Phoenix Suns: Five things you need to know

• Luc Longley, Aron Baynes, Jonah Bolden and Jock Landale have all worn Suns colours.
• Phoenix went 45-37, beat Golden State in the play-in and were swept by Oklahoma City.
• The franchise has never won a championship in 58 seasons.

Four Australians have played for the Phoenix Suns, and the list runs the length of Australia's NBA history.

It starts with Luc Longley, the first Australian to play in the league, who finished a decade in the NBA with a season in Phoenix. It runs through Aron Baynes and Jonah Bolden. It reaches Jock Landale, a Boomers centre still playing today.

No other franchise on this list has quite that spread. Phoenix has been an Australian address at almost every stage of the story.

Australians who have played for the Phoenix Suns

Luc Longley came to Phoenix at the end.

The first Australian to play in the NBA, drafted seventh overall by Minnesota in 1991, Longley won three championships with the Chicago Bulls between 1996 and 1998. When that team broke up he spent the 1999-2000 season with the Suns before finishing his career at New York. At 221cm he remains the tallest Australian to have played in the league.

Aron Baynes arrived two decades later.

The 208cm centre had already won a championship with San Antonio in 2014 and played for Detroit and Boston before joining Phoenix for the 2019-20 season. Baynes was a Boomers mainstay for years, the sort of player whose value never showed up properly in a box score.

Jonah Bolden followed his Philadelphia years with a spell in Phoenix, the second of his two NBA clubs.

Jock Landale is the most recent and the only one still playing.

The 211cm centre spent time with Phoenix as part of a career that has also taken in San Antonio and Houston, and he joined Atlanta during the 2026 season, where he now plays alongside Dyson Daniels.

2026-27 team snapshot

Phoenix had a better season than most expected and it still ended in a sweep.

The Suns went 45-37 under Jordan Ott, a significant recovery from the 36-46 of the year before, and beat Golden State in the play-in tournament to claim the eighth seed in the West.

That earned them Oklahoma City. The Thunder, 64-18 and defending champions, won the series 4-0, taking the first two in Oklahoma by 35 and 13 before closing it out in Phoenix. The Suns pushed them in the last two games, losing by 12 and nine, but were never in the series.

Devin Booker remains the franchise, averaging 26.1 points across the season on a maximum extension.

Why the Suns matter

Every NBA franchise has a story.

The Boston Celtics built a dynasty. The Los Angeles Lakers became basketball's glamour club. The San Antonio Spurs defined sustained excellence.

Phoenix keeps getting close.

Three NBA Finals appearances in 58 seasons, in 1976, 1993 and 2021, and three defeats. Some of the most watchable teams the league has produced, and not one championship to show for any of them.

For Australian readers, though, this is one of the most familiar addresses in the league. Four Australians have played here across three decades, from the man who opened the door to a Boomers centre still in the league today.

The 1976 Finals and the longest game

Phoenix entered the NBA in 1968 and reached its first Finals eight years later.

The 1976 series against Boston produced what is still argued to be the greatest game ever played, a triple-overtime Game 5 that Boston won 128-126. The Suns lost the series in six.

Charles Barkley and 1993

The franchise traded for Charles Barkley in 1992 and he immediately won the MVP.

Phoenix won 62 games and reached the Finals, where they met Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls and lost in six. Barkley gave the Suns the most dominant individual season in franchise history, and it was still not enough.

Seven seconds or less

Steve Nash returned to Phoenix in 2004 and won back-to-back MVP awards in 2005 and 2006.

Under Mike D'Antoni the Suns played at a speed the league had not seen, a fast-break, three-point offence that was widely dismissed as unserious and is now simply how basketball is played. They never reached a Finals with it.

It remains the most influential team never to win anything.

The 2021 run and after

Chris Paul arrived in 2020 and Phoenix reached the Finals the following year, going up 2-0 on Milwaukee before losing four straight.

What followed was expensive and unsuccessful. The Suns assembled star talent and did not get back, and by 2024-25 they had fallen to 36-46 and out of the playoffs entirely.

Last season was the correction: a return to the postseason, and a reminder of the gap to the top.

The greatest Suns of all time

Steve Nash is the defining figure, two MVPs and an offence that changed the sport.

Charles Barkley had the single greatest season, an MVP and a Finals appearance in his first year at the club.

Devin Booker has been the constant through a decade of upheaval and remains the franchise player.

Walter Davis and Kevin Johnson carried the club through earlier eras, and Amar'e Stoudemire was the athletic engine of the Nash teams.

And Luc Longley, for one season at the end of his career, brought the first Australian in NBA history to the desert.

Five Fast Facts

1. Four Australians have played for Phoenix: Luc Longley, Aron Baynes, Jonah Bolden and Jock Landale.

2. Luc Longley, the first Australian in the NBA, spent the 1999-2000 season with the Suns.

3. Phoenix has reached three NBA Finals, in 1976, 1993 and 2021, and lost all three.

4. Steve Nash won back-to-back MVP awards with the Suns in 2005 and 2006.

5. The Suns beat Golden State in the 2026 play-in before being swept by Oklahoma City.

Historical Timeline

• 1968: Phoenix enters the NBA as an expansion team.
• 1976: Reach a first NBA Finals and lose to Boston in six games.
• 1992: Trade for Charles Barkley.
• 1993: Barkley wins MVP and the Suns reach the Finals, losing to Chicago.
• 1999: Luc Longley joins Phoenix for a single season.
• 2004: Steve Nash returns to Phoenix.
• 2005: Nash wins the first of back-to-back MVP awards.
• 2019: Aron Baynes joins the Suns.
• 2021: Reach the NBA Finals and lose to Milwaukee in six games.
• 2026: Finish 45-37, win the play-in against Golden State and are swept by Oklahoma City.

Looking ahead

Phoenix has spent 58 seasons being worth watching without ever finishing the job.

Jordan Ott has the team moving in the right direction, Booker is still one of the best guards in the league, and last season restored a floor after a year outside the playoffs entirely. The gap between eighth in the West and a 64-win Oklahoma City side was made very clear across four games in April.

For Australian viewers there is nobody in Suns colours right now. But this is a franchise that has employed four Australians across three decades, including the first one ever to play in the league. Given the number of Australians now arriving in the NBA every year, the odds of a fifth are reasonable.