Defensive Rating in 1983, but they did not win a playoff series. In 2000, Phoenix finished fourth in the NBA in net efficiency (yet just fourth in the West in net efficiency, as the conferences proved that lopsided at the time), primarily on the strength of a third-ranked Defensive Rating, which compensated for an average, sixteenth-ranked Offensive Rating. The Suns won in the First Round when the defending champion Spurs, who finished third in net efficiency, were without the injured Tim Duncan, but then they fell in five games in the Western Conference Semifinals to the Lakers, who led the NBA in net efficiency. In 2001, Phoenix ranked second in Defensive Rating, actually posting the same mark (98.0) as the Spurs, who led the league by virtue of a decimal tiebreaker. But with the worst Offensive Rating among the sixteen playoff teams, the Suns finished just tenth in net efficiency with a differential of 2.8 points per 100 possessions. Their First Round playoff opponent, the Kings, ranked second in net efficiency at 6.3 and summarily dispatched Phoenix, three games to one. As former NBA star and head coach Doug Collins stated during the fourth quarter of ESPN's recent Chicago-Phoenix broadcast, "See, you know, to close games, it's just not about defense. You're not gonna shut teams out. You also have to have the team out there that can score."

So simply dominating on defense is not the recipe for a championship or even much playoff success. Overall net efficiency is what one should examine, and the best form of net efficiency is a balanced blend of offensive and defensive efficiency. The Suns were really on the right track in 1989 and 1990 when they ranked second in Offensive Rating and fifth in Defensive Rating (second in net efficiency) the first year and third in Offensive Rating and sixth in Defensive Rating (first in net efficiency) the second year. If anything, they could have afforded to become slightly better on defense. For the next three years, from 1991-1993, the Suns remained a top-nine team on both sides of the ball (third in Offensive Rating and eighth in Defensive Rating in 1991, fifth in Offensive Rating and eighth in Defensive Rating in 1992, first in Offensive Rating and ninth in Defensive Rating in 1993), finishing fourth in net efficiency each season. Since then, Phoenix has never finished in the top eleven (let alone the top ten) in both Offensive Rating and Defensive Rating in the same year. Since then, the Suns have ranked in the top four in net efficiency just four times, in 2000—with a dramatic imbalance toward defense—and from 2005-2007—with a dramatic imbalance toward offense. So since the end of the 1993 NBA Finals—dating back close to a quarter of a century—Phoenix has either been imbalanced toward offense, (briefly) imbalanced toward defense, or nowhere near a championship formula at all. As the Suns look to construct a future contender, the need for players and combinations of players that will produce a high rate of net efficiency, and hopefully a balanced form of elite net efficiency, must be heavily weighed.

To complete the trajectory of the Nash-led teams, the Suns fell from third in net efficiency in 2007 to eighth in 2008 with a differential of 5.3 points per 100 possessions, a little worse than the Spurs, who ranked sixth at 5.8. Sure enough, San Antonio defeated Phoenix in the First Round. After dropping to twelfth in net efficiency and missing the playoffs in the loaded Western Conference in 2009, the Suns rebounded to a sixth-place finish in 2010 at 4.9 points per 100 possessions, just behind the fifth-place Lakers at 5.1. Sure enough, the Lakers edged the Suns in six games in the 2010 Western Conference Finals. Both teams actually finished behind the Spurs that year, who ranked fourth in net efficiency at 5.5, so Phoenix defeated San Antonio in the playoffs that season despite having constituted the more inefficient regular season club. But that 2010 Western Conference Semifinals series represents the only time since Nash returned to Phoenix that the outcome of a Suns’ playoff series was not forecasted by the regular season net efficiency results. On every other occasion, net efficiency correctly foretold the outcome. In fact, in Phoenix’s twenty playoff series since the start of the 1996 postseason, the better regular season team in terms of net efficiency—not regular season wins, but net efficiency—has won seventeen times, or in 85 percent of the series. And of the three exceptions, two were affected by major injuries that occurred late in the regular season. As previously indicated, Tim Duncan missed the 2000 First Round against the Suns due to torn knee cartilage, while in 1998, Sixth Man of the Year Danny Manning missed Phoenix’s entire First Round series versus San Antonio with a torn ACL suffered with under two weeks to play in the regular season. Additionally, the Suns’ leading scorer and most prolific three-point shooter that year, Rex Chapman, missed two of the four playoff games with a bad hamstring and—obviously hampered by the injury—combined to shoot 6-23 from the field and 0-5 on threes in the two games where he did play. If one removes those two series due to significant injuries suffered at the end of the regular season, then net efficiency has correctly foretold the outcome of seventeen out of eighteen Phoenix playoff series (94 percent) since the start of the 1996 postseason. In other words, net efficiency is not everything, but it tells you a lot, and in most cases, it tells you what you need to know.

And so what might it tell us, then, about the five best teams in the history of the Phoenix Suns? Unfortunately, again, we do not have the net efficiency ratings prior to 1986. Before then, there would seem to be three contenders for a top-five spot: the 1976 Suns, the 1979 Suns, and the 1981 Suns. The 1976 Suns constitute one of only two clubs in franchise history to reach the NBA Finals, but were they a great team or just a team that went on a great run? Incredibly, they defeated the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference Finals, winning Game Seven in Oakland, even though the top-seeded Warriors had absolutely dominated the NBA in 1976, winning a league-best 59 games—one of only two teams to reach 50 wins (the other was the 54-win Boston Celtics). In fact, the Warriors won 16 more games than anyone else in the Western Conference while ranking second in the NBA in Offensive Rating and first in Defensive Rating. Yet Phoenix beat them and then came close to defeating the Celtics—who had won the championship in 1974—in the 1976 NBA Finals. Had the Suns won the famous triple-overtime Game Five at the Boston Garden, they would have come back to Phoenix for Game Six with a chance to clinch the championship. On the other hand, the Suns went just 42-40 in the 1976 regular season and followed that performance by winning only 34 games—and missing the playoffs—in 1977. (Granted, starting forwards Curtis Perry and Garfield Heard both missed almost half the games that year). The 1976 Suns were a little above-average, but not great, in terms of Offensive Rating and Defensive Rating—eighth and seventh, respectively, in a league with just eighteen teams. The statistical evidence suggests that Phoenix was a good team that enjoyed a great run, but not a great team.

The 1979 Suns won 50 regular season games (second-most in the West, third-most in the NBA) and pushed the defending conference champion and eventual NBA champion Seattle SuperSonics to Game Seven of the Western Conference Finals. They ranked seventh in Offensive Rating and sixth in Defensive Rating in a twenty-two-team league and featured some outstanding offensive players in All-Stars Paul Westphal and Walter Davis, along with finesse center Alvan Adams, who was posting Marc Gaol/Nikola Jokic-type numbers. On the other hand, while very balanced, they did not quite rank in the top quarter of teams in either Offensive Rating or Defensive Rating, which meant that they were good on both ends of the court and outstanding at neither.

As for the 1981 Suns, again, they led the league in Defensive Rating and won the most games in the West with 57, a franchise record that would stand until 1993. But they were below-average offensively (fifteenth of twenty-three clubs), and after receiving a First Round bye (which existed in those days), the Suns lost in seven games in the Western Conference Semifinals to a 40-win Kansas City Kings team coached by Cotton Fitzsimmons—one that was without its starting guards, Phil Ford and All-Star Otis Birdsong.

Passing up the 1979 Suns is really difficult, and I might come back to them after studying more game footage. But for now, I will pass on all the Phoenix teams prior to the net efficiency rankings that we have from 1986 forward. From 1986 until the present time, four Phoenix clubs have finished in the top three in net efficiency: the 1989 Suns (second), the 1990 Suns (first), the 2005 Suns (second), and the 2007 Suns (third). So relative to their competition, those teams would constitute four of my five choices. Five other Phoenix teams over the last thirty-two seasons have ranked fourth in net efficiency: the 1991 Suns, the 1992 Suns, the 1993 Suns, the 2000 Suns, and the 2006 Suns. Of those clubs, the 1993 Suns need to receive the edge, given that they also won the most regular season games in the NBA, reached the NBA Finals, and came two points away from forcing a seventh game against Michael Jordan’s Bulls.

Thus my five choices are as follows:

1989 Suns

1990 Suns

1993 Suns

2005 Suns

2007 Suns

Understand, of course, that the exceptional nature of these teams, as determined by net efficiency (among other measures), is ultimately relative to the competition of the league at the time, especially in those given years. Net efficiency is not going to tell us much of anything about how, say, the 2007 Suns would have fared in 1993, especially given the changes in rules and officiating practices or decrees. I am not at all certain that, say, the 2005 Suns would defeat, say, the 1991 Suns or the 1992 Suns or the 1994 Suns or the 1995 Suns in a theoretical playoff matchup, especially if playing by the rules and officiating practices of the 1990s. But those five clubs (1989, 1990, 1993, 2005, 2007) really stand out against the competition of their given seasons.

Now, who would be the best of the best among those five? The 2005 and 2007 Suns were incredible—and top-ranked—offensively, but that explosiveness came at a price. By strategic design, those Suns willingly sacrificed rebounding and defense to maximize the roster’s offensive potential, but the result was the imbalance that I discussed earlier: can you win that playoff game where Nash grows cold, or where the overall offense slumps, because you can stop the opposition often enough? The 2005 and 2007 Suns basically lacked that ability; not only were they mediocre on defense, but they sported negative rebounding differentials (and by significant margins, about two boards per game)—unlike the other Phoenix teams on the list.

So I will eliminate the 2005 and 2007 teams, which leaves the 1989, 1990, and 1993 clubs. Due to the youth and inexperience of the 1989 Suns, I will eliminate them—although if the Lakers had not been as great as they were, Phoenix still might have reached the NBA Finals that year. That elimination leaves the 1990 Suns and the 1993 Suns: do you take the best pre-Barkley K.J. team—the only Phoenix club to ever lead the NBA in net efficiency—or do you take the best Barkley/K.J. team, which finished fourth in net efficiency? Remember that the team that led the NBA in net efficiency in 1993, the Sonics, pushed the Suns to seven games in the Western Conference Finals, so one has to assume that the 1990 Suns could have at least done the same—especially given that they shredded the 63-win Lakers, who had virtually tied Phoenix for the lead in net efficiency.

The 1993 Suns were more versatile offensively, primarily due to Barkley’s presence, but the 1990 Suns were more fluid offensively—their ball movement proved heavenly. The 1993 Suns, again due to Barkley, amounted to a better rebounding club, but the 1990 Suns were better defensively. Kevin Johnson constituted a better defender in 1993 than in 1990—Barkley’s presence on offense helped free up K.J. to become perhaps the best defensive point guard in the NBA that season—but the Suns’ overall defensive discipline and commitment was better in 1990, largely because there was no Barkley.

But contrary to the media hype, the question is a legitimate one. After all, net efficiency tells us that the Suns’ trouncing of Magic Johnson’s Lakers in the 1990 Western Conference Semifinals was no fluke.

[Qwigglez]

Why don't you write a Suns history book?

[DirtyDez]

Thanks G, as usual...

The 95' Suns don't make sense. They finish 3rd in Offrtg and 2nd in PPG at 110 while missing KJ, Barkley and Manning for nearly 90 who were averaging a combined 45 PPG.. .This was a year when some teams were barely averaging 90....

The craziest part is they won 59 games with those significant injuries and destroyed Houston in games 1-2. I can't comprehend that season.

[batsmasher]

I think my takeaway from this is how valuable consistency is. You've done an awesome job outlining where it went wrong for the 90s Suns... and it's easy to forget the rest of the teams in the league probably have a similar tale on how things went wrong.

Spurs success came in part thanks to the durability of guys like Timmy... but more importantly their team ethos was unflappable. Amidst chaos and instability they found a way.

No doubt the Suns teams had the talent to get a championship, but probably fell short in terms of consistency. By that I mean the ability to handle change... an injury to a starter... a bad foul call down the stretch of a game.. a suspension.

I'm not a fan of Earl but at least he is building the right way with this team. We need a culture so strong that it can deal with big changes. We need personalities that have the grit and determination to work through the obstacles.

The fact that the Barkley Suns continued to decline defensively should have been a red flag for the team. You're living on a very shaky foundation without a consistent defensive identity.

That doesn't mean we need to be a defensive juggernaut like the 00-01 Suns, but we do desperately need the consistency on the defensive end... which can only be achieved with mentally strong personnel that are disciplined and adaptable.

[Big NBA Fan]

Very well written post, Callahan!

I agree with most of what you said, but I still feel the best team in the SSOL era was the 2010 team. That team had absolutely no weaknesses.

If they beat the Lakers that year - and they almost did - they would have crushed Boston and won the whole thing, in my opinion.

The 2005 Suns were really good, but I agree that they still lose even if Joe Johnson played every game of the WCF that season.

I also agree that for all the outrage over the Amare/Diaw suspensions, it's not like the Suns were THAT much better. They lost Game 1 at home and got absolutely crushed at full strength in Game 6.

The 2006 Suns definitely overachieved; it's quite amazing they made the WCF after almost losing in 6 games to the Lakers and this is the year they also would have won the whole thing if Amare hadn't missed the whole year.

Basically, I think the Suns' best shot to win the whole thing in the SSOL era was 2006, 2007, 2010 IF they had some better luck along the way.

Heck, every single year something crazy happened. But the 2010 Suns and 2007 Suns were the best teams in my opinion.

[Jarlaxle0204]

I also agree that for all the outrage over the Amare/Diaw suspensions, it's not like the Suns were THAT much better. They lost Game 1 at home and got absolutely crushed at full strength in Game 6.

Let's not forget that Game 1 was very, very close and Nash couldn't play those final few minutes because they couldn't stop his bleeding. I've always felt that if we were able to stop Nash from bleeding, we wold have won that game and probably the series. I believe that was the best Nash led Suns team although I believe the 2010 team was right behind as you do. That bench unit was amazing and played so well together. Best bench in the league that year and probably our best bench unit ever.

[Christine-In-AZ]

Great writing Callahan.

I had forgotten plenty from those '89-'92 teams. The good and bad came flooding back to the memory banks with your detailing. Those were great Suns teams, and have in large part been placed unfairly backstage to those more glitzy Barkley led teams. I remember how Barkley's arrival, the new arena and new unis, while exciting, felt a bit foreign. The Suns had been doing well in the Valley since '76, probably sharing top sports billing/fandom with Sun Devil football. The Phoenix Cardinals had all the NFL gravitas, but I doubt they were breaking any sports fan's hearts back then. After Barkley came to town it seemed everybody and literally their grandmas were into the Suns.. Big League!...(ahem)sorry. Many of these fans probably never cared a lick if the Suns won or lost before in their lives.

Every Phoenix game was appointment television for much of Arizona. It was a colorful team to say the least. What a crazy collection of talent and personalities even after Barkley. All the players so different- highly skilled bowling ball KJ, wildman Majerle, badboy Ainge, "elder" Chambers, fun loving Ceballos, food loving Oliver Miller and the enigmatic Richard Dumas. Coach Westphal had his own unique charisma on display for the audience. That first "Barkley" season was spectacular in every department...even the ugly one. With all that, it's understandable that the '89 to '92 teams are not given their due as being among the best, if not the best Suns teams ever. I'm not exactly sure why those early 90s KJ teams didn't win it all, but I'm pretty sure the Barkley led teams would have won at least one ring if they had good discipline. Better discipline might have gotten them over the hump vs. Jordan...maybe? But in the two Rocket series (2-0/3-1 advantaged) losses, lack of discipline was the fatal flaw IMO.

Thanks for the fantastic number crunching and op-ed.

[bwgood77]

Thanks G, as usual...

The 95' Suns don't make sense. They finish 3rd in Offrtg and 2nd in PPG at 110 while missing KJ, Barkley and Manning for nearly 90 who were averaging a combined 45 PPG.. .This was a year when some teams were barely averaging 90....

The craziest part is they won 59 games with those significant injuries and destroyed Houston in games 1-2. I can't comprehend that season.

I can't either. When they blew that 3-1 lead at home, letting it get into OT, I was sick. It only got worse to watch it play out from there and the very end of game 7.

That was easily the most heartbreaking season for me.

[Frank Lee]

That 1979 squad was one of my favorites. Solid line up with Westphal, Buse, SweetD, Truck, and Adams. A good Seattle team that ended that run. I really think we would have beat the Bullets. I think that Seattle squad may be was their best ever.... Sikma, DJ, Gus Williams, Downtown Freddie Brown, Lonie Shelton, Silas.... they'd be a top team today.

I always thought MacLeod was such an underrated coach. He stressed defense and toughness. Horsetrading JC accommodated by acquiring guys that fit the mold. Picking up the likes of Gar Heard, Truck Robinson, Don Buse and later Dennis Johnson and Mo Lucas. Jerry was not hesitant on pulling the trigger if he felt in meant Ws. Witnessed by sending favorite suns Sobers and Westy packing for Buse and DJ.

That 82-83 team with DJ, Sweet D, Larry Nance, Mo Lucas, and Adams was a fun bunch to watch too, but fizzled against a Kiki/English/Issel led Nugget team.

Good times at the MadHouse.

[DirtyDez]

Thanks G, as usual...

The 95' Suns don't make sense. They finish 3rd in Offrtg and 2nd in PPG at 110 while missing KJ, Barkley and Manning for nearly 90 who were averaging a combined 45 PPG.. .This was a year when some teams were barely averaging 90....

The craziest part is they won 59 games with those significant injuries and destroyed Houston in games 1-2. I can't comprehend that season.

I can't either. When they blew that 3-1 lead at home, letting it get into OT, I was sick. It only got worse to watch it play out from there and the very end of game 7.

That was easily the most heartbreaking season for me.

Probably our best chance. Houston was underwhelming that year too in the Reg season. They were a 47-win team and 11th in SRS. They were down 2-1 vs Utah in the first rd and came back and won G5 in Salt Lake City. Were down 3-1 vs us and won g7 in PHX. Were tied 2-2 vs San Antonio and won the pivotal G5 at the Alamo Dome.

They ended up beating the #2 SRS (Jazz), #6 SRS (Suns), #4 SRS (Spurs) and #3 SRS (Magic). Gotta be the wackiest postseason ever.