Every year a couple of former Phoenix Suns become free agents. Normally those players wouldn’t make fans bat an eye. Obviously there was the one occasion where it was a big deal with Steve Nash, but generally, if a player was once a Sun but not anymore, odds are he won’t be a Sun again.
However, over the past few years the Phoenix Suns franchise has alienated fans and former-players alike by maintaining a poor relationship with players in the organization as well as out. From pushing out Dan Majerle to alienating Goran Dragic, the team has not done a good job keeping fan favorites around the franchise for the base to feel direct and comfortable connection to at least several of the players on he roster.
Pippen Ain't Easy
Last season, the Suns signed two former fan favorites in Jared Dudley and Leandro Barbosa for two very important reasons: the core of the team is young and players such as Dudley and Barbosa can serve as mentors and coaches both in the locker room and on the court; and as a means of slowly making amends with the hurt feelings of fans by not keeping former favorites around. Their return marked a turning point by franchise leadership as it helped to bridge the gap from the old successful teams of the past to the growing and hopeful future ones.
So in that vein of logic, I wanted to look at the list of current former-Phoenix Suns free agents to see if there were any that could be brought back for the very reasons illustrated above, and see if any of them would be a fit to help fill out the roster.
(I want to specifically note, if Phoenix ever actually had any interest in any of these players, space would somehow need to be made on the roster. This can be accomplished by letting current players leave in free agency, as well as by trading others and returning fewer bodies in return than were traded. I am not implying that any of the players on the list should be signed at all cost).