25 Best Players In Phoenix Suns Franchise History

[bwgood77]

You agree with this? Especially all the long term Suns fans?

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[MrMiyagi]

Is Raja Bell really our 25th best player?

[DirtyDez]

Hawkins and Chambers too high. Majerle, Hornacek and Van Arsdale too low IMHO.

[Jdiddy701]

Where is Jim Jackson on the list ?


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[Damkac]

I hope that 10 years from now some of our young guys will be on that list

[bwgood77]

Where is Jim Jackson on the list ?


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? What did he play a backup role for a year or something? Or did you just meet him personally as a kid?

[Saberestar]

I am OK with that list...the only player that I will add is Grant Hill. Other than that I think it's a correct list.

[theSUNalsoRISES]

Marion ahead of Stoudemire? I'd probably swap that around. In the SSOL era, Stoudemire was always second on the list with marion being behind him. I believe Marion was a guy who owed he's whole offensive game to Steve Nash. Stoudemire, first 1.5 years in N.Y. shown he could thrive by himself. Marion never got to form he shown at PHX. (I could be wrong, but I remember he being more or less a bust for Miami)

And I know he did very little in his time here but for a list that has Joe Johnson and Raja Bell, Not to have SHAQ seems a little crazy to me.

[bwgood77]

Marion ahead of Stoudemire? I'd probably swap that around. In the SSOL era, Stoudemire was always second on the list with marion being behind him. I believe Marion was a guy who owed he's whole offensive game to Steve Nash. Stoudemire, first 1.5 years in N.Y. shown he could thrive by himself. Marion never got to form he shown at PHX. (I could be wrong, but I remember he being more or less a bust for Miami)

And I know he did very little in his time here but for a list that has Joe Johnson and Raja Bell, Not to have SHAQ seems a little crazy to me.

Marion was a better all around player (particularly on defense) and was with the Suns longer. One could argue that Amare's biggest strength was bigger than Marion's but even that might be faulty logic as Marion was among the best rebounding SF's of all time.

[Big NBA Fan]

Shaq was definitely awesome in 2009; was past his prime, but he was outstanding that year.

18/8 on 61% shooting in only 29 minutes per game.

- Only missed 6 games all year

- 12th in the NBA in PER

- All-Star Game MVP

- All-NBA 3rd Team

- Led league in FG%

- Outplayed Matrix by a huge margin that year

Let's be fair here:

- Shaq didn't cause Amare to miss 29 games that year AND not have Diaw anymore for any of those games.

- Shaq didn't tell Kerr/Griffin to hire Terry Porter over Gentry and Budenholzer

Those are the two reasons the Suns missed the playoffs that year. If they had installed the Seven Seconds or Shaq Offense from the beginning and Amare didn't miss 29 games, they would have EASILY made the playoffs and then who knows might have happened?

They probably would have done way better than 2008 because Shaq was much better in 2009, Amare was still in his prime, and Grant Hill never missed a game that year compared to 2008, where he missed the playoffs with a groin injury suffered in Game 1.

Most people are just using a selective memory when it comes to Shaq's time in Phoenix; just like how a lot of the Phil Jackson supporters in LA blamed MDA for everything because he wasn't the popular choice.

Heck, despite all the turmoil in 2009, the Suns still won more games than the 2013 Lakers with Kobe/Pau/Dwight/Nash

[Dirk]

Where is Pat Burke?

[m1chal]

Where is Pat Burke?

Yeah, a strange omission. He must be 26th, with Zarko Cabarkapa and Paul Shirley just behind.

[bwgood77]

This is an interesting comparison...Nash vs KJ...I researched to find their highest rated year based on PER. It was KJ at 24 (90-91) and Nash at 32 (2006-7) and they are one percentage point off. The basic difference is that Nash was the better shooter while KJ was the better defender.

http://bkref.com/tiny/51HYl

[GMATCallahan]

Shaq was definitely awesome in 2009; was past his prime, but he was outstanding that year.

18/8 on 61% shooting in only 29 minutes per game.

- Only missed 6 games all year

- 12th in the NBA in PER

- All-Star Game MVP

- All-NBA 3rd Team

- Led league in FG%

- Outplayed Matrix by a huge margin that year

Let's be fair here:

- Shaq didn't cause Amare to miss 29 games that year AND not have Diaw anymore for any of those games.

- Shaq didn't tell Kerr/Griffin to hire Terry Porter over Gentry and Budenholzer

Those are the two reasons the Suns missed the playoffs that year. If they had installed the Seven Seconds or Shaq Offense from the beginning and Amare didn't miss 29 games, they would have EASILY made the playoffs and then who knows might have happened?

They probably would have done way better than 2008 because Shaq was much better in 2009, Amare was still in his prime, and Grant Hill never missed a game that year compared to 2008, where he missed the playoffs with a groin injury suffered in Game 1.

Most people are just using a selective memory when it comes to Shaq's time in Phoenix; just like how a lot of the Phil Jackson supporters in LA blamed MDA for everything because he wasn't the popular choice.

Heck, despite all the turmoil in 2009, the Suns still won more games than the 2013 Lakers with Kobe/Pau/Dwight/Nash

Shaq was good in '08-'09; I am not sure about "outstanding," although he enjoyed an outstanding game here and there. Indeed, PER is a junk metric with unreliable results, receiving the All-Star Game MVP Award is more or less irrelevant except for one's trophy case and the generation of media hype, and making the All-NBA Third Team at center in a ridiculously weak era for centers where Tim Duncan received dubious classification as a "power forward" is not very meaningful. Regardless, one good—certainly not great—year by O'Neal would not remotely warrant a place on the Suns' top-twenty-five historical list. In order to warrant such a listing based on one full season, we would need to be talking about Shaq circa 2000.

Even with a healthy Stoudemire and D'Antoni or Gentry coaching the team from the season's beginning, the Suns probably lacked the defensive efficiency (twenty-sixth out of thirty clubs that season) to win the West. They may have been able to win a playoff series or two, as in 2010. However, my feeling is that the Nuggets, let alone the Lakers, would have been better than the Suns regardless because they featured a major player who could really defend the pick-and-roll (Kenyon Martin), whereas Phoenix did not. O'Neal and Stoudemire were both awful in that regard, and they combined with Nash to form a terrible trifecta in terms of pick-and-roll defense.

Anyway, I will discuss these matters more extensively in reply to your similar post in another thread from two months ago.

[MrMiyagi]

Where is Pat Burke?

Yeah, a strange omission. He must be 26th, with Zarko Cabarkapa and Paul Shirley just behind.

Garret Siler. If Alan Williams is Big Sauce, Siler was Big Patty - 100% Beef.

[nevetsov]

Would have liked to have seen Ceballos on there.

[nevetsov]

Also, was hoping for either Rodney Rogers or Leandro as well, but the reality is there's a bunch of depth to choose from once you hit the 40's, and some quality/ likeable guys were always going to be left off.

[GMATCallahan]

This is an interesting comparison...Nash vs KJ...I researched to find their highest rated year based on PER. It was KJ at 24 (90-91) and Nash at 32 (2006-7) and they are .01 percentage point different. The basic difference is that Nash was the better shooter while KJ was the better defender.

http://bkref.com/tiny/51HYl

... an intriguing fact about Kevin Johnson that season is that he shot .548 from the field after the All-Star break (he turned twenty-five less than a month after starting in the All-Star Game alongside Magic Johnson):

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/johnske02/splits/1991

Granted, he did not shoot threes at that point in his career, or for most of his career (6-24 in 31 games after the break in 1991), but K.J. reached the free throw line so often that he still posted a .626 True Shooting Percentage after the break that year. That year, K.J. became the first player in NBA history to average at least 20.0 points, 10.0 assists, 2.0 steals, and a .500 field goal percentage in the same season, a feat matched only by Chris Paul in '08-'09. K.J. is still the only player in NBA history to average at least 20.0 points, 10.0 assists, 2.0 steals, and a .600 True Shooting Percentage in the same season, although Paul posted a .599 True Shooting Percentage in '08-'09 and the True Shooting Percentage formula technically creates an estimate, so take that as you will.

TS%
True Shooting Percentage; the formula is PTS / (2 * TSA). True shooting percentage is a measure of shooting efficiency that takes into account field goals, 3-point field goals, and free throws.

TSA
True Shooting Attempts; the formula is FGA + 0.44 * FTA.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/glossary.html

[For example, K.J.'s listed True Shooting Percentage for Game Seven of the 1995 Western Conference Semifinals is .645, but if one goes through the game on a possession-by-possession basis to avoid using the formula's estimate device (the 0.44 thing), his True Shooting Percentage would have actually been .622, based on 46 points scored on 37 "shooting possessions" (not FGA, but FGA+[non-"and one"/non-technical FTA/2]) and thus 46 points scored out of a potential for 74 (46/74=.622) if one measures each "shooting possession" by the potential to score two points, with the third point from a successful three-point shot or an "and one" free throw obviously constituting a bonus. Conversely, K.J.'s listed True Shooting Percentage in Game Four of the 1995 Western Conference Semifinals is .794, but if one goes through the game on a possession-by-possession basis, his True Shooting Percentage would have actually been .796, based on 43 points scored on 27 "shooting possessions" (not FGA, but FGA+[non-"and one"/non-technical FTA/2]) and thus 43 points scored out of a potential for 54 (43/54=.796) if one measures each "shooting possession" by the potential to score two points, with the third point from a successful three-point shot or an "and one" free throw obviously constituting a bonus.]

Naturally, a large sample size, such as a regular season's worth of data, will virtually eliminate the discrepancies between the formulaic estimate and the possession-by-possession granular calculation, but with decimals, I suppose that you never know if a given estimated figure could be a point or two off. With all play-by-play game logs now available (at NBA.com) through the '96-'97 season, one could actually go back and calculate what Chris Paul's "actual" True Shooting Percentage in '08-'09 would have been—would it have been the estimated .599 (there is a good chance, given the sample size) or would it have been, say, .598 or .600. One could do it, but one would need a lot of time—say, a long afternoon's worth of serious number-crunching, with one printing out all the game logs, spreading them around one's floor, and going from one to the next with a pen and pad before adding and dividing everything up with a calculator. One would probably need to be paid in order to make the effort.

Regardless, from what we can say for sure, the only players to average at least 20.0 points, 10.0 assists, and a .600 True Shooting Percentage in the same season are Kevin Johnson and Magic Johnson, the latter of whom actually accomplished the feat three times (in each of the years when he received the MVP Award). K.J. missed a second such season by .003 on his True Shooting Percentage in '88-'89 (.597), so as with Paul in '08-'09, there is some ambiguity regarding the estimate versus actuality. However, play-by-play game logs do not go back that far.

But returning to my main point, K.J. shot .548 from the field after the All-Star break in '90-'91, and he shot .530 from the field in his last 66 regular season games (out of 77) that season. He had not required Microfracture knee surgery after that season, and had he not sprained his ankle in the season opener in '91-'92 (K.J. only missed one game due to the ankle sprain, but the injury affected him for most of the first month), whether he could have maintained that sort of shooting rate for a longer duration represents an intriguing question. Indeed, had K.J.'s career not been so frequently interrupted by injuries, his shooting rates may well have been higher. For instance, in '93-'94, K.J. played in each of Phoenix's first 27 games and shot .526 from the field (along with 22.0 points, 8.9 assists, and 2.1 steals). Then he missed 15 of Phoenix's next 16 games due primarily to a sprained right ankle and lower-leg contusion, and during that time he contracted the chicken pox to boot. When he came back, he was not fully healthy and shot .388 from the field over his next 15 appearances following the first 27 (along with 16.9 points, 6.1 assists, and 1.2 steals, albeit with 7.6 free throw attempts per contest). Then in his final 25 regular season games that year, K.J. shot .497 from the field (and even .375 on threes, albeit in just 0.3 attempts per contest), along with 19.7 points, 12.2 assists, and 2.0 steals. Overall, he finished with a very healthy .487 field goal percentage, but without that month's worth of missed games in the middle of the year, one wonders what his field goal percentage could have been. If one removes that 15-game, injury-and-layoff-affected stretch where he shot .388, K.J.'s field goal percentage in '93-'94 (52 regular season games) would have been .513—almost identical to the .516 that he had shot in '90-'91 and identical to the .513 that he would shoot over his last 55 regular season games in '96-'97. (He missed the first 11 games of that year due to double-hernia surgery, missing the Suns' entire training camp and preseason as well, and then returned after just a practice or two because the team was winless, shooting .420 over his first 15 games.) Or how about '95-'96? In a December game in San Antonio, K.J.—playing with at least one undiagnosed sports hernia and his consequently troublesome groin muscles bothering him on the second night of a back-to-back set—shot 0-6 from the field and scored 0 points in 20 minutes before suggesting to head coach Paul Westphal that Phoenix go with backup point guard Elliot Perry instead. If one removes that game, K.J.'s field goal percentage in his other 55 regular season contests in '95-'96 was .512—including .528 over his final 36 regular season games that year.

You get the idea—there is a certain pattern at play. Without the injury interruptions and medical misdiagnoses, K.J.'s career field goal percentage might have rested close to John Stockton's .515, only K.J. was a more aggressive, less passive or conservative, and far more explosive scorer with larger per-game FGA volumes and superior scoring averages. As it is, K.J. still posted excellent career shooting rates: .493 from the field, .841 from the foul line, and a .585 True Shooting Percentage, only one point less than Mark Price's .586 (and then we are back to the whole question of True Shooting Percentage estimates versus actualities, although career samples are obviously enormous and do not leave much margin for error).

Regardless of all that, Steve Nash was a better foul shooter and jump shooter than Kevin Johnson, but that reality only means that Nash probably constituted one of the three best off-the-dribble shooters in NBA history, along with Stephen Curry (the best) and Mark Price, whereas K.J. was likely one of the five-to-twelve best—and even better, in terms of sheer ability, than John Stockton. The latter's field goal percentage was higher (although his free throw percentage, at .826, proved slightly lower) because he was very selective about when he shot (sometimes too selective, meaning too passive, which placed too much pressure on Karl Malone) and because of the great continuity afforded by his great durability. Stockton's field goal percentage fell off much more steeply in the playoffs, though—both he and K.J. shot about 47 percent from the field in the postseason for their careers.

Of course, especially in Phoenix under D'Antoni and Gentry, Nash enjoyed a context and concepts more conducive to creating efficiency than anything that K.J., Stockton, or Price enjoyed.

Are those point guards the four best combined passer-shooters in NBA history? Quite possibly. K.J., Stockton, and Nash are the only players to ever rank in the top three in assists per game and three-point field goal percentage in the same season (K.J. was the first, and Nash accomplished the feat twice). K.J., Nash, Stephen Curry, and former Phoenix head coach Scott Skiles are the only players to rank in the top five in assists per game, three-point field goal percentage, and free throw percentage in a season at some point in their careers. Overall, though, Curry is a problematic passer and Skiles was a career .455 two-point field goal shooter.

[bwgood77]

Granted, he did not shoot threes at that point in his career, or for most of his career (6-24 in 31 games after the break in 1991), but K.J. reached the free throw line so often that he still posted a .626 True Shooting Percentage after the break that year. That year, K.J. became the first player in NBA history to average at least 20.0 points, 10.0 assists, 2.0 steals, and a .500 field goal percentage in the same season, a feat matched only by Chris Paul in '08-'09. K.J. is still the only player in NBA history to average at least 20.0 points, 10.0 assists, 2.0 steals, and a .600 True Shooting Percentage in the same season, although Paul posted a .599 True Shooting Percentage in '08-'09 and the True Shooting Percentage formula technically creates an estimate, so take that as you will.

GMAT, did you write up the Wikipedia page for KJ? I was just using it in a discussion on the Suns forum and after reading it, it sounded just like you. I noticed the word indeed started a sentence, and I thought "wait a second here".

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1328924&p=49141286#p49141286

[GMATCallahan]

Granted, he did not shoot threes at that point in his career, or for most of his career (6-24 in 31 games after the break in 1991), but K.J. reached the free throw line so often that he still posted a .626 True Shooting Percentage after the break that year. That year, K.J. became the first player in NBA history to average at least 20.0 points, 10.0 assists, 2.0 steals, and a .500 field goal percentage in the same season, a feat matched only by Chris Paul in '08-'09. K.J. is still the only player in NBA history to average at least 20.0 points, 10.0 assists, 2.0 steals, and a .600 True Shooting Percentage in the same season, although Paul posted a .599 True Shooting Percentage in '08-'09 and the True Shooting Percentage formula technically creates an estimate, so take that as you will.

GMAT, did you write up the Wikipedia page for KJ? I was just using it in a discussion on the Suns forum and after reading it, it sounded just like you. I noticed the word indeed started a sentence, and I thought "wait a second here".

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1328924&p=49141286#p49141286

I have made some contributions, especially in a certain section, but I have not written most of the page (or much of it overall).

The funny thing is that some of the contributions that I have made have inspired a couple of other people to make some statistical observations about K.J. that I had not known (in terms of the historic nature of his playoff performances), so there has been a good exchange with a few people building off each other. The more that one digs into K.J.'s numbers, the more impressive his career looks, but one would never really know that from watching television, reading major newspapers and most blogs/websites, and so forth. The reason, of course, is that most people—especially most people who cover sports, of all things—are not independent/critical thinkers who actually conduct research and analyze matters for themselves. Instead, they just conform to the crowd, and the crows is usually rather mindless.

I have a couple of quotations that I will share later this evening that I believe you will appreciate, ones that pertain to that post that I made earlier about K.J.'s shooting numbers.