Lack of defensive prowess long a Suns trademark

When the grief from John Paxson's 3-pointer in 1993 and the shock from Houston's three-game playoff rally in '94 had abated, Suns forward Charles Barkley approached team management with an idea.

Decision on D’Antoni may take until next week

Click to view Suns' annual defensive statistics

"I tried to get the Suns to be better defensively by going and getting one more big guy," said Barkley, never known for his contributions at the blue-collar end of the floor.

"Typical Suns," Barkley said. "They went and got Wayman Tisdale and Danny Manning. They went and got more offense!"

That decision is viewed by some as a microcosm of the organization's 40-year philosophy.

Whether it was the golden age of Barkley, Danny Ainge's small ball, the Paul Westphal-led 1975-76 team or Mike D'Antoni's seven-seconds-or-less bunch, offense has been the Suns' calling card.

Defense, in most years, has been relegated to the undercard.

Just eight Suns have ever been chosen for the All-NBA defensive first or second teams.

In 40 seasons, the Suns have finished among the top five teams in opponents' field-goal percentage just four times - none since the 1999-2000 season when Scott Skiles took over as coach for Ainge and helped Phoenix limit opponents to a franchise-record 42.4 percent shooting.

How much does that stat matter in the title equation? As Suns chairman and franchise architect Jerry Colangelo noted, statistics are open to interpretation, so take this with a grain of salt.

But over the past four decades, the NBA champion has ranked among the league's top five in opponents' field-goal percentage 26 times (65 percent), among the league's top third 33 times (83 percent), and in the top half of the league 39 times.

The only champ that did not finish in the top half? Ironically, the Chicago Bulls (15th of 27) team that beat the Suns on that fateful Paxson fling.

"The numbers are what they are, so you can conclude whatever you want to conclude, but there was never a design not to have good defensive players," Colangelo said. "We did not intentionally not draft players who were great defensive players because we wanted to focus on offense.

"We tried like heck to bring in inside players. Rebounding players. There were just a whole lot of factors that worked against us."

Most notable among those factors has been the Suns' endless and fruitless search for a franchise center - an odyssey that began when the club lost the coin flip for the draft rights to Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) in 1969.

"People always ask me what's the difference between the Lakers and the Suns and I say '21 feet,' " Colangelo said. "That's what you get when you put (former Lakers centers) Wilt Chamberlain, Jabbar and Shaq together."

There also have been draft busts such as "Corky Calhoun (fourth overall, 1972), who we thought would be a defensive stopper, and David Thirdkill (15th, 1982)," Colangelo admitted.

And there have been trades that directly affected the Suns' defense.

After three straight seasons among the NBA's defensive elite - including the 1982-83 season in which the Suns finished first for the only time in their history - Phoenix got swindled by the Boston Celtics in the trade that sent defensive stalwart Dennis Johnson to the parquet floor and Rick Robey into Valley infamy.

And when the Suns acquired Barkley in 1992, they ended a four-year run of defensive success in which the team finished in the top 25 percent of the league every year.

"No disrespect, but they've always had offensive coaches, too," Barkley said. "Westphal, Danny (Ainge), (Mike) D'Antoni.

"At some point they'll realize the game comes down to defense and rebounding - and that's probably the thing that's disappointed me the most is that they've been good enough to win a championship offensively, but nobody can tell me they have played defense well enough to win one."

Barkley's assessment contains an important and obvious note. Defense alone won't win a championship. Seven of the past 10 NBA champions also have been ranked among the league's top seven in offensive field-goal percentage.

"I don't think any team that aspires to win championships focuses on one phase or the other," ABC commentator and former NBA coach Jeff Van Gundy said. "They focus on trying to win and becoming the best balanced team they can."

Van Gundy believes criticism of the Suns' current style under D'Antoni is typical of a reactionary media and reactionary fans.

"Hindsight is easy," he said. "It's easy to say they can't win a championship the way they've tried to, now that they haven't. But I think they're a great team that has missed out on some opportunities because of bad breaks and because they've played teams that were better than them."

The bad breaks have been well-chronicled, most recently Steve Nash's bloody nose and the suspensions of Amaré Stoudemire and Boris Diaw in last year's playoffs. But it doesn't help that the Suns' latest nemesis is defensive-minded San Antonio, a team that has finished in the top four in opponents' field-goal percentage in each of its four title seasons.

With that sort of blueprint staring you in the face, don't you at least have to acknowledge its effectiveness?

"Defense has been more of common denominator on championships teams. I wouldn't disagree with that," said Alvan Adams, the Suns center from 1975-88 who epitomized the skilled, finesse-type players the Suns have often employed. "For a long time the Suns have been a team that loves to run with great hands, great shooting and the ability to make steals, but were they a great defensive team when I played? No. Are they a great defensive team now? No."

There are those who steadfastly believe the Suns' style can win a title, among them D'Antoni and Van Gundy.

"When the ball was in Paxson's hands, did you know you couldn't win that game and a title?" Van Gundy asked. "Did you know before Nash got a bloody nose or before the two guys left the bench that you couldn't win that game?"

There is also the business end of the equation to consider. The Suns' exciting style has captured the Valley's heart and has generally translated into good attendance over the years.

"You can take all the statistics and flush them," Colangelo said. "No matter how we played or who we drafted or what the outcomes, at the end of the day, for the 40 years we have played, we have the third-best record in the history of the NBA."

It's a nice stat on which to hang the organization's hat. But, as Colangelo well knows, success in American sports is not measured in winning percentage. It's measured in titles.

Defensive honors

In their 40-year history, the Suns have had eight players chosen for the All-NBA defensive first or second teams