Top 5 Basketball Players in Phoenix Suns History

Top 5 basketball players in Phoenix history Sons

The best players who helped the "suns" rise with hopes of something big

One of the oldest franchises in the National Basketball Association, which is persistently chasing the opportunity to grab its first title, is the Phoenix Suns. Arizona State has made three Finals appearances, winning the Western Conference in 1976, 1993 and 2021, but falling all three times. The first team that stopped the "suns" on the way to glory was the Boston Celtics, in 93 there was no one to stop the Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan in the lineup, and in the last campaign the Milwaukee Bucks proved to be too high a bar for Phoenix. However, history and the present offer us a number of good basketball players, so we will make a ranking of the top 5 players who wore the orange-purple teams.

#1 – Devin Booker

Selected by the team as the 13th pick in the 2015 draft, Booker became the basketball player around whom the highly successful team that reached the finals against Milwaukee six years later was built. The Michigan guard definitely looks like the most impressive player in history, as strange as that may sound for a player with so few NBA seasons. Since his first season, Booker has impressed, even as Phoenix reaches its sixth straight campaign without the playoffs. The rookie was named to the All-Rookie Team after the season ended, and then it's key for this team to end its long playoff drought and even reach a title clash. Booker has also made All-Star games in every year since 2020, which is just three appearances so far, but let's not forget that he's only 25 years old. In addition to all this, in 2017 he became only the sixth player in the history of the league to score 70 points in one game and at the same time the youngest, because he was then only 20 years old. He averaged 23 points, 4.6 assists and 3.7 rebounds per game after the end of last season, and the future is still ahead of him.

#2 – Steve Nash

In second place comes the turn of another super guard who, although he never won the title, is one of the classiest players in the entire history of the NBA. We are talking about Steve Nash, who began his career in Phoenix, where he was only selected at number 15 in the 1996 draft. However, his first two seasons were not among the most impressive, and soon after his start with the Suns, Nash moved to the Dallas Mavericks. However, in 2004 he returned on a white horse to Arizona to make Phoenix fans dream. Two regular season MVP awards followed, in 2005 and 2006, and 6 of his eight All-Star appearances came with Phoenix, where he remained until 2012. Nash spent his last three league campaigns with the regional rival Los Angeles Lakers, but they were definitely a far cry from his impressive performances for the Suns. And with his move to the Lakers, Nash had a hand in Michael Bridges, the number one pick in the 2018 draft, ending up in Phoenix and becoming an important part of the team that reached the finals with Milwaukee.

#3 – Charles Barkley

In the early 1990s, Phoenix recruited one of the greatest basketball players of all time, who proved to be the key to the team's second NBA Finals appearance. Charles Barkley landed in Arizona in 1992 after 8 successful campaigns as a player for the Philadelphia 76ers. Many Suns fans would put Barkley ahead, even at the top of this list, but his time with the Suns spans just four campaigns for the franchise. Barkley is just the second Phoenix basketball player in history to win a regular season MVP award. This happened in 1993, and invariably he participated in the spectacular matches of the stars in the 90s. Barkley's team averages are 23.4 points, 11.5 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 1.6 steals per game. Mine would have been even more impressive if he hadn't ended up with the Houston Rockets, where he ended his career in 2000.

#4 – Chris Paul

Whatever we write about Chris Paul, we risk missing something. Therefore, we will only focus on the last season in which he launched the Suns into the clouds. After stints with the New Orleans Hornets, LA Clippers, Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder, the guard landed in Arizona and helped the team reach its third NBA Finals. The now 36-year-old basketball player's impact, character, vast experience and, above all, scoring in important moments are qualities that no other player of the franchise has possessed in years. CP Three came to the Suns hoping to get a chance to play in the finals and managed to do so. We also shouldn't overlook the fact that he was named to last season's All-Star team and finished fifth in the Most Valuable Player voting, the closest he has come to the association's top individual award.

#5 – Kevin Johnson

Last in the top 5 is a basketball player who spent 12 of his 13 NBA seasons in Phoenix. This is Kevin Johnson, the Cleveland Cavaliers' No. 7 pick in the '87 draft. There are plenty of reasons why he's among the most pivotal players in franchise history, and the first one we can think of is that the guard was a perfect partner for Barkley in reaching the Finals in '93. In 90, 91 and 94, Johnson was selected for the All-Star game, and four times he was part of the second best team of the regular season. KJ will also be remembered for the stacks of double-doubles he put up, finishing with averages of 18.7 points, 9.5 assists, 3.4 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game in his long career with the Suns.

In the history of this franchise, there are a number of other key basketball players that we would put in a similar ranking, but they still fall a little short of being in the top five. Among them are names like Amari Stoudamire. The career of this basketball player started precisely in Arizona, where he spent 8 seasons until 2010 and is among the most impressive and ruthless players who adore the "pick and roll". Together with Steve Nash, they are the authors of a number of quality combinations, and his average indicators for the Suns are not bad at all - 21.4 points, 8.9 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game.

Sean Marion is also worth noting. He also played with Nash and Stoudamire for a long time and was part of the Phoenix franchise between 1999 and 2008. In those years, he was named to the All-Star Game 4 times and to the NBA Regular Season Team twice. Jason Kidd continues the series of strong guards in the "Suns" team, spending 4 seasons between 97 and 2001. Tom Chambers and Paul Westphal would also make the same ranking, but in the top 10 of Suns players. Chambers was one of the team's leaders from 1988-1993, while Westphal was the first true superstar in the Phoenix organization, coming soon after winning a title with the Boston Celtics in 1974.

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