Phoenix Suns: 10 Best NBA Draft Picks Since 1990

The Phoenix Suns have had a tremendous amount of success over the last 20-plus years even if the franchise hasn't been able to get over the hump and win an NBA title. 

Part of the reason for the team's success has been a number of impressive draft picks that they've made over the same time frame. 

You can probably guess a couple of big names that are going to make this list, namely Steve Nash, Amar'e Stoudemire and Shawn Marion. 

But to find out the other seven and see where that trio ranks, you'll have to read on. 

How Draft Value Was Determined

First of all, what exactly can teams count on when they make a draft pick? Well, unless a team releases or trades a player, they are under the team's control after the draft for up to four years, the maximum length of a rookie contract. So really, when looking at draft steals, we should focus almost exclusively on the first four years of a player's career. 

As a result, I looked at the first four years of Win Shares data for a player, as provided by basketball-reference.com. Win Shares are an advanced basketball metric calculated so that one Win Share is exactly equal to one win provided by that player to his team's cause. It's the combination of Offensive Win Shares and Defensive Win Shares, a full breakdown of which can be found on this page, called "Calculating Win Shares."

Starting with the year 1990, when the NBA draft first introduced the current lottery system, I looked at each and every single player drafted into The Association, tracking their draft position and the amount of Win Shares they produced in their first four seasons in the league. It is important to note that I only evaluated data through the 2007 draft because the players taken in 2008-2011 have not yet played out their first four seasons in the league.

Moreover, players who were drafted by one team and immediately traded to another were considered as drafted by the team who wound up with their services. 

After I had data for all 1,028 players drafted from 1990-2007, I took the average number of Four-Year Win Shares for each draft position and plotted them on a scatterplot (which you can see in the embedded picture with draft position along the x-axis and Four-Year Win Shares along the y-axis).

Using a best-fit logistical regression, I found the following formula: Four-Year Win Shares = -5.836* ln (draft position) +24.537.

For the statistically inclined out there, that equation has a coefficient of determination (r^2) of 0.91024. For the non-statistically inclined, the equation fits extremely well. 

Using this formula, we can plug in a number for draft position and have the formula show how many Four-Year Win Shares a player drafted there should be expected to produce. For example, the first overall pick of a draft should produce 24.537 Win Shares while the 30th overall pick should produce 4.688. 

With that data firmly established, we can tell exactly how much players have exceeded or failed to live up to the expectations associated with the slot in which they were drafted. That can be done by subtracting the expected win shares based on the draft position from the actual number of Four-Year Win Shares that players produced.

If the difference is positive, the player exceeded expectations by that much and was a bit of a steal. If the difference is negative, the player failed to live up to the expectations and was a bit of a bust. 

Let's look at Monta Ellis, a player commonly referred to as a draft steal, for an example.  

Ellis was drafted 40th overall, so he should have been expected to produce 3.08 Four-Year Win Shares. The shooting guard actually produced 13.7 over the first four years of his career, meaning that the Golden State Warriors "stole" 10.69 Four-Year Win Shares when they drafted him. This was still a great pick, there's no denying that. It's just not as great as quite a few players drafted ahead of him.

It's important to realize exactly what we're looking at. As some of you may have realized, even No. 1 picks may be considered steals.

Because I was only able to look at data from 1990-2007 as the last four draft classes haven't yet played out their fourth seasons in the league, players drafted in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 have to be excluded from this list.  

10. Steve Nash (No. 15 in 1996)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 9.5

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 8.7

Difference: 0.8 

You may see surprised to see Steve Nash, the legendary point guard for the Phoenix Suns who just happens to have been selected to his eighth All-Star team, coming in all the way down here at No. 10. 

But remember, according to my formula, draft value is only based on the first four years of a player's career because that's all a team can count on when they draft a player. 

Nash really wasn't anything special during those first four seasons. He only truly broke out a few years into his career with the Dallas Mavericks. 

The Canadian floor general spent the first two seasons of his career with the Suns, starting just 11 of the 141 games he appeared in . With the Mavs, Nash started 67 of 96 games but still didn't appear to be anything special with a PER of just 13.5 in his first season.  

9. Chris Carr (No. 56 in 1995)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 3.3

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 1.0

Difference: 2.3

When you're the No. 56 pick of the NBA draft, you really aren't expected to do much, as evidenced by the Expected Four-Year Win Shares total of 1.0. 

After a terrific three-year career with the Southern Illinios Salukis, Chris Carr was drafted in this spot and exceeded the expectations over the course of his six-year tenure in the NBA. 

Only his rookie season, one in which he averaged 4.0 points, 1.7 rebounds and 0.7 assists per game, was spent with the Phoenix Suns before he signed with the Minnesota Timberwolves in free agency. 

Carr would spend the next three years of his career as a low-level starter with the Timberwolves before he was traded to the New Jersey Nets as part of a three-team trade. 

8. Richard Dumas (No. 46 in 1991)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 4.5

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 2.2

Difference: 2.3

It should have been a telltale sign that Richard Dumas' scoring average and health declined during his three-year collegiate career with the Oklahoma State Cowboys. Despite the red flags, the Phoenix Suns took a shot and selected the forward with the No. 46 pick of the 1991 draft. 

Dumas had a terrific rookie season when he wasn't suspended for violating the substance abuse policy. He played in 48 games, starting 32 of them, and averaged 15.8 points, 4.6 rebounds, 1.3 assists and 1.8 steals per game while posting an impressive PER of 18.6. 

But just like he did in Stillwater, Dumas declined throughout his next two seasons. He never came close to replicating his first-year success and was out of the league two years and 54 games played after he returned from rehab. 

7. Oliver Miller (No. 22 in 1992)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 13.8

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 6.5

Difference: 7.3

Before his weight ballooned and his journeyman career started (one that would see him play overseas and with the Harlem Globetrotters), Oliver Miller got to show off his passing skills from the 5-spot for the Phoenix Suns. 

The less famous of the players nicknamed "The Big O," this former Arkansas Razorback had a mini breakout in his second season, averaging 9.2 points, 6.9 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 1.2 steals and 2.3 blocks per game. 

The Toronto Raptors stole the center in the 1995 expansion draft and then he moved on to the Dallas Mavericks for his fourth season, which just happened to be his best by far. That year, Miller averaged 12.9 points, 7.4 rebounds, 2.9 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.9 blocks per game. 

6. Leandro Barbosa (No. 28 in 2003)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 15.7

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 5.1

Difference: 10.6

I'm still a bit disappointed that the Phoenix Suns traded away this Brazilian guard to the Toronto Raptors because I'll always think of him as a member of the team that originally took a chance on him with the 28th pick of the 2003 NBA draft. 

One of the fastest men to play in the NBA, Leandro Barbosa got off to a decent start as a rookie and continued to improve throughout each and every one of the four seasons I'm looking at. 

He capped it off with a 2006-2007 campaign in which he was named the NBA Sixth Man of the Year after averaging 18.1 points, 2.7 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 1.2 steals and 0.2 blocks. 

5. Cedric Ceballos (No. 48 in 1990)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 14.3

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 1.9

Difference: 12.4

Cedric Ceballos is ranked this high despite the fact that none of his high-scoring seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers, which started right after the four-year window, count here. 

Drafted in the second round of the 1990 draft, Ceballos will go down as having one of the more productive careers in basketball history for a player drafted that late.

The former standout from Cal State Fullerton was mediocre at best during his first two seasons at the professional level, but he started to dominate in his third one. Ceballos led the entire NBA in field goal percentage that season, knocking down 57.6 percent of his shots from the field as he averaged 12.8 points and 5.5 rebounds per game.

Even though he didn't lead the league in anything the next year, the Hawaii native continued to improve, averaging 19.1 points and 6.5 boards per contest during the 1993-1994 season, his final one with the Suns.  

4. Amar'e Stoudemire (No. 9 in 2002)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 25.3

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 11.7

Difference: 13.6

Amar'e Stoudemire entered the league and immediately dominated, winning the Rookie of the Year award in his inaugural season. In fact, I recently wrote that he had the 13th-best rookie season of the last decade. 

If Stoudemire's rookie year wasn't good enough, he improved dramatically in his second. The offensively-talented dunk machine averaged over 20 points per game but only played in 53 contests throughout the year. 

The prep-to-pro stud was named an All-Star the following season as he averaged an insane 26.0 points and 8.9 rebounds per game for the Seven Seconds or Less Phoenix Suns. 

If it wasn't for his unfortunate knees, Stoudemire would have played more than three games in his fourth season and would have finished second on this list. 

3. Michael Finley (No. 21 in 1995)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 23.1

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 6.8

Difference: 16.3

The swingman from the University of Wisconsin entered the league in 1995 and made an immediate impact for the Phoenix Suns as he averaged 15.0 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.5 assists during his rookie season. 

Michael Finley started 72 games that season, appearing in all 82, but those games would comprise the vast majority of his time with the team that drafted him in the first round. Twenty-seven games into the 1996-1997 season, Phoenix traded him to the Dallas Mavericks. 

He put up numbers nearly identical to his rookie campaign that year before breaking the 20 points per game mark as a third-year player. 

2. Wesley Person (No. 23 in 1994)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 23.3

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 6.2

Difference: 17.1

The younger brother of the more well known Chuck Person, Wesley Person made his living from behind the three-point arc.

After a four-year career with Auburn, Wesley was drafted by the Phoenix Suns and almost immediately became the starting shooting guard for the team.

His scoring average steadily increased throughout the first four years of his career, the final one spent with the Cleveland Cavaliers. In that fourth season, Person averaged 14.7 points per game, the second-highest average of his career, and led the league in three-pointers made and attempted.

Due to a drastic increase in minutes and shots made from downtown, Person manage to put up 10.3 Win Shares in that season alone.  

1. Shawn Marion (No. 9 in 1999)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 38.6

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 11.7

Difference: 26.9

When you're drafted in the lottery, you have to have had a truly impressive first four seasons in the NBA to make it to the top of a "Best Draft Picks" article. That's exactly what Shawn Marion did. 

The Matrix had a decent rookie season, starting 38 of the 51 games he played in while averaging 10.2 points, 6.5 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 0.7 steals and 1.0 blocks per game. 

Although it took him until the 2002-2003 season to make his first All-Star team, Marion put up some pretty stellar numbers during his second and third seasons as well. The former UNLV one-and-done averaged double digits in the rebounding column as a second-year player before becoming an across-the-board stud in his third season. 

As impressive as those ones were though, they all pale in comparison to his All-Star fourth season when he averaged 21.2 points, 9.5 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 2.3 steals and 1.2 blocks per game with a 21.3 PER and 13 Win Shares in that season alone.