NBA Free Agency 2012: Steve Nash Leaving Phoenix Is Official End of Runnin' Suns

It’s official. Steve Nash is no longer a member of the Phoenix Suns. Now that he’s left Phoenix for the rival Los Angeles Lakers in hopes of chasing a championship, it’s the end of an era for Phoenix Suns basketball.

Nash was the last remnant of the famous run-and-gun Suns teams headed by offensive guru Mike D’Antoni. Now those great Suns teams that were a threat to score 140-160 points on any given night are nothing but a fond memory (if they weren’t already).

The starting five in those days was Nash, Joe “JJ” Johnson, Quentin “Q” Richardson, Shawn “The Matrix” Marion and Amar’e “STAT” Stoudemire.

Perhaps if those run-and-gun Nash-led teams had not been so unlucky…

If Joe Johnson hadn’t been undercut on a dunk attempt in which he fell face-first to the hardwood, breaking his orbital bone, maybe the Suns beat the Dallas Mavericks in 2005.

I was at that game. Johnson stayed down on the court for a good 10 minutes before stepping up to the free throw line with a broken face. When he hit the ground, the energy from the building evaporated. Everyone in the building knew the magnitude of what had just happened...

In addition, maybe if Tim Donaghy hadn’t officiated the Suns series against the San Antonio Spurs in 2007, Nash and Co. would already have a championship ring to their name.

Donaghy and company made a plethora of heinous calls that clearly favored the Spurs. Bill Simmons, a columnist for ESPN at the time, wrote this in a column two days after the game:

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“Congratulations to Greg Willard, Tim Donaghy and Eddie F. Rush for giving us the most atrociously officiated game of the playoffs so far: Game 3 of the Suns-Spurs series. Bennett Salvatore, Tom Washington and Violet Palmer must have been outraged that they weren't involved in this mess. Good golly. Most of the calls favored the Spurs, but I don't even think the refs were biased—they were so incompetent that there was no rhyme or reason to anything that was happening. Other than the latest call in NBA history (a shooting foul for Ginobili whistled three seconds after the play, when everyone was already running in the other direction), my favorite moment happened near the end, when the game was already over and they called a cheap bump on Bruce Bowen against Nash, so the cameras caught Mike D'Antoni (the most entertaining coach in the league if he's not getting calls) screaming sarcastically, "Why start now? Why bother?" What a travesty. Not since the cocaine era from 1978-1986 has the league faced a bigger ongoing issue than crappy officiating.”

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Keep in mind this was written before the Donaghy betting scandal broke. It was painfully obvious that something wasn’t right that night (even to Simmons, a Boston Celtics fan who has no bias toward either the Suns or Spurs).

Everyone could see it happening. It was like watching a car crash develop from the side of the road. There’s nothing you can do to stop the event from happening and you can’t look away…

Finally, it's possible that if Robert Horry hadn’t hip-checked Nash into the scorer’s table, prompting Boris Diaw and Amar’e Stoudemire to leap off the bench to go to Nash’s side, netting them both suspensions from David Stern, their fortunes would have been different. Not to mention Stoudemire's frequent absences due to injuries to his knees and his eye.

Unfortunately for Suns fans, the “woulda-shoulda-coulda” mentality doesn’t work in sports.

The events above happened. No matter how unlucky, unfair or unfortunate they were, those reasons—along with other teams simply being better—prevented Nash from winning a championship in a Suns uniform.

Joe Johnson left for Atlanta after feeling dejected that the Suns didn’t sign him to a fair contract earlier in his career. This news was broken to me by a night check-in clerk in an Atlanta hotel. My family was on the way to Europe and our flight got delayed so we were stuck in Atlanta for the night.

“You guys just lost Joe Johnson to the Atlanta Hawks,” he said with a huge grin and a little jig of a dance.

My Dad half-joked that we could no longer go back to Phoenix. Much like the game where Johnson slipped off the rim and slammed to court, this is one of my most vivid memories. That's how it is with sports.

With that, the first of the run-and-gun Suns was gone.

Johnson now heads the “paid like a franchise guy, but isn’t” All-Star team.

The next member of the 62-win Suns team to leave town was Quentin “Q” Richardson.

Richardson is best remembered for this three-point shooting prowess.

During the 2004-2005 season, Q beat Dan Majerle’s Suns record for most three-point field goals made in one season (199). Richardson finished the year with 226 three-point field goals made. He also won the three-point shootout at NBA All-Star Weekend that season.

Despite his effectiveness as one of Nash’s best sharpshooting wingmen, Richardson was traded along with Suns' first-round draft choice Nate Robinson to the New York Knicks in exchange for Kurt Thomas. This was arguably one of the worst trades in Suns' history and one of the organization’s many attempts to morph into the San Antonio Spurs.

Shawn Marion was the next, shipped to Miami as part of the trade that brought Shaquille O’Neal to the Valley of the Sun (a trade that slowed down the Suns' stellar offense and diminished Nash’s effectiveness). The Big Cactus was eventually dealt to the Cleveland Cavaliers to save cash.

After perhaps the best “addition by subtraction” trade in Suns' history, the Suns made a Western Conference Finals run with Nash and Stoudemire running the show. A series the Suns eventually lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in six games.

That offseason, Stoudemire left for the lucrative contract offered in New York, leaving Nash as the final piece remaining to the days of the run-and-gun Suns.

It was inevitable, but now every member of that team is nothing but a memory, including the two-time MVP and floor general Stephen John “Steve” Nash.

So one more time, Suns fans: “Come on and make some noise for the run-and-gun Suns.”