I think I would take KJ, Davis, Marion, Barkley and Amare.
It's a tough decision for me because half of me wants to leave Barkley out. He and KJ didn't have good chemisty....him and Nash wouldn't have either. KJ ran the perfect offense but when Barkley showed up, he stopped the offense, and he would have done the same with Nash, so chemistry in this question is important.
When KJ and Barkley did so well it was almost like two individual players....if they had great chemistry they would have been unstoppable. If they would have anything close to the Nash/Amare relationship, they would have won championships...zero doubt in my mind.
KJ was so much better in his prime than most people think.
Barkley and K.J. possessed good chemistry for the most part, but as you indicated, Sir Charles was such an anti-flow player that he could never fully mesh with any other genuine star (the same situation emerged in Houston where he played with Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, and later Scottie Pippen) or any system. He was a very self-indulgent player, and in his view, everything around him ultimately proved subservient to his self-indulgences: holding the ball, slowly dribbling in a limited radius, playing "hero ball" even when injured or drained, attempting ill-advised threes off the dribble, and demanding the ball at the expense of the plays called by the coach (to say nothing of his self-indulgences on the other end of the court or away from game-time). As Cotton Fitzsimmons stated after retaking the coaching reigns in 1996, "The worst thing we can do is to throw the ball to Charles, then stand and watch him decide what to do. Kevin breaks the defense down and gets more people involved." Thus one of Fitzsimmons' in-game mantras became "Get the ball to Kevin!" In Game Two of the 1996 Western Conference First Round, K.J. controlled the offense through the first three quarters, running the pick-and-roll/pop to perfection (even with only one true perimeter shooter on the floor and less than optimal spatial concepts, sometimes allowing the Spurs to send two help defenders to the pick-and-roll and get away with a one-on-three defense on the weak-side) and conducted the overall offense about as well as anyone in history could have conducted it, passing for 16 assists through three quarters. (And he should have received credit for at least 17 and possibly 18 assists, but the San Antonio official scorer was very stingy, at least with the visiting point guard.) Barkley remained within the flow of the overall offense, with Bill Walton on NBC talking about the "special relationship" brewing between him and K.J. Then in the fourth quarter, Barkley started dominating the ball in the post; K.J. did not record another assist the rest of the game. Although Johnson scored 6 points in the fourth quarter (2-4 FG, 2-2 FT, with all his points coming late in the clutch), the Suns only scored 21 in the period after scoring at least 25 in each of the first three quarters; Phoenix fell by five points, 110-105.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/199604280SAS.htmlIn fairness, Barkley was far, far, far more skilled and capable than Amar'e Stoudemire. His ball-handing, passing, post-up game, "iso" capabilities, and ability to create shots for himself and teammates were all galaxies beyond Stoudemire. A team could run an efficient offense through Barkley, which one never could have said about Stoudemire. Indeed, in my opinion, Barkley constituted the most talented true forward in NBA history. (LeBron James, in my view, is more of a hybrid.)
But as Phil Jackson once told the Chicago Tribune about Barkley while he was still in Philadelphia, Sir Charles was "a great, great player. Maybe unstoppable. But he's got no discipline, none. You can't win with a player like that." In Phoenix, Barkley proved that when surrounded by major talent and mature players, you could win a lot of regular season games with him. (Of course, in the four years before Barkley arrived, the Suns constituted the only NBA franchise to win at least 53 regular season games each year, anyway.) And if matters broke correctly, you could even override the erratic nature of his postseason performance and reach the NBA Finals—once. But as the subsequent seasons proved, you could not consistently win in the playoffs against elite competition with Barkley, in large part due to his lack of discipline (on and off the court) and his willingness to basically throw away possessions in order to satisfy his self-indulgent tendencies.
Barkley's ball-stopping style could be problematic in the playoffs because it created predictability and gave the defense greater time to set itself, read what was happening, anticipate, and make adjustments. Indeed, Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon would make their moves quickly, forcing the defense to respond in hurried or belated fashion or else break down. That said, the major reason why the Suns did not win a championship with Barkley was not offense, but defense. After all, in Barkley's first three seasons in Phoenix, the Suns ranked first, first, and third, respectively, in Offensive Rating (points scored per possession), despite many games missed due to injury. Even in Sir Charles' fourth and final season in Phoenix, '95-'96, the Suns still ranked seventh in Offensive Rating despite only possessing one real three-point shooter or natural off-ball perimeter shooter (a second-year Wesley Person) on the entire roster and despite Barkley and K.J. combining to miss 35 games while Danny Manning missed 49.
Rather, the principal reason why the Suns did not win a championship with Barkley was their defense, which can be explained by the following statistics. In '91-'92, their last season before Barkley arrived, Phoenix finished eighth overall in Defensive Rating (points allowed per possession), after finishing eighth in '90-'91, sixth in '89-'90, and fifth in '88-'89. By Barkley's fourth and final year in Phoenix, '95-'96, the Suns had plummeted to twenty-third (out of twenty-nine teams) in Defensive Rating. In fact, in each of his last three seasons in Phoenix, the Suns ranked dead-last among the sixteen playoff teams (that's right, sixteenth out of sixteen for three straight years) in Defensive Rating. Seriously, Phoenix did not possess a sound championship formula in those years, not when you are annually the worst defensive team in the playoffs. The reason why the Suns reached the NBA Finals in 1993 was because they actually ranked ninth overall (out of twenty-seven teams) in Defensive Rating that season (even though all their forwards were defensive liabilities), with K.J. constituting arguably the best defensive point guard in the game that year—again with little recognition except from people who actually go back and study the film, such as that of Game Seven of the Western Conference Finals.
It’s a virtuoso performance, but moreso on the defensive side. Johnson is spying constantly like a safety let off the called-play chain. The Sonics thrice try and force the break and Johnson cuts off the outlet pass.
http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/07/10/pbts-retroball-suns-sonics-93-and-the-night-barkley-wouldnt-lose/But over the course of the Barkley years, the team's defensive performance declined dramatically, largely (although not entirely) due to Barkley himself. Primarily because of a lack of effort and conditioning, he proved terrible defensively in every aspect most of the time. He compensated to some extent with his defensive rebounding, but the team's overall defensive numbers speak for themselves. Just as tellingly, in '97-'98, the Suns' second season after trading Barkley, Phoenix finished sixth overall in Defensive Rating and won 56 games.
If I were constructing a lineup from Phoenix history to compete for a championship, I frankly would not be that interested in either Barkley or Stoudemire: ball-stoppers who do not play defense do not win championships. A forward tandem that would intrigue me, conversely, would be Shawn Marion and Larry Nance: two extremely athletic, versatile forwards who could finish above the rim, rebound, and defend on a high level. I would be open to different options at guard and center, but I guess that I would go with Kevin Johnson and Jeff Hornacek at guard and Alvan Adams at center. I would be open to considering some others at center (including Danny Manning as an undersized center, as Manning may have been the Suns' best all-around big man ever between ACL reconstructions and proved about as tall as Adams), and I would be open to considering a bigger, more physical shooting guard, such as Dan Majerle or Joe Johnson, for defensive purposes. I would also be willing to think about playing K.J. and Steve Nash together in a flexible read-and-react/drive-and-kick offense similar to what San Antonio presently employs.
Another option would be to play Kevin Johnson and Jason Kidd together at guard with a dangerous three-point shooter—Joe Johnson, perhaps—at small forward to create more floor spacing. In the last 43 regular season games that K.J. and Kidd played together where K.J. played at least 30 minutes, the Suns went 35-8 (.814). Then take Nance or Marion at power forward and Adams or Manning at center.
Of course, I have not even mentioned Tom Chambers and Walter Davis, two Ring of Honor members, not to mention two other Ring of Honor members in Connie Hawkins and Paul Westphal. Chambers possessed the kind of chemistry with K.J. that Stoudemire did with Nash, and he could match-up at all three front-court spots, although he did not play especially good defense at any of them.
