Men's General

Summary and Curse Rating
I count three of those injuries as the reason they did not win a ring: KJ’s in 1990, Cedric’s in ‘93, and Raja’s in 2006. Yes, they would have to beat the Bad Boy Pistons, the Michael Jordan Bulls, and… impress David Stern more than the Mavs, but those series they lost were close. One starter, not to mention their best player in 1990, would have made a big difference.

If the Suns have three rings, including one over the Chicago Bulls, the story of the NBA, and the legacies of Charles Barkley, Steve Nash, Mike D’antoni and so many more, is so different. And Shaq would have to think of a genuine comeback when Chuck roasts him on ‘Inside The NBA’.

SUNS’ UNTIMELY INJURIES CURSE RATING:
8/10

REMARKABLE PLAYOFF LOSSES

On top of those injured years, the Suns have had nine playoff losses that testify to basketball’s chaos and unpredictability. These losses are more harsh than injuries because they had at least a modicum of control over them. Here they are in chronological order. A few are so miraculous they require more detail than others. Suns fans be super warned.

1976
Game 5 of the 1976 NBA Finals is called “The Greatest Game Ever”. The Suns and the Celtics went to triple-overtime in a final series tied 2 – 2. It would still be a harsh memory on the Suns’ franchise if it was just a loss: “Remember how awesome that game you lost was?”, but there are real and brutal symptoms of a curse here.

Near the end of the first overtime, Celtic Paul Silas called a timeout even though his team had none. Referee Richie Powers, according to the NBA’s official website, “chose to ignore the signal”. He “chose to ignore” a championship-deciding timeout call. I think Richie Powers must have made a deal with Satan. In return for giving him an incredible name (Dick Powers!) Richie would have to cash in a favour for the red guy, who decided this was the time.

The second overtime ended dramatically with Havlicek hitting a running shot to put the Celtics ahead. The Boston crowd stormed the court and the players ran into the locker room thinking they’d won the game. (During the court invasion, a fan started fighting Richie. “RICHIE POWERS IS BEING ASSUALTED” the commentator screamed. It was an awesome bit of sports chaos. The ASSAULTER had to have been a time-travelling Suns fan who returned one overtime too late).

But, as it turned out, Richie and his coworkers made another eff up. There was still one second left. The fans had to return to their seats and the players had to stop celebrating and mourning and duke it out for at least one more second.

The Suns would have to inbound from under their bucket to win, but with little time left, they didn’t want to do that. So, they called a timeout they didn’t have (right in front of Richie’s face) to get a technical (that the Celtics made) and advance the ball to half-court (don’t know what that rule is but it worked).

In that second, Suns legend Garfield Heard hit a shot to send it to a third overtime (good thing it was a Friday night game and not a Monday one).

In the third overtime, so many players fouled out that the one and only Glenn McDonald was left to take the game-winning shot for the Celtics. Glenn played three seasons in the NBA and would only play ten more games after this one. He played ten minutes per game in his 146-game career, averaging 4.2 points. None more important than the jumper he hit to end the greatest game ever played.

So much went wrong in this game, and the stuff that went right (Garfield’s shot) only brought more wrong. Celtics go on to have a league-defining dynasty and the Suns wouldn’t have a chance like that for a ring for another twenty years. All thanks to Dick Power’s dick power move.

1979
After coming back from down 0 – 2 against the SuperSonics in the 1979 WCF, the Suns would have gone to the Finals if they won game six at their home arena. And they really should have. They had won sixteen in a row at home, had an eight-point lead heading into the fourth, and had three chances at winning the game.

The first chance was gone before they shot it as Walter Davis was called for a travel. The second was an 18-footer missed by Davis, but the rebound went out of bounds off the Seattle Supersonics. With one second to go, the ball found our old mate Garfield Heard. But Garfield couldn’t replicate his ‘76 shot, airballing this one (this was on a Sunday, so we’ll round up and call it a Monday). The Suns would lose game seven and the Sonics would win the ‘79 Finals, their only title ever.

1993
In game six of the 1993 Finals against the Bulls, the Suns were up four at home with forty seconds to go and would have had game seven at home too.

With 42 seconds to go, Frank Johnson bricked a wide-open mid-range jumper. MJ grabbed the rebound and got an easy, a far too easy, layup to make it a two-point game with 38 seconds to go.

Dan Maerleje then missed his wide-open jumper on the baseline. Pippen grabbed the rebound and called a timeout.

MJ ran from his baseline and as he crossed halfcourt gave the ball to Pippen. Pippen quickly passed it to Horace Grant who fired it out to John Paxson for his turn at a wide-open jumper. This one was from three and this one went in. That was an at-the-time NBA Finals record 10th made three for the Bulls! They shot 10 of 14 from deep for the night. And Maerleje and Johnosn couldn’t hit one more mid-range jumper between the two of them.

The Suns did get an opportunity to win it, but we know that didn’t happen. Old mate Johnson got his shit swatted by Grant.

1995
Phoenix blew a 3 – 1 lead in the 1995 Western Conference Semi Finals. And it was only blown in the final possessions of a home game seven. The game was tied with 20 seconds left and Kevin Johnson was at the line. To that point, he had gone 22/22 on his free throws.

But Satan was on StreamEast in Hell and told Richie Powers (still alive at this point and have no clue if he deserves hell, but let a joke live y’know?) to “watch this”. He made a butterfly flap its wings in Houston and the air currents made their way into Phoenix’s Arena, altering Johnson’s 23rd free throw of the night enough to make it bounce off the rim.

Mario Elie then hit a corner three to put the Rockets up three. Dan Maerleje made his free throws to bring it back to one, and Clyde Drexler did too to take it back to three. Houston sent Ainge to the line who, after making the first, tried to miss the second intentionally. Satan and Richie dapped up as it banked in.

Ainge stole the Houston inbound but his full-court heave hit the top corner of the backboard and Houston moved on, eventually winning the chip for the second year in a row.

2007
There’s no need to remind Suns’ fans of this series. Boris Diaw and Amare Stoudemire were infamously controversially suspended for game five of the 2007 WC semifinals against the Spurs after clearing the bench during a near fight in game four. But more on that later.

What matters now is Boris and Amare were not available for the pivotal game five. With the series tied at 2-2, the Suns had an 11-point lead with ten minutes to go in the fourth. It dwindled then disappeared thanks to a Bruce Bowen corner three.

They had a chance to tie it back up after Tim Duncan missed two free throws with 24 seconds to go but Nash missed two heavily-contested threes. No brutal moment, but a brutal blown lead, especially considering they ran essentially a six-man rotation with no Boris and Amare. With starters Raja Bell, Steve Nash and Shawn Marion having all played over 45 minutes it’s not a stretch to chalk the next game, game six, loss to fatigue.

2008
With 70 seconds to go in game one of round one of the 2008 playoffs, the Suns were up three against the Spurs. That came off a Barbosa layup after a Shaquille O’Neal block. With a minute to go, Shaq poked the ball away from Duncan and dove to pick it up but lost control of it as he slid out of bounds.

The Spurs failed to score, and then the Suns did too, by way of a shot clock violation. After a timeout, Former Sun Michael Finley splashed a three with seconds left to tie it for the Spurs. On the other end, Barbosa’s foul line floater bricked off the back rim. Overtime.

With 12.6 to go in overtime, trailing by three, the Spurs inbounded the ball to Ginobili who received a screen from Duncan. Two Suns followed Ginobili into the paint (while they were up by three), leaving Duncan wide open from beyond the line. He had shot four threes in the regular season and missed them all, but he hit this one. It would be one of five playoff threes Tim Duncan ever made. Mike Breen was incredulous when he called the shot, sounding shocked hearing his own words: “DUNCAN a three-pointer?! Puts it up. It’s good!”.

This is a quintessential cursed shot if you’re the Suns. A guy who never shot the three and would end his career with a 17% 3pt FG hits a game-tying shot during overtime of a playoff game.

For the Spurs’ last possession of OT 2, Ginobili dribbled up the court, went past his defender at the three-point line and hit a wild layup. He let the ball go while he flailed at the peak of his jump with his body at a 45-degree angle and his limbs at full extension. The most brutal thing about this was Shaq being on the bench. Boris Diaw was the closest defender to the shot and he’s not blocking a Peter Dinklage layup. Phoenix didn’t have a timeout (and Grant Hill got lucky because he called for one) so Nash heaved it but missed.

If this was an elimination game or a game one of the conference finals it may be the most brutal loss ever. That TD shot is crazy. But, it was game one of a first-round series the Suns would lose in five. If this was a W it would have swayed things, giving Suns homecourt, but alas.

2010
The Suns were down by as many as 18 points during game five of the 2010 Western Conference Finals against the Lakers. Quentin Richardson hit a three for the Suns to finally tie at 101 with three seconds to go.

Kobe Bryant, who had hit six game-winners that season, airballed his walkoff attempt. Metta World Peace grabbed it under the hoop and banked it in as time expired.

This is brutal. The series tied, away from home, Kobe missed, only for Goddamn Metta World Peace to hit a game-winning buzzer-beater. The Suns went down 3 – 2 and lost the next game. Ending their title hopes and the Nash era AND leading to a ten-season playoff drought.

2022 and 2023
Unless they get a ring with KD, the Devin Booker-era Suns will be defined by having the two most embarrassing playoff losses of the 2000s. Both came in elimination games in 2022 and 2023 where they were CLOWNED online and rightly so.

They were down by 50 in both games, and the first one gave birth to a top 3 NBA meme of the 2020s: Chris Paul hits the huge three to cut the lead to 42. In 2022, they were the reigning Western champions, won sixty games in the regular season, and then were down fifty AT HOME in GAME SEVEN. Being universally memed, even by mainstream media publications, is as cursed as can be in the modern era.

And then for the same thing to happen again the next year, this time with Kevin Durant on your team.

Compared to past losses, these games are a more severe pain. Knowing your season is over after one quarter. Imagine having faced all that online torture in 2022 and then seeing it unfold before your eyes again a year later.

SUMMARY AND CURSE RATING
There’s about every kind of horrible loss possible in the Suns’ playoff history. Losing in a triple-OT Finals game, your best player hitting 22 straight free throws only to miss a game-deciding one, the opponent hitting 71% of their threes, and those majestic modern blowouts. If that Laker’s game didn’t end up being a sidenote in a 3 – 1 comeback, or the Tim Duncan shot came in a later series, it may be a 10/10 curse rating here. Reading back on it now I still cringe. These are bad ways to lose.

REMARKABLE PLAYOFF LOSSES CURSE RATING:
9/10

SENT BACK IN THE LOTTERY

The Suns’ curse was prevalent from their first dawn. And it came in the form of a lack of lottery(ish) luck. They, alongside fellow expansion team the Milwaukee Bucks, began their NBA journey in 1968. Phoenix finished with a West-worst record of 16 – 66 while the Bucks bottomed the East with a 27 – 55 record. Because they were both last in their respective conferences, a coin was flipped to determine who would draft first. Lew Alcindor AKA Kareem Abdul Jabbar was the number one prospect for that draft. The Bucks won the coin flip.

Despite being the significantly worse team, the Suns would have the second pick in the draft (They selected Neal Walk). Jerry Colangelo, the then GM of the Suns called ‘heads’ on that coin flip. He chose so after running a poll in the Arizona newspaper. 51.2% of respondents said to call heads. He still thinks about how a subtle move determined the franchise’s fate.

“We made the call that we wanted to call heads,” he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2021. “But here’s what took place. Visualise if you would. He flips the coin in the air, it lands in the palm of his hand heads, and then he flips it over on his other hand, on the back side of his hand, and of course, it was tails. So, it came up heads, but he flipped it over to tails.”

And this started a truly cursed run of luck for draft pick placements. Since the draft lottery began in 1985, the Suns have been in the lottery 18 times. Of those times, they’ve fallen in the lottery 5 times and only increased their position twice (in ‘86 and ‘87, moving from #7 to #6 and #7 to #2 respectively). They’ve only had a top-three pick twice: #2 in ‘87, where they took Armen Adams over Scottie Pippen (5), Horace Grant (10), and Reggie Miller (11); and #1 in 2018, where they took Deandre Ayton over Luka Doncic (3), Trae Young (5), and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (11).

I point out players drafted after their selection not to say they are bad drafters – that would be down to human decisions, not a curse upon the franchise. I point them out to illustrate that those two years, the only times they selected in the coveted top three, were tough years to pick at the top, with no clear consensus #1 project at the time.

It would have been easier to pick a plus player in those drafts if they had picked later. i.e. falling or staying in their original lottery position, i.e. what happened every other year apart from these two. If they fell to five in both drafts, they could have Scottie Pippen joining Kevin Johnson, Jeff Hornaceck, Larry Nance and others in 1987 and, more importantly, stopped the Chicago Bulls from getting their dynastic #2 man. In 2018 they could have taken Trae (or Shai, or Jalen Brunson (who went at #33)) to pair with Devin Booker and Mikal Bridges, who went #10 in that 2018 draft.

Phoenix’s draft history is dim, ugly, and funny, but the brightest lights come from later lottery picks. They’ve taken Devin Booker at #10, Michael Finley at #21, Amare Stoudemire at #9, Shawn Marion at #9, and Cameron Johnson at #11 (those Mikal and Cam picks in back-to-back drafts are incredible).

To rub the lottery balls in Suns fans’ faces further, the times they have fallen out of a top-three pick have been when there are consensus best players at the top. They had the tied-best odds for the top pick in 2019, where Zion Williamson and Ja Morant were as sure of a respective #1 and #2 as we’ve had. The Suns fell to the sixth pick, which they smartly traded to the Timberwolves for the 11th pick (Cameron Johnson) and Dario Saric.

In 2017 they again had top three odds but fell to #4. They took Josh Jackson. The top three were Markelle Fultz, Lonzo Ball, and Jayson Tatum. The first two names have struggled but their careers seem to have fallen victim to circumstance more than individual ability. Things could have been different (and I know that includes worse) if the Suns picked one of them up.

They would’ve had Kareem if the commissioner finished the coin flip without the additional slap on the hand. They’ve barely moved up in the lottery and when they have it worked against them. When they moved down, it would’ve been easy to get better by picking at the top. Not fun.

SENT BACK IN THE LOTTERY CURSE RATING:
8/10

EXTRA STUFF

Best Teams to Miss The Playoffs
In the history of the NBA, only one 49-win team has not qualified for the playoffs. It was the 1971-1972 Phoenix Suns. Only three 48-win teams have missed the NBA playoffs. Two are Suns’ squads (1970-71 and 2013 – 14). The 2008 – 09 Suns are one of four 46-win teams to miss the playoffs. Even when they’re good, they’re not quite good enough (plus, their three Finals appearances are the most of any franchise not to win it).

The Bubble
The Suns might be the only professional sports team to go undefeated in a one-off tournament setting for no reward. The Suns’ success in the 2020s all dates back to the loveable team they had in the Disneyland Bubble. They went 8 – 0 in the Bubble but famously still had to pack their bags thanks to a tiebreaker. Next season, they would acquire Chris Paul from the Thunder and then go to the FInals, but, as discussed above, no real success.

Amare + Diaw Suspension
You would not have wanted to be a Suns fan in 2007. Nash split his nose in game one of that second-round series against the Spurs, and they blew that big lead in game five. The true controversy and ire that grows in the Suns’ recollection of it, though, comes from the suspensions of Boris Diaw and Amare Stoudemire.

Robert Horry hip-checked Steven Nash with 14 seconds to go in game four, sending the point guard into the scorer’s table on the Suns’ bench’s half of the court. Suns’ on-court players surrounded Horry and it turned into a good old-fashioned NBA-pushing match.

Nash was still lying on the ground so Diaw and Stoudemire, who were on the bench, ran up to check on him, probably with his injured nose in mind. They didn’t escalate the argy-bargy in any manner, they didn’t even step onto the court. But they left the coaches’ box and the NBA suspended them for game five where they only gave six players real minutes. Suns fans still call bologna and I’d have to agree.

If Nash had decided to dribble away from the sideline, if Horry was defending someone else, or if Diaw and Stoudemire had been in the game, the suspensions would not have happened and the Suns maybe would have won the series and gone on to win the chip. But, once again, everything that could have gone wrong for the Suns did go wrong.

Extra Stuff Curse Rating:
8/10

SUMMARY AND FINAL CURSE RATING

Despite all these unforgiving losses and instances of fate swatting the sands of success out of the Suns’ hands, other teams aren’t sympathetic towards the Suns. Not like they are with the Kings, Magic, or even the Clippers. People do not like the Suns. Buoyed on by their braggadocious teams of the 2020s meeting brutal defeats, they’ve become one of the most enjoyable teams to hate. And perhaps this is the great curse of the franchise.

The fans and franchise have every right to claim that their journey to the summit has always been impeded by factors and incidents that are ultimately out of their control. But the wider NBA fandom just does not care. They’ve reached enough success to have some limelight, but that’s only for more accurate tomato throws from the crowd. And Phoenix is set to continue walking in the unforgiving spotlight for years to come. What will it take to break the curse from unknown origins? Is it as simple as name-change or does it require a cleansing of something greater than the franchise? Or, no matter what they do, it might just never happen. 

Their final curse rating is brought down because there’s nothing to point it to. Yes, Robert Sarver sucks; Devin Booker dated a Kardashian; and shit has gone down in the desert. But nothing directly associated with the creation of the Phoenix Suns is recognisably horrific. And doesn’t that add to the argument of being the #1 cursed team in the association: there being no human to blame for it?

PHOENIX SUNS FINAL CURSE RATING:
72% CURSED