bwgood77 wrote:cycl0nus wrote:bwgood77 wrote:
KJ to Chambers was unstoppable. That team was magic and crazy after being 28-54 to 55-27 all led by a 2nd year PG who averaged 20/10 for 3 years straight. Who does that now a days all in a rookie contract? Unheard of. Maybe Ben Simmons will, but the fact he is averaging almost a triple double is crazy and I don't know when or if the last time that happened, or close to it did.
But just a bunch of random guys coming together with a 2nd year PG we traded for, signing Chambers as a FA and then having another young guard in Majerle, a decent younger vet in Hornacek, and Tyrone Corbin/Mark West who came with the Nance for KJ trade.
It's crazy a 28-54 team trades their best player and wins 55 games. Then 54, 55 and 53 before trading for Barkley and jumping to 62.
outside of my lakers team, whom i've been a fan for sheesh, 35years, i've always undercover rooted for the suns. i had a kj hoops rookie card, which was one of my first collectibles. as for those 80s suns, yes, they were very exciting. if i recall, chambers was an allstar and i think he took home the mvp and did that in the golden age. as for kj, i remember him jamming on everyone at 6'1, 180lbs, dunking on dinosaurs like 7'4 mark eaton. his famous dunk was on akeem.. for being 6'1, kj was a little power guard and he did not back down from the magic's, the jordans or isaiahs. that's what i loved about him. he was tough, he made big shots. but you're right, i dont recall anyone, except maybe a lebron? or tim? who's helped their team jump 35-40+ games from one season to the next... that's insane!
Nash actually did and it was a little bigger jump from like 29 to 62, but that team was already in place other than him with JJ, Marion and Amare. They had added Quentin Richardson but probably shouldn't have because they could have drafted Iguodala, but traded their pick for a pick the next year which was Nate Robinson who we got rid of...I think traded him and Q for Kurt Thomas. But the Q contract had a domino effect because it made Sarver hesitant to give JJ an extension (they were only off $5 million for entire contract), it made him hesitant to draft another player like Iguodala, and Q's contract stretched us too thin..you saw cap problems in the future, so even though we flipped him for Kurt Thomas, we subsequently had to dump him along with two 1st rounders, one of which became Ibaka. Luckily the JJ sign and trade netted us Diaw and Robin Lopez (though Lopez was nearly Al Horford the year before but was protected top 3 and he went 3rd) and Horford made the Hawks good enough to have like the 11th pick that ended up being Robin Lopez.
Probably more info than you wanted. But the great thing about that 88-92 team is they didn't make massive roster moves every year messing with chemistry like they did trading JJ, then ultimately trading Marion for Shaq, etc...the 88-92 team stayed intact until they had the opportunity to get a major game changer in Barkley, though he didn't mesh that well with KJ and wanted the offense to run through him when KJ was a master with the ball. The team still got better overall but I think would have been even better if KJ ran the team and Barkley played with the flow more.
now that i think about it, i think it was the 07 season when the suns had the 62 win season. but the nash era team that really sticks out to me was the 06 team, because i saw how they dismantled my lakers. ya the lakers came close to upsetting, but the suns were the superior team. that 06 team was a balanced tough suns team. i honestly thought they were going to go all the way that year. the way nash controlled the game was something you just don't see anymore. his iq and control of the flow made me think that when the lakers faced them throughout the playoffs, we had no shot. nash era suns are a very underrated team; took small ball to a whole new era. made small ball the measure for today's game. diaw, bell, marion, barbosa were all long and interchangeable pieces that mike d could mix and match. nash era suns are a unique team in the scope of nba history.
there were a lot of good deep teams in that era: 88-92, especially out west. lakers last run at the time was in 88, while the jazz, blazers, were looking to push out the old lakers. magic retires in 91, so the blazers and clyde jump in. behind them i felt were the jazz who's teams always had structure with sloan, the spurs had the admiral even though he was really a lieutenant; the rockets were still a mess, dallas still stank, the 91-92-93 lakers hella stank, sonics with gp and shawn were learning about each other and the nuggets were slowly getting better.. they had a pretty good squad now that i think about it: mutumbo, laphonso ellis, rodney rogers, rauf, pack. they just didnt have any wing players.
as for the 88-92 suns team was still able to find ways to keep pace and have respectable teams, but didn't have a franchise guy, until sir charles came aboard. once he came to the suns, they leapfrogged through all those teams and challenged the goat.
