The Phoenix Suns have had magical runs before in their history. This six-game stretch HAS to qualify, right?
The Phoenix Suns have been around for over 50 years, and with that length of time comes various team roster iterations, all of which bring the good, the bad, and the ugly. But what about the surprising? What about the Suns teams that, whether it was for a stretch of games or for a season, defied the odds and achieved the impossible? And if so, where does the 2020 Phoenix Suns team slot in? Let’s look at a few candidates.
There have been a few Suns teams over the years that have “shocked the world”.
Let’s start with the 1976 Phoenix Suns team, otherwise known as the “Cinderella Suns”. In just their eighth season, the season limped into the playoffs with a substandard 40-42 record but then proceeded to go on a surprising playoff run, marching all the way to the NBA finals and even dispatching the Golden State Warriors along the way (a team that claimed the championship the season before AND finished a whopping 17 games ahead of Phoenix in the division standings!)
In the finals, the feisty Suns went up against a battle-hardened Boston Celtics team that had three all-stars on their roster and the championship pedigree of a franchise that had claimed 12 titles up to that point. Even against those odds, the Suns battled, scrapping all the way in a six-game series that included a classic triple-overtime game five before bowing out. With players like Paul Westphal, (we wish him good luck) Alvan Adams, and Gar Heard, that Suns team inspired a whole generation in the valley to believe in the impossible.
Almost 30 years later, the Phoenix Suns would undergo another shocking transformation, going from a team in the dregs of the western conference to the best record in the entire NBA behind future hall-of-fame guard Steve Nash and one of the most electric offenses in NBA history. Just five seasons after this one-year turnaround, the Suns would attempt to surprise yet again, beginning an improbable journey to the NBA finals that fell just short in six games to the team from L.A. that shall not be named. (It isn’t the Clippers.)
So where does this team fall in among the other two? If the Suns fight for the play-in game and win? They vault all the way to the top in my opinion, just because of the unique circumstances this season and the fact that absolutely no one (including myself) seriously thought that they would make this a serious challenge down the stretch.
But a challenge is what these Suns have issued, across the entire NBA. Devin Booker and this scrappy cast of characters have proven that they have what it takes to shock the world, and guess what? They have the opportunity. Let’s see if the Phoenix Suns can teach us all a lesson one more time.