Steve Nash Retires.

[Cap]

Favorite Sun ever? Dunno, so many choices. Robert Horry. Michael Beasley. Jerrod Mustaf. [CENSORED]. The Langhi. Mighty Joe Kleine and Super Mario Bennett. Mook.

[The Bobster]

Favorite Sun ever? Dunno, so many choices. Robert Horry. Michael Beasley. Jerrod Mustaf. [CENSORED]. The Langhi. Mighty Joe Kleine and Super Mario Bennett. Mook.

No Richard Dumas, Oliver Miller, Paul Stovall or Mike Niles?

Stovall - http://www.kansas.com/sports/article1114353.html

Niles - http://articles.latimes.com/1989-01-25/ ... hael-niles

[The Bobster]

During his second stay here Nash was probably the best shooter in the league, one of the best passers, and probably the best ball handler. He was the best free throw shoot and if you switched a big man out on him he would just kill you by getting them off balance and going around them.

His only shortcoming was defensively, but he did give an effort.

I liked him as a player, although he was never my favorite Sun. He probably didn't deserve the 2005 MVP, but he was the best player on the team that finished with the best record which was terrible the year before, so he won it over Shaq and Duncan. The next year he played even better, so he won the award again although LeBron had a better year on a worse team.

If someone wants to call Nash the greatest Suns player ever I would complain to much, he's certainly in the top group with Westphal, K.J. and Barkley.

My only real complaint would be that he decided to go to the Lakers, but hell, that worked out well for the Suns so I'll give him a free pass on that.

Well said. I always regret not getting to see Westy play. I was just the right age to be in the KJ camp, and he is still my favorite Sun, no question. But Steve could very well be the best. If I had one game to play, I would probably go with KJ. If I was starting a team with one of those guys in their prime, I am probably going with Nash.

Nash is my favorite player ever but even I would have to go Barkley. He was just unstoppable '92-'94. If only Jordan didn't exist. But damn Nash was so FUN to watch. It was just such a pleasure & I'm sad my sons just weren't old enough to be interested in basketball when he was playing. They are just now kind of into watching sports & sadly they have missed the best days of Drew Brees & our Saints as well.

Mine is still Westphal. There is something about your favorite as a kid growing up.

Other than that - Ron Lee, KJ, Leandro Barbosa and Walter Davis.

[LazarusLong]

Favorite Sun ever? Dunno, so many choices. Robert Horry. Michael Beasley. Jerrod Mustaf. [CENSORED]. The Langhi. Mighty Joe Kleine and Super Mario Bennett. Mook.

No Richard Dumas, Oliver Miller, Paul Stovall or Mike Niles?

Stovall - http://www.kansas.com/sports/article1114353.html

Niles - http://articles.latimes.com/1989-01-25/ ... hael-niles

William Bedford. Going way back, Stretch Howard.

Re: Stovall ... he had the physical talent to be the next Gus Johnson of that era. Somebody needed to rewire his motherboard, though ...

[Cap]

Favorite Sun ever? Dunno, so many choices. Robert Horry. Michael Beasley. Jerrod Mustaf. [CENSORED]. The Langhi. Mighty Joe Kleine and Super Mario Bennett. Mook.

No Richard Dumas, Oliver Miller, Paul Stovall or Mike Niles?

Stovall - http://www.kansas.com/sports/article1114353.html

Niles - http://articles.latimes.com/1989-01-25/ ... hael-niles

LOL. Knew I'd forget a few. Thanks for coming through.

[The Bobster]

Ah yes. William Bedford.

I think prior to guys like John Drew, John Lucas, Spencer Haywood, Fast Eddie Johnson and Micheal Ray Richardson there were probably a lot of guys who self-medicated in a much more harmless way and nobody really cared to much. Then the 80's came with cocaine available everywhere and you've got William Bedford and Walter Davis hauled before the Grand Jury and all hell breaks loose.

[The Bobster]

Stovall was actually before my day, but I remember Niles from the 1980-81 team. That was my senior year of HS (Sunnyslope) and I had that year's team poster on my wall.

[LazarusLong]

Bedford did very little in the pros. Laziest SOB ever, given the physical talent he had.

[LazarusLong]

Stovall played at ASU with another gladiator, Rhea Taylor, who went about 6-3 and 220. I'm surprised Kush didn't try to recruit them.

[Charlie Smithy!]

KJ/Barkley are probably my favorites, the former more so. And although I was but like 8 years old in 1993, it did seem like sir Charles could play defense when the spirit moved him.

To this day I'm still surprised we got him for the Holy trinity of hornacek, Perry, and lang. Though I'm guessing philly has next to no leverage in that trade.

[ShelC]

Some very kind words from Amar'e:

http://arizonasports.com/41/1818870/Ama ... as-magical

[Mori Chu]

Barkley was the best player-who-played-for-the-Suns during his prime (you could start to argue about Shaq being the best overall player who ever wore a Suns uniform, but he wasn't best *when he was a Sun*). And I loved him and loved those '90s teams. But I don't think he can ever be my favorite Sun of all time, since (a) he wasn't here for enough years, and (b) he didn't give it 100% during the time he was here.

I don't think I can totally forgive Chuckster for going out and partying on the nights before NBA Finals games. He basically got us to the Finals, but then he also probably cost us our chance to win it. (Honorable mention to KJ who was kind of a ghost for most of that series.) And then Charles trashed Phoenix and the Suns after getting traded, which was Bush league in my opinion, and he's bashed us for many years as a TV pundit.

When I compare that to Nash, I have to give Stevie the nod due to the fact that he was here for so long, gave it 100% effort every single day, got those 2 MVPs as a Sun, and carried such a memorable squad for so many years straight.

The only guy I think who presents serious competition to Nash is KJ. He, too, was a long-time Sun who was the star of the team and gave it his all. He had his whole career here as a Sun, which means a lot. And he was great fun to watch and was the second banana on that Finals team in '93. The guy even came out of retirement just to help us out that one year. And he's always spoken well of Phoenix and the Suns in his post-career and has generally distinguished himself as mayor of Sacramento.

Westphal is another great Sun but he's way before my time. So I don't have much to say about him. I tend not to get too excited about guys from back in the '70s or before, because it was such a different league back then.

[The Bobster]

Westphal is another great Sun but he's way before my time. So I don't have much to say about him. I tend not to get too excited about guys from back in the '70s or before, because it was such a different league back then.

I think once you get past the ABA/NBA merger (1976) the quality of the league has been fairly stable. There have been a lot of imports from Europe, but the league has added seven teams over the same period of time.

As for Westphal he was one of four guards in the running for top backcourt player in the late 709's along with Pete Maravich, David Thompson and George Gervin. All four were top-notch scorers who were average defenders at best. Thompson and Gervin were converted forwards who didn't run the offense like Westphal or Maravich could, and Westphal was much more efficient that Maravich was.

1975-76 to 1979-80 -
Westphal - 32.9 Min, .518 FG%, .833 FT%, 2.4 Reb, 5.6 Ast, 1.8 Stl, 0.4 Blk, 3.0 Trn, 22.5 Pts
Maravich - 39.7 Min, .439 FT%, .835 FT%, 4.2 Reb, 5.6 Ast, 1.4 Stl, 0.3 Blk, 4.5 Trn, 27.1 Pts
Gervin - 34.5 Min, .531 FG%, .835 FT%, 5.6 Reb, 3.0 Ast, 1.5 Stl, 1.3 Blk, 3.3 Trn, 25.4 Pts
Thompson - 36.8 Min, .514 FG%, .774 FT%, 4.7 Reb, 3.8 Ast, 1.3 Stl, 1.0 Blk, 2.8 Trn, 25.8 Pts

[Charlie Smithy!]

Ahh wow, didn't realize pistol Pete was a bit of a volume scorer/chucker.

[The Bobster]

Maravich may have been the most skilled offensive player to play in the NBA.

Knowing when to shoot it or make a high risk pass is another thing altogether.

Those stats include an ABA season for Gervin and Thompson when both played forward. The finished the 1977-78 season with the greatest shootout for the scoring crown in league history as Gervin scored 63 to win the scoring title over Thompson who had scored 73 earlier that night.

Westphal probably would have ended up with higher scoring totals, except MacLeod liked to use all 11 players and players like Adams, Davis and Westphal didn't get as many minutes as they would have in other systems. Westphal wasn't happy with MacLeod's system and eventually asked for a trade and found himself in Seattle where he broke his foot a couple of times.

Gervin clearly had the best career of the four because he lasted the longest and played at a high level for a longer period of time. Thompson was the most gifted athlete of the four, and had the best college pedigree. Maravich was the high-volume scorer who had free reign to do whatever he wanted under his dad/coach Press at LSU. He may have been the greatest showman in NBA history, but blew out his knew (making a behind-the-back pass of course) and was never really the same after that. Westphal was an ambidextrous guard who could pass and shoot, but spent the first part of his career as a bench player in Boston and the end of his career fighting foot problems.

[Furlanfufi]

Nash will always be my favorite Sun.
I loved Barkley, but Barkley has the "if he gave it a 100% all the time" line that always will go with him.

Nash, in a lot of ways, is the Brazilian soccer team from 82, which I know he's a fan of. Higly regarded as one of the best teams in soccer history, it fell short of a title.
But on soccer, because of that, we had more than a decade of ugly defensive teams because "you can't win that way".

Nash made everybody copy him and the Suns. Nobody talks about Pistons x Spurs scoring less than a 100 every game of the finals anymore. The game is more open, fun, and it's painfully obvious the mark the Suns, Nash, D'antoni and Gentry made along the way. You see it on the Spurs, on GS, the Hawks, Clippers.

Much like some bands, (Velvet Underground comes to mind, but so do others) the impact of his influence is probably bigger than his achievements. Only a few can do this.

[carey]

It's time to frame my Nash jersey and hang it up. I said I wouldn't do it until he retired, so now it's time. By the way he was fairly cordial when I got it autographed but Amare and Grant Hill were wayyyy cooler. Amare specifically autographed every single thing anyone asked him to including a pair of shoes. Lopez otoh didn't take his headphones off and walked right past me to the buss. I think he was injured almost the entire first month of the season though. This was outside in the docking area at the New Orleans arena on November 19th, 2009. We lost. Mostly because Peja hit a bunch of damn 3s and Channing Frye had one of those nights where he couldn't hit the rim even. I remember it well because my ex-wife would leave almost exactly one month later.

[Superbone]

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