Top-10 Best Trades in Phoenix Suns History

5. Bye-bye Penny and Marbury, Hello Cap-Space

The Phoenix Suns traded for Antonio McDyess twice in his career. The first time was to pair him up with Jason Kidd putting together an incredible duo of youthful athleticism. Like Nash and Marion before they teamed up, Kidd to McDyess was supposed to be a lethal combination for a decade.

Unfortunately it didn’t work out as McDyess was a free agent after his first season with the Suns and re-signed with Denver (the team who drafted him) despite Phoenix’s most desperate attempts to convince him otherwise.

However, in January 2004 the Suns made a mid-season blockbuster that re-acquired him, though this time he was not the star attraction.

Phoenix had a plethora of large contracts that they were desperate to rid themselves of, most notably Penny Hardaway. Penny had never lived up to the advertising hype of the “Backcourt 2000” campaign that he and Kidd apprised, and as his body began to fail him the Suns needed to move his contract to make a run at legitimate talent in free agency.

By the ’03-’04 season the team was floundering in obscurity. Kidd had been traded two years prior and Stephon Marbury, who had just been tabbed with a large contract extension bringing presumption that he was to be the franchise’s future, was unable to carry the team deep into the playoffs. Phoenix was looking at little to no free agency options with the two guards and their equally massive $13.5M contracts the Suns needed to find a way to ship off at least one.

In comes Isiah Thomas and the New York Knicks. Supposedly within 24 hours of taking over the job as General Manager of the Knicks in 2003, Thomas had called Phoenix to inquire about Marbury. The Suns had just signed Marbury to the extension and at least publicly planned on making him their superstar point guard for the foreseeable future. But Bryan Colangelo still wanted to make a splash in free agency and build specifically around Amar’e Stoudemire and Shawn Marion and needed cap space to do so. So Colangelo told Thomas that the only way they would trade Marbury to the Knicks was if New York also took Penny.

Done deal.

Phoenix Acquired:
Antonio McDyess
Howard Eisley
Charlie Ward
Maciej Lampe
Milos Vujanic
2004 first-round pick (Kirk Snyder)
2010 first-round pick (Gordon Hayward)

New York Acquired:
Stephon Marbury
Penny Hardaway
Cezary Trybanski

One month later Phoenix flipped the two Knicks’ picks to Utah with Tom Gugliotta in an additional salary dump and the rebuild was nearly over.

Obviously there is one singular reason why this trade is so spectacularly important in Suns trade history: the move freed up cap space allowing Phoenix to make the splash in free agency they had hoped for.

They signed Steve Nash.