Selected ninth overall in the 1999 NBA Draft, Shawn Marion was the perfect hyper-athletic addition to the 1999-00 Suns team featuring Jason Kidd, Anfernee Hardaway, Cliff Robinson, Rex Chapman, Tom Gugliotta, Rodney Rogers, and Luc Longley.
By his second season Marion became the team’s leading scorer at 17.3 per game and averaged a double-double for the first of four times in his Phoenix Suns career, becoming an integral figure (and arguably the team’s most important piece) in the team’s coming success with point guard Steve Nash and Head Coach Mike D’Antoni.
Even prior to Steve Nash’s re-signing with the Suns in the summer of 2004, Shawn Marion was not only initially the team’s best scorer and defender, but was widely seen as one of the league’s best up-and-coming players. Marion was selected to his first All-Star game in 2003 averaging 21.7 points, 9.7 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 2.0 steals, and 1.2 blocks per game, and shooting 45.1% from the field and 35.8% from beyond the arc. He finished the season with even better defensive stats, and his high-flying game truly made him the most exciting player on the team.
Phoenix Suns
However, it was the addition of Steve Nash that really catapulted Marion’s career into the stratosphere as he appeared in three consecutive All-Star games from 2003-05, and earning All-NBA Third Team honors in 2004-05 and 2005-06. Although he never received any All-NBA Defensive honors, Marion was regularly placed on the opponent’s best offensive player, and from 2002 until his trade to the Miami Heat for Shaquille O’Neal in 2008, he averaged 2.1 steals and 1.4 blocks per game, tremendous stats for a small forward who often had to play out of position at power forward.
As mentioned, in 2008 Marion was traded to Miami for Shaq, a deal that many Suns fans have hated, especially since Shaq did not bring the title that he implied he would bring when he first arrived.
Marion spent the final few two months of the season with the Heat and opened the 2008-09 season in Miami as well before being dealt to the Toronto Raptors. His time with either team is hardly notable, especially his 27 games in Toronto, as he was not the same scoring threat that he had been with Phoenix, mainly with the absence of a star point guard like Steve Nash who could facilitate the offense in a way that would get Marion the open looks and tremendous cuts that he was so used to with the Suns.
In the summer of 2009 Marion was traded again, this time to the Dallas Mavericks. While Marion’s youthful explosiveness slowly left him, he was an integral part in that Mavericks’ success that included an NBA championship over the LeBron James-led Miami Heat in 2011. For five seasons Marion remained a solid player for the Mavs, maintaining his defensive ability while his offensive game slowly eroded.
In 2014 Marion signed a one-year deal with the Cleveland Cavaliers in an attempt to chase a second title, playing as nothing more than a role player. His stats dwindled to far below his career averages and even his per-36 stats were nearly across the board career-lows. Cleveland was unable to win a championship, and Marion subsequently retired.
In his rookie class, Marion finished second in scoring with 17,700 behind only Jason Terry, first in total rebounds with 10,101, and first in Win Shares with 124.9, 93.2 of which came with the Phoenix Suns, the best in franchise history.
Marion is also the Suns franchise leader in defensive rebounds, and top-ten in games played (6th), minutes played (10th), field goals (3rd), 3-point field goals (4th), free throws (10th), offensive rebounds (2nd), total rebounds (2nd), steals (2nd), blocks (3rd), points (4th), among a number of other individual career and season statistics.