1968 – 1976: Team Creation and Early Years
The Suns were one of two franchises to join the NBA at the start of the 1968 – 69 season, alongside the Milwaukee Bucks from Milwaukee. They were the first major professional sports franchise in the Phoenix market and in Arizona. They remained the only one for the better part of 20 years (a Phoenix Roadrunners team played in the World Hockey Association (WHA) from 1974 to 1977) until the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League (NFL) relocated from St. Louis in 1988. The Suns played their first 24 seasons at Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, called the “Madhouse on McDowell”, located slightly northwest of downtown Phoenix. The franchise was formed by an ownership group led by Karl Eller, owner of a public enterprise, and the investors Donald Pitt, Don Diamond, Bhavik Darji, Marvin Meyer, and Richard L. Bloch. Other owners with a minority stake consisted of entertainers, such as Andy Williams, Bobbie Gentry, and Ed Ames(1). There were many critics, including then-NBA commissioner J. Walter Kennedy, who said that Phoenix was “too hot,” “too small,” and “too far away” to be considered a successful NBA market(2). This was even though the Phoenix metropolitan area was growing rapidly, and the Suns would have built-in geographical foes in places like San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle.
After continual prodding by Bloch (who became president of the Phoenix Suns), in 1968 the NBA Board of Governors granted franchises to Phoenix and Milwaukee on January 22nd, 1968, with an entry fee of $2 million. The Suns nickname was among 28,000 entries that were formally chosen in a name-the-team contest sponsored by The Arizona Republic, with the winner being awarded $1,000 and season tickets for the inaugural season(3)(4). Suns were preferred over Scorpions, Rattlers, Thunderbirds, Wranglers, Mavericks, Tumbleweeds, Mustangs, and Cougars. Stan Fabe, who owned a commercial printing plant in Tucson, designed the team’s first iconic logo for a mere $200(2).
In the 1968 NBA expansion draft, notable Suns’ pickups were future Hall of Famer Gail Goodrich and Dick Van Arsdale.
Jerry Colangelo, then a player scout, came over from the Chicago Bulls(5), a franchise formed two years earlier, as the Suns’ first general manager at the age of 28, along with Johnny “Red” Kerr as head coach. Unlike the first-year success that Colangelo and Kerr had in Chicago, in which the Bulls finished with a first-year expansion record of 33 wins and a playoff berth (plus a Coach of the Year for Kerr), Phoenix finished its first year at 16 – 66 and finished 25 games out of the final playoff spot.
Both Goodrich and Van Arsdale were selected to the All-Star Game with the expansion-mate Bucks. Milwaukee won the flip, and the rights to draft UCLA center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor), while Phoenix settled on drafting center Neal Walk from Florida(6). The 1969 – 1970 season posted better results for the Suns, finishing 39 – 43, but lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs. The next two seasons (1970 – 71 and 1971 – 72), the Suns finished with 48- and 49-win seasons, but did not qualify for the playoffs in either year and did not reach the playoffs again until 1976. The major draw for the franchise in this era was the dramatic play of Connie Hawkins.
This era was also marked by the arrival of longtime Suns play-by-play and Naismith Hall of Fame announcer Al McCoy, hired by Jerry Colangelo before the start of the 1972 – 73 NBA season. Soon locally known renowned as “the Voice of the Suns”, his broadcasts were broadcast on both television and radio from 1972 until 2003 when he became exclusive to the Sun's Radio Network. He was still broadcasting Suns home games on radio as of the 2022 – 23 season, having called all three NBA Finals appearances for the franchise (in 1976, 1993, and 2021).
Colangelo called Al McCoy “the greatest salesman for the game of basketball in our entire state” and said that “he had as much to do with the success of the Suns as any player, coach or manager”.(7)
1975 – 1976: Trip to the NBA Finals
The 1975 – 76 season proved to be a pivotal year for the Suns as they made several key moves, including the off-season trade of former All-Star guard Charlie Scott to the Boston Celtics in exchange for Paul Westphal, a member of Boston’s 1974 championship team. They also drafted center and eventual fan favorite Alvan Adams from the University of Oklahoma and guard Ricky Sobers of UNLV. The Suns and Buffalo Braves made a midseason trade, with Phoenix sending forward/center John Shumate to Buffalo in exchange for forward Garfield Heard.
Phoenix had an inconsistent regular season, starting out at 14 – 9 (then the best start in team history), then going 4 – 18 during a stretch where the team sustained several injuries (including Dick Van Arsdale breaking his right arm in a February game). The Suns then went 24 – 13 in the final 37 games to finish 42 – 40, clinching their first playoff spot since 1970. The Suns faced the Seattle SuperSonics in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs, winning the series four games to two, and beat the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference Finals, four games to three, to advance to their first NBA Finals.
The Suns faced an experienced Celtics team, led by eventual Hall of Famers Dave Cowens, John Havlicek, and Jo Jo White. Game five of the 1976 NBA Finals took place at Boston Garden, where the Suns came back from a 22-point first-half deficit to force overtime. Havlicek made what was supposed to be the game-winning basket, due to fans rushing the floor before time officially expired, officials put one second back on the clock with Phoenix having possession of the ball, but under their own basket. Instead of attempting a desperation heave, the Suns’ Westphal intentionally called a timeout that they did not have, a technical foul, giving the Celtics a free throw, which Jo Jo White converted to put them up 112 – 110. However, this advanced the ball to half-court, and once the Suns had possession, Garfield Heard made a buzzer-beating turnaround jump shot to force a third overtime. The Suns’ hard-fought battle was short-lived, as Boston’s reserve player Glenn McDonald scored six of his eight points in the third overtime to lead the Celtics to a 128 – 126 win. Boston eventually won the series in six games, clinching the championship at the Coliseum, defeating Phoenix in game six, 87 – 80.
Resources
1. Murtha, Tara (2015). Ode to Billie Joe. New York,
NY: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781623562212.
Retrieved December 11, 2021.
2. https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/
nba/suns/2018/01/22/phoenix-milwaukee-
awarded-nba-expansion-franchises-50-
years-ago/1056335001/
3. https://web.archive.org/web/
20210709220811/https://www.nba.com/
suns/00644119.html#
4. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/
23115/origins-all-30-nba-team-names
5. https://www.nba.com/suns/news/tribune
040910.html
6. https://archive.ph/20141218134923/
http://archive.azcentral.com/sports/suns/
articles/20121116coin-flip-changed-lot-
phoenix-suns-los-angeles-lakers.html
7. McCoy, Al; Wolfe, Rich (2009). The Real
McCoy. Lone Wolfe Press. ISBN 9780980097870.
