PHOENIX HAS RISEN : Suns Warmed Up for Playoffs With Late-Season Run

The Sunrise is in the West these days.

And the Phoenix Suns aren’t too bad against the Eastern Conference, either.

The Suns, in recent seasons nothing more than a flicker, have risen all the way back to the playoffs, where they will play the Denver Nuggets in a first-round series beginning here tonight.

With the fourth-best record in the National Basketball Assn., they are the league’s success story of the year, all due respect to the Cleveland Cavaliers, whose climb in the East was predictable for a couple years.

All this once-proud organization had to do was:

--Ship most every player out of town, out of sight and out of mind to help purge a drug scandal that had clouded the image of the franchise.

--Trade away Larry Nance, its biggest asset, in a deal that, in the eyes of most fans, left the team with the biggest hole around these parts since the Grand Canyon.

--Sign a player, labled throughout the league as selfish and a malcontent, for five years and $9.5 million.

--Take the director of player personnel and make him the coach. And then have him immediately name a successor and lay out a plan to return to the front office.

And then, to have them go 55-27 and push the Lakers for the Pacific Division title? It reads like a most unlikely script. Even to the authors.

“We went into training camp thinking we could be a .500 team,” said Jerry Colangelo, who has been with the Suns for 21 seasons as coach and general manager, and now as president and chief executive officer. “We felt if we could accomplish that, we could accomplish a great deal. If anybody would have said anything else, they’d have been kidding themselves.”

So now it is time for the epilogue, even if reaching this stage so soon already makes for a happy ending. It’s just that an NBA championship, a realistic possibility, would make it better.

Act I: “Sun-rise, Sun-set. . . . Sun-rise.”

Appropriately, the Suns represent a city named for the mythical bird that rose from its own ashes to live again, which rates as one of your better comebacks.

From 16-66 in their first season, 1968-69, the Suns were better than .500 within two years and an NBA finalist within seven, going from 42-40 in the 1975-76 regular season to 2-2 with Boston for the championship. Then came a memorable triple-overtime win for the Celtics in Game 5, and they wrapped up the title in Game 6.

Although the Suns never got back to the final, they became one of the league’s most consistent winners. During a six-year period beginning in 1977-78, they averaged 51.7 victories. In the 41-41 season of 1983-84, just after that stretch, Phoenix took the Lakers to six games in the Western Conference final.

But injuries came and losing seasons followed. Then the stunning news that rocked the town and the league: In April of 1987, a Maricopa County grand jury investigating drug use in the Phoenix area indicted three players and two former Suns on charges ranging from possession to trafficking in cocaine and other narcotics.

The fallout was so bad, beyond the losing, that Colangelo almost had to move the team. No one wanted to come and watch the dope heads, as many fans called the players. What had once been known as the Madhouse on McDowell, because of the exuberant fan support, became a morgue.

Of the 13 people eventually indicted, only one, a waiter, got any jail time, and that was just 30 days. But, clearly, damage had been done.

“I felt deep down inside that we had to back up a truck and toss all the old players in,” Colangelo said. “It wasn’t a matter of them being guilty or not guilty. They were tainted because of the massive publicity the case received.”

So out they went. Some were traded, some were cut. When Walter Davis, one of the greatest players in franchise history and a central figure in the scandal, became a free agent after last season, Phoenix made little effort to re-sign him.

How complete was the changeover?

Jeff Hornacek, the starting shooting guard, is No. 1 in seniority with the Suns. This is his third season. “It’s been very strange to basically see 12 new guys in about one year,” Hornacek said. “The surprising thing is that we came together as quickly as we did. I mean, we have a lot of good players, but I don’t think we have the best talent around. But our chemistry is probably better than any team in the league.”

It has been a potent mix.

After a 5-7 November, including losses to the Clippers, New Jersey and San Antonio, three lottery teams to be, the Suns won 50 of their final 70 games. That includes 18 of 22 and a franchise-record six-game road winning streak to close the regular season.

Tom Chambers, signed as a free agent, averaged 25.7 points, ninth-best in the league, and 8.4 rebounds. Kevin Johnson, acquired from Cleveland in a trade last season, finished with 12.2 assists, third-best in the NBA, and 20.4 points to become, at 23, only the fifth player in history to average better than 10 and 20, respectively. Sixth man Eddie Johnson, acquired from Sacramento before last season, averaged 21.5 points, making the Suns the only team to have three players at 20 points or better.

Coach Cotton Fitzsimmons calls very few plays in a wide-open offense that turned the Suns into the No. 1 scoring team in the league. He didn’t set many goals, either. The only one, in fact, was to reach the playoffs. Eighth place would have been fine.

“I think the worst thing you can do is set unrealistic goals,” he said. “It’s one thing for Pat (Riley) to say the Lakers will repeat. They’ve proven how good they are. But us? So this year, our goals were very simple.”

Today, their chances of taking the title from the Lakers are as unbound as the offense. And, around here, just as exciting.

“We used to be the lowest you could be in the Valley of the Sun,” Fitzsimmons said. “We were in the trash heap every day. We needed something to sell. Sure, if we had this record and walked the ball up court every time, (the fans) would still like us. But now they love us. We’re winning and it’s exciting.”

The Suns averaged 12,112 fans and had 18 sellouts in the 14,471-seat Veterans Memorial Coliseum, both franchise records. The Madhouse on McDowell lives again, obviously given a rebirth of its own.

Act II: “Smiling Tom Chambers.”

How different the balance of power in the NBA could have been!

After becoming a free agent last summer, Chambers’ first preference was to stay in Seattle, the team he spent the previous five seasons with. When he got, by his reckoning, no worthwhile offer, he looked elsewhere.

He looked to the Lakers, albeit briefly. He liked the program and long had expressed a desire to play with Magic Johnson.

But Chambers knew from the start that a hook-up wasn’t likely because the Lakers were already at the salary-cap limit.

So, he looked homeward, which seemed a realistic--and frightening--possibility. A graduate of the University of Utah and a resident of Ogden, not far north of Salt Lake City, Chambers in the same front line with Karl Malone and Mark Eaton would have made the Jazz a formidable bunch.

He had a meeting all set up with Utah officials, too. But first, Chambers would talk with the Suns, spending part of one afternoon with agent Howard Slusher, Colangelo, Fitzsimmons and assistant Coach Paul Westphal at Slusher’s Los Angeles home.

At one stage, Colangelo and Slusher adjourned to another room.

“Howard, what’s the number?” Colangelo said.

“Ten million for five years,” the agent responded.

Colangelo countered with $9.5 million, and the condition that the offer was gone as soon as the Suns were out of the house.

Slusher went back into the other room to talk with Chambers. He came back 15 minutes later.

“You’ve got yourself a forward,” he said to Colangelo.

And a great deal of credibility.

Chambers averaged 19.5 points in his seven seasons in the NBA with the SuperSonics and San Diego Clippers, and he could play all three positions in the front court. He gave the Suns someone who could consistently sink 18-foot jump shots against a center, or could post up a small forward, or run the fast break as well as most any big man. He was 29 when the season began and had never averaged fewer than 17.2 points as a pro.

“Let’s put it this way,” Fitzsimmons said. “We’d be battling hard to make .500 without Tom. That’s how much he has meant to us.”

The Suns, like everyone else, knew he could play. It was the way he played that earned him the reputation as a selfish player, even a sulker. As much as Chambers claims he didn’t deserve to be branded as such, others say without hesitation he earned the tag.

“Oh, yeah,” Houston Coach Don Chaney said. “Definitely. From the outside, not being around his team every day, it appeared most every time I saw him that he didn’t play team basketball. In the past, the ball would stick to his hands a little longer than it should have.”

So imagine the wide eyes around the league now.

“Believe it or not, I feel he has brought leadership,” Chaney said last week. “He’s shown he has made a total change in attitude and that he can be a team player.”

Chambers has been saying as much all along.

“People think I’ve changed,” he said. “Hell, I haven’t changed. I’m the same person on the floor. I’m just smiling more off the floor because we’re winning. It’s disappointing to always have to defend myself. I’ve given up on that and I just go out and play my game.

“The guys were good to me from the start. There has never been any problems. But I don’t blame them for wondering about me when I first came. If I had heard that there was some guy coming in and all he cared about were his own stats, I would have been very leery and watching him very closely, too.

“It wasn’t a personal problem. It was a competitive problem. How happy am I supposed to appear when I play for the Clippers and we win 17 games or when I play for Seattle and we win 31?

“People always knew what I could do. They just didn’t think I could do it with a smile on my face.”

Act III: “Lame Duck Coach,” or “Welcome to the Cotton Club.”

Cotton Fitzsimmons, who went 97-67 with the Suns during two seasons as coach in the ‘70s, returned to the organization on May 13, 1987. He came as director of player personnel.

When he took over for John Wetzel as coach on May 10, 1988, he came with a replacement all set up to take over . . . someday.

Coach-in-waiting Westphal, from USC and Redondo Beach, the No. 4 scorer in Sun history, has two coaching jobs behind him--Southwestern College, a small Bible school, and Grand Canyon College, both in Phoenix. He is Fitzsimmons’ hand-picked replacement, already announced.

It’s just the timetable that is fuzzy. “I’m here until whenever,” Fitzsimmons said, obviously in no hurry to leave when things are going so well. “I think at the right time, I’ll move back upstairs full time. But nothing is etched in stone as to when.”

Westphal will remain an assistant until whenever becomes now. He is far from sure when that will be. “That’s the best I can do, too,” he said, laughing because his understanding of the process is as vague as anyone’s. “But I hope he stays a long time.”

Fitzsimmons’ casual, non-confrontational approach sits well with the team. He didn’t come up with any grandiose expectations for this season, even after getting Chambers, and has taken a team that didn’t have four-fifths of its current starting lineup at the start of 1987-88 and molded it into a title contender. That’s why he is one of the favorites to be named coach of the year.

“There’s probably three things I’ve been able to bring to the team,” he said.

“One, a positive attitude.

“Two, because of the positive attitude and my confidence in what I can do, I was also able to make them believe what they can do.

“And, three, the fact that I’m a veteran coach and have been through it all before, I brought an even keel. I don’t like a lot of peaks and valleys.”

Chambers, who frequently picks on Cotton because of Fitzsimmons’ wardrobe and 5-foot-7 frame, laughs at that. “Even keel, hell. He’s always way up here,” the 6-10 Chambers says, holding his hand outstretched above his head.

Fitzsimmons is taking the club up there with him.

Act IV: “The Playoffs and Beyond.”

The Suns are 41-17 against the Western Conference, including 28-1 at home, and 35-6 overall at Veterans Memorial Coliseum-Madhouse on McDowell-the Cotton Club. They’re 3-3 against the Lakers and 2-2 with the Utah Jazz, neither of whom has won here.

So who wants the Suns next in the playoffs, provided they dispose of the Nuggets? Likely, the Jazz will get them first. The home-court advantage will belong to Phoenix because of the better record, even though Utah is the second-seeded team in the West as the Midwest Division champion.

Barring an upset, the winner of that series will probably battle the Lakers for the right to go to the NBA finals. The Lakers lost here by 15, 17 and 23 points, the first time Phoenix has beaten them more than once since 1983-84 and the first home-court sweep for the Suns since 1980-81.

And who wants the Suns next season? The starting guards, Kevin Johnson and Hornacek, are 23 and 25, respectively. Eddie Johnson, one of the best sixth men in the league, is 29, same as Chambers. Tyrone Corbin is 26, Armon Gilliam 24, Mark West 28. Andrew Lang and Dan Majerle are both 23-year-old rookies.

Kevin Johnson, who came from Cleveland in the Nance trade, along with West and Corbin, is one of the best point guards in the league.

“If I had a chance to trade him for any guard in the league, I wouldn’t do it,” said Chambers, a self-professed longtime fan of the Lakers’ Johnson. “Magic is great and he’d be real fun to play with. But Kevin is only 23 years old.”

Chambers paused and shook his head in wonderment of his own point guard. Then he smiled, as Tom Chambers has been doing a lot these days.

So is everyone else in the organization. After all, it’s Sunrise.