Suns' 2005 breakthrough set up by 2004 breakdown, rebuild

This is the first of a two-part feature for the 10th anniversary of the Suns' 62-20 team that reached the 2005 Western Conference finals and started a franchise revival.

Today: The offseason and preseason.

Sunday: The regular season and postseason.

A decade ago, the Suns revived a basketball love affair that quickened pulses across Arizona.

With a fresh blend of entertainment and innovation, the Suns unveiled a high-scoring, fast-paced style that made the NBA envious — and weary — during a 62-20 season that ended 10 years ago this month in the Western Conference finals.

Bryan Colangelo was the architect who drew up the franchise's revival. Mike D'Antoni was the mastermind who visualized a unique system. Steve Nash was the artist who applied his talent and eye to blend a basketball beauty.

That Suns team changed the course of the franchise into its winningest era and moved the NBA toward an open-floor, fast-paced, deep-shooting, small-ball attack that is prevalent today. That season's 33-win improvement, the third-best year-to-year jump in NBA history, did not come as quickly as a Nash no-look pass for an Amar'e Stoudemire or Shawn Marion dunk.

That change really took another man who never played or worked for the Suns: Isiah Thomas.

The Marbury trade

The Suns were set on a different course at the start of the previous season, when the team pinned its future on Stephon Marbury for what was the largest pro sports contract in Arizona history. Marbury was under contract for $105 million over six years after signing a four-year extension three weeks before the 2003-04 season opener. Only a disappointing Suns start and the Knicks' recently hired president of basketball operations, Thomas, could undo it.

Once the Suns fired head coach Frank Johnson from an 8-13 team, they were ready to reinvent themselves under D'Antoni with the help of Thomas being willing to take Marbury's and Penny Hardaway's contracts. The Suns made an eight-player trade that sent Marbury and Hardaway to New York, clearing $25 million of Suns payroll for 2004-05 with only one of five incoming players, Maciej Lampe, staying on the roster for 2004-05.

"It was more about how can we get to the top of the heap, how can we contend?" said Colangelo, who was the Suns GM. "Being in the middle of the pack is not where you want to be in this league. We felt like we were going to be competitive but not get to the upper echelon of competition unless we did something drastic. We decided to knock down a few walls."

The franchise-changing effect of the deal created the salary cap space to sign Steve Nash. But even before that July, D'Antoni, Bryan Colangelo and Suns chairman and CEO Jerry Colangelo discussed a new system. They wanted to play the best players, even if that meant a shorter, leaner big-man tandem of Marion and Stoudemire.

"We were going to do that with or without Steve," D'Antoni said. "The wisdom was that it wouldn't work. Shawn would wear out. He couldn't do it. The league would kill us. It wasn't easy to do it because it wasn't like I'd won a lot of games. I was like, 'This is what our gut feeling is.' If we hadn't got Steve, it would've been interesting to see what would've happened because it might've been a complete failure and then it would've set a different course of basketball."

A reduced payroll also came as Jerry Colangelo sought new ownership. By the end of the 2003-04 season, he selected a group headed by Tucson native and San Diego banking/real estate entrepreneur Robert Sarver over one led by Jeff Moorad, an agent who became Arizona Diamondbacks CEO four months later — when Colangelo was forced out there.

Focusing on Nash

Sarver's group paid a then-NBA record $401 million but the sale would not be official until June 30, the eve of free agency. Beyond Nash, the Suns were considering trading for Tracy McGrady or signing Kobe Bryant or Manu Ginobili.

"One of the new ownership group's first questions was 'Why don't we go after Kobe?' but it was pretty clear to us that he wasn't going to be leaving," Colangelo said. "If he was, there was discussion about how he'd jump to the other side of the hallway with the Clippers. I didn't even get a good feel about when the gate lifted on July 1 and it was going to start with phone calls, Kobe was going to narrow it down to a few teams and those teams would be invited to make presentations. It didn't feel right."

Rex Chapman, a Suns scout and Nash's good friend and former Suns teammate, met Nash at his house after 11 p.m. in Dallas when the free agency contact period began and after Bryan Colangelo called Nash first. A Suns contingent including owners, the Colangelos, D'Antoni and Stoudemire took a July 1 early-morning flight on Sarver's private plane to meet Nash at the Dallas home of a new investor, John Landon.

"We put all our eggs in Steve's basket, knowing if we had him as a point guard that maybe we could slip into the playoffs," D'Antoni said. "We got really lucky with Steve."

The Suns traveling party brought a 96-page coffee table book entitled "Turning Point" and made a pitch and an offer for him to take or leave. Nash wanted to stay in Dallas but already was put off that the Mavericks did not extend him. He told Chapman that Phoenix, his original draft team, would be the only other place he would also consider. Dallas owner Mark Cuban would not come close to the Suns' six-year, $65.6 million contract for fear that the 30-year-old would not hold up.

"These are the words I said to him (Nash): 'I can't be stopped and you can't either if we join together,'" Stoudemire said. "I didn't visualize the amount of wins or what we could do from a 'potential' standpoint but I knew he could help us. The sky was the limit at that point."

More work to do

The Suns were not done. A week later, they used the remainder of their salary-cap space to sign swingman Quentin Richardson to a six-year, $48 million contact at the suggestion of new assistant coach Alvin Gentry, who coached him for the Clippers.

"I felt like it was an insurance policy for myself," Suns guard Joe Johnson said. "I felt it was like, 'If Joe doesn't give us any consistency, we'll start Q.' I thought Q was my competition. I didn't know D'Antoni was going to throw Shawn at the 4 and play me and 'Q' together. It was so competitive playing pick-up before training camp and during training camp that he was like, 'I'm just going to put them all out there and see what happens.'"

Even in forming a franchise-changing roster, there were offseason regrets. The Suns traded their No. 7 pick, which could have been Andre Iguodala or Luol Deng, to Chicago for the No. 31 pick (Jackson Vroman) and a 2005 first-round pick (No. 21) that they traded a year later to New York.

Sarver said his biggest regret of his 11 years as managing partner was not extending Johnson before that 2004-05 season started. Johnson wanted a six-year, $50 million contract. Sarver would not budge from $45 million, a difference of $833,333 per year.

"It would've made all the difference in the world," Colangelo said of extending Johnson. "But you also wouldn't have Joe go through that year and gather a little bit of angst and animosity and a feeling of disrespect. We heard it all at the time."

The end of Johnson's negotiations came at the end of the 2004 preseason. By that time, the Suns were smelling success and the league was starting to get a whiff.

'An exciting time'

The chemistry began forming when 12 players gathered for pickup games in Phoenix in mid-September.

"We should be guardedly optimistic," Nash said at the time.

Now, in reflection, Nash said: "Realistically, we're thinking, 'Are we making the playoffs?' That was the debate: 'Are we a playoff team?' Are we a six, seven or eight seed or not? I don't think we had any feelings we were going to get home-court in the playoffs and steamroll people."

Fans were not on board yet. Season ticket sales lagged behind the previous season by 1,000. The Suns signed the NBA's first Japanese player, Yuta Tabuse, as an attention grabber. National publications predicted the Suns to finish between eighth and 12th in the West. Even Steve Kerr, a new Suns investor, put the Suns at No. 8 in the West.

D'Antoni set a 50-win goal, but optimism grew during training camp and preseason as everyone felt the impact of Nash, whose fit body carried 20 fewer pounds than his Suns rookie year. He was the right player at the right time, able to take advantage of the elimination of perimeter hand-checking and 2002 NBA rules changes — that Jerry Colangelo spearheaded — to restore tempo and improvisation.

"We have a great chance to be one of the elite teams because of the leadership we added," Johnson said during the 2004 preseason.

"We're trying to make our own image and get our own label," Marion said at the time.

The Suns went 7-1 in the preseason. It ended with a 124-96 win at Sacramento in which the Suns hit the 100-point mark in the third quarter.

"It was fun," Johnson recalled. "We were blowing through people."

Richardson recalls opposing players asking him during the preseason: "What did y'all do at training camp? How are y'all running so fast?"

"It really didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary," Richardson said. "It was basically, 'Give No. 13 (Nash) the ball. If y'all want to score, better keep up with him.'"

The signs of a special team were there but it was only preseason. Defense and rebounding still were questions. The fun-and-gun was not considered a playoff-conducive system.

"We backed into it," D'Antoni said. "It was more of a gut feeling than an analytic thing. It was like, 'I think this is right but, man, this is a lot of 3s. We're small but I think this is right. We're running but I think this is right.' You're always questioning it. It took our guys buying in. That was an exciting time. It was the best."