The NBA Finals are set. Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs will face off against Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks in a finals that will break historic NBA clichés. Either an inexperienced team will prove you don’t need experience to win a title, or that you can win a championship with a small guard that isn’t the greatest shooter of all-time (Steph Curry) leading your team in the modern NBA. Can’t forget about those Bad Boy Pistons of course!
No matter the income, a former Phoenix Sun
will be victorious and win their first NBA title for the first time since Ish Smith did it with the Denver Nuggets in 2023.
If the Spurs win, Bismack Biyombo, who played on the Suns from 2022-2023, will get a ring, as will Mason Plumlee, who was on the team in 2024-25. If the Knicks win, both Landry Shamet, who was on the Suns from 2021-2023, and Mikal Bridges, who started his career in Phoenix in 2018 until he was traded for Kevin Durant in the franchise-altering deal in 2023, will get a ring. Biyombo, Shamet, and Bridges were all members of the franchise’s most successful regular season in team history, the 2021-2022 season, where Phoenix had the best record in the league and went 64-18.
Bridges, who started alongside Chris Paul, Devin Booker, Jae Crowder, and Deandre Ayton as a part of the 2021 Finals squad, had his best year as a member of the Suns in the 2021-2022 season, averaging 14 points per game on 53% shooting from the field and 37% from deep, and received All-Defensive First Team honors. Bridges didn’t miss a single game during his time as a Sun and holds the longest active streak for most games played in the NBA.
Shamet, playing a reserve role, mostly came off the bench for the team in his two seasons. The best moment of his Phoenix career came in the 2022-2023 campaign in the Western Conference Semifinals, where he hit five threes in Game 4 and scored 19 to help the Suns tie the eventual NBA Champion Nuggets 2-2 through four games.
Biyombo appeared in just 97 total regular-season games for the team over his two years, filling the role of third-string center, filling in mostly when the team was dealing with injuries or was shorthanded after the Durant trade. And Mason Plumlee had the shortest stint of them all, starting 21 of his 74 games while with the Suns. Although he was known to get into a scuffle or two.
Whether the Knicks win and Shamet and Bridges are champs, or the Spurs do and Biyombo and Plumlee are, a former Phoenix Sun will have helped hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy for the first time in a few years. The Finals start Wednesday, June 3rd, at 5:30 Arizona Time on ABC.
