Top-10 Best Trades in Phoenix Suns History

9. Tony Delk and Rodney Rogers for Joe Johnson and first-round pick

In the few season before 2004-05, General Manager Bryan Colangelo began to transition from the veteran roster he had pieced together in a hopeful run to a long-eluded championship, to a youth movement that would eventually makeup the core of the teams that would take the franchise as far as the Western Conference Finals three times in seven seasons.

The second to last piece in that transitional phase was the trade that brought Joe Johnson to the Valley of the Suns.

Phoenix Acquired:
Joe Johnson
Milt Palacio
Randy Brown
2002 first-round pick (Casey Jacobsen)

Boston Acquired:
Rodney Rodgers
Tony Delk

Initially in the youth movement the Suns’ core of the future was supposed to include Stephon Marbury, a young and entertaining point guard seemingly on the fast track to super-stardom. Tony Delk was a young, solid scoring backup to Marbury, and Rodney Rodgers was a veteran of eight seasons, a solid outside shooter with size giving Marbury a formidable player to kick out to for a long-range shot.

But Joe Johnson was the ideal young sidekick to Marbury who could run side-by-side for many years. Of similar size and skill-set to the aging Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway, Johnson immediately became the air apparent to Penny when his own time in Phoenix was eventually up.

As the Suns were already his fourth NBA stop, Delk continued his journeyman role for another four seasons, and following the 2005-06 season, after playing with Boston, Atlanta, and Detroit, he retired. Rodgers finished up the 2001-02 season in Boston before signing as a free agent with the New Jersey Nets, where he spent two years. In 2004-05 he signed with the New Orleans Hornets who midway through the season traded him to Philadelphia where he too retired at season’s end.

Johnson turned into a cornerstone player improving in several important categories each season in Phoenix including points, rebounds, and eFG%. It became clear fairly quickly that Johnson was a star in the making and a future perennial All-Star in the league.

The transition to the role as the team’s full-time starting shooting guard would happen only a season and a half following his acquisition when Penny and Marbury were traded to New York. The following offseason Steve Nash signed as a free agent and for one year Johnson was one of the Suns’ ‘Big-Four,’ and helped lead Phoenix to within three wins of an NBA Finals appearance.

Of course Johnson left Phoenix following the ’04 playoffs for Atlanta wanting to be the star of a team, but the original trade of two veterans for the rookie had already proven to be one of the most fruitful and successful transactions in franchise history.