Phoenix Suns: 30 greatest players of all-time
. Power Forward. 1988-93. Tom Chambers. 10. player. 66
With all due respect to the Suns teams of the 1970s and the mid-2000s, the best collection of talent ever assembled on one roster came during the first half of the 1990s for Phoenix. For example, the 1993 NBA Finals team featured Kevin Johnson, Charles Barkley, Dan Majerle and Mark West, all players featured prominently in the greatest to ever wear the Suns’ uniform. Also on that team was the offensively gifted Tom Chambers.
Chambers was one of the best scoring forwards of the 1980s, pouring in points at every stop. He averaged 17.2 points per game in his rookie season and never looked back. That would be the lowest average until 1991-92 when the shots were more evenly spread out on a loaded Phoenix team.
After his rookie year in 1981-82, Chambers played seven seasons with the then-San Diego Clippers and the then-Seattle SuperSonics, earning one All-Star nod. Then in 1988 as an unrestricted free agent, he signed a lucrative contract with the Suns, immediately jump-starting their offense.
In each of his first three seasons with the Suns, he made the All-Star team. This includes a pair of All-NBA nods as well. He put up 25.7 points per game in his first season on the team, then topped himself with a career-high 27.2 the next year in 1989-90.
Chambers was one of the most talented scorers of his era. He has more points over any other eligible player in NBA history not to be in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Yet his game was all entrée and no sides.
He was not a strong defensive player, nor a skilled distributor and he never diversified his game by adding a 3-point shot. A pure scorer he might have been, and a great one at that, but the lack of depth to his game has hurt him historically. Perhaps this could have helped the Suns get over that championship hump?
At the end of his five seasons with the Suns, Chambers had totaled 34.6 win shares, including 11.2 in the 1989-90 season. Released by the Suns in 1993, he plied his trade as a journeyman scorer around the league and abroad for another five years before hanging up his jersey.