Going Nowhere

Last season, Cotton Fitzsimmons, then the Suns' executive vice president and now also their coach, surveyed his team and said, "I love every one of these guys, but I hope to trade all of them before they retire."

So goes the philosophy in Phoenix. In hopes of winning a championship, the Suns have dealt, without blinking, some of their most popular players ( Jeff Hornacek, Dan Majerle and Larry Nance, to name three), receiving in return players who have kept Phoenix near the top, such as Charles Barkley and Kevin Johnson.

Yet an NBA title has eluded the Suns—and hopes of a championship were again slipping away following Sunday's 110-105 loss to the Spurs in Game 2 of a best-of-five first-round Western Conference playoff. That defeat sent the Suns to the brink of elimination as the series headed to Phoenix. In their two losses last week to San Antonio, the Suns fell victim to the same woes that plagued them during a lackluster 41-41 regular season: erratic perimeter shooting, soft defense and injuries.

For forward Danny Manning, who's battling tendinitis in his left knee, an early Phoenix exit might be a blessing, allowing him to resume his rehabilitation. But for Fitzsimmons and Phoenix president Jerry Colangelo the off-season could prove to be long and frustrating. For the first time in several seasons they may have difficulty wheeling and dealing to reload their lineup. They don't want to trade Manning, 29, a cornerstone who will be around, health permitting, for another six seasons. And the veterans they might like to send elsewhere have expensive and/or long-term contracts that could make them hard to get rid of. For instance, the Suns would swap 32-year-old forward A.C. Green in a heartbeat, but with his contract averaging $6.4 million over the next three seasons, who would take him? Ditto for center-forward Wayman Tisdale, who will turn 32 next month and who is on the books for next season at $3.4 million. Injury-prone guard Johnson, 30, has a 1996-97 salary of $7 million. John (Hot Rod) Williams, 33, a disappointment in the middle since being acquired from the Cavaliers last fall in the Majerle deal, is set to haul in almost $3 million next season. Reserve guard Elliott Perry? He's only 27, but he is signed for five more years at $2.14 million per season. Thirty-four-year-old reserve center Joe Kleine? He has another year at $1.23 million.

The X factor in Phoenix's rebuilding campaign is Barkley. Sir Charles shocked many basketball insiders by accepting an invitation to play on Dream Team III in this summer's Olympics. Suns sources say that one of the reasons Barkley decided to participate in the Games is that he's seriously considering retiring and views Atlanta as a perfect setting for his swan song. Barkley's threats to quit have become a rite of spring, but the situation is different this year. For the first time in Barkley's four seasons in Phoenix, the Suns no longer loom as serious contenders. And the prideful Barkley isn't thrilled that he's not an untouchable anymore. Phoenix would unhesitatingly pull the trigger on a deal sending him elsewhere to obtain a young player—or some salary-cap room.

The Suns might just let their expected decline run its course. Colangelo concedes that Phoenix won't be a major player in this summer's bidding wars for the most impressive free-agent group in history. "My plan is to watch all these other teams beat the tar out of each other for the top players, and hang around and pick up the crumbs," he says. Look for Colangelo to make a small move at improving his club, perhaps with a run at Bullets free-agent center Jim McIlvaine. Then he'll sit back and wait until 1998, when—under terms of the rookie salary cap, which took effect this season—the NBA's current rookies become free agents. However, if Barkley has played his final season with the Suns, don't be surprised if Phoenix tries to bring back Majerle, who becomes a free agent in July.

Two for the Hall

As two of the game's most prolific and electrifying offensive players in the 1970s and '80s, they dueled each other for scoring titles, and on Monday they will enter the Basketball Hall of Fame together. But basketball is not the only link between George (Iceman) Gervin and David Thompson. Each went through a drug addiction that nearly destroyed his life.

Gervin, who played primarily for the Spurs, averaged 25.1 points per game during his 14 seasons in the ABA and the NBA and is one of only three players to lead the league in scoring at least four times ( Michael Jordan, with eight scoring titles, and Wilt Chamberlain, with seven, are the others). Gervin says that he started using cocaine while with San Antonio but that his problem worsened at the end of his career, after he was released by the Bulls following the 1985-86 season. "I couldn't deal with not being in the league anymore," he says. "I didn't feel I was worth very much. That's when the disease took hold of me and wouldn't let go."

Thompson, who was a three-time All-America at North Carolina State, averaged 21.5 points over nine seasons through 1983-84 for the Nuggets (ABA and NBA) and the Sonics. His cocaine use began in mid-career and soon turned into an addiction, one Thompson at first refused to acknowledge. "I got caught up in something that was a fad at the time," Thompson says. "I kept telling myself, Addiction will never happen to a guy like me. Things had to fall totally apart before I finally realized it could." Thompson bottomed out in 1987 when he served time in a minimum-security detention center after assaulting his wife.