From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

2003–04 Phoenix Suns season

NBA team season

Field	Value
team	Phoenix Suns
end_year	2004
wins	29
losses	53
division	Pacific
division_place	6
conf_place	13
gm	Bryan Colangelo
owner	Jerry Colangelo
arena	America West Arena
playoffs	Did not qualify
bbr_team	PHO
radio	KTAR

Frank Johnson
Mike D'Antoni
KUTP
Fox Sports Net Arizona

The 2003–04 Phoenix Suns season was the 36th for the Phoenix Suns in the National Basketball Association. It was also the last season under longtime associate Jerry Colangelo's ownership, as he later sold the franchise to an ownership group led by Robert Sarver starting the following season. After advancing to the playoffs the previous season, the Suns started off to a disappointing start under head coach Frank Johnson. With the team at 8–13, team management elected to turn to assistant coach Mike D'Antoni to take over for Johnson. Under D'Antoni, the Suns would lose 40 of their next 61 games and miss the playoffs, finishing sixth in the Pacific division with a 29–53 regular season record, the first time since the 1987–88 season the Suns recorded 50 losses or more. The Suns played their home games at America West Arena.

Before the halfway mark of the season, the Suns sent starting point guard Stephon Marbury along with Penny Hardaway to the New York Knicks for Antonio McDyess, and a lack of offense was felt the rest of the season. Marbury, a future All-Star, was replaced with rookie SG Leandro Barbosa, who only averaged eight points per game. The oft-injured Tom Gugliotta was released and signed as a free agent with the Utah Jazz. The Suns found the injury bug, with reigning Rookie of the Year Amar'e Stoudemire missing nearly 30 games (and the Suns his 20 points and nine rebounds per game). Power forward Shawn Marion did not repeat as an All-Star, despite ending the season averaging 19 points and 9.3 rebounds per game and finishing second in the league in steals per game. Joe Johnson had a breakthrough year in his third season NBA season, leading the league in minutes played and providing the Suns nearly 17 points a game.

By trading Marbury, the Suns were without a point guard to lead an improving young core of Stoudemire, Marion, Johnson and Barbosa, all 25 years of age or younger. By shedding the injury-riddled Hardaway and Gugliotta, as well as Marbury, the Suns ended the season with a need for a club leader and money at their disposal. Following the season, McDyess signed as a free agent with the Detroit Pistons.

For the season, they added new orange alternate road uniforms with grey side panels to their jerseys and shorts they remained in used until 2013.

Offseason

NBA draft

Main article: 2003 NBA draft

Round	Pick	Player	Position	Nationality	College
1	17	Žarko Čabarkapa	Forward

Roster

Frank Johnson
Mike D'Antoni
Tim Grgurich
Marc Iavaroni
Todd Quinter
Phil Weber

Regular season

Awards and honors

All-Star

Amar'e Stoudemire was selected to play for the Sophomore team in the Rookie Challenge.

Season

Shawn Marion led the league in steals with 167.
Joe Johnson led the league in minutes played with 3,331.
Joe Johnson finished ninth in Most Improved Player voting.

Player statistics

Season

Player	GP	GS	MPG	FG%	3P%	FT%	RPG	APG	SPG	BPG	PPG
*	1	0	6.0	.000	.	.500	1.0	1.0	.0	.0	1.0
	70	46	21.4	.447	.395	.770	1.8	2.4	1.3	.1	7.9
	49	4	11.6	.411	.188	.660	2.0	0.8	.2	.3	4.1
*	34	0	21.4	.345	.308	.830	1.9	3.4	.8	.1	7.l
*	30	3	10.1	.313	.000	.750	1.9	0.7	.5	.1	2.3
*	34	10	25.8	.443	.400	.857#	2.9	2.9	.8	.2	8.7
*	36	7	12.2	.473	.	.795	2.6	0.4	.4	.4	3.9
	78	13	23.4	.417	.417^	.820	2.6	1.3	.6	.1	6.0
	82	77	40.6	.430	.305	.750	4.7	4.4+	1.1	.3	16.7
*	3	0	6.3	.333	.	.	1.0	1.3	1.0	.3	0.7
	21	0	10.7	.489†	.000	.769	2.4	0.4	.1	.1	4.6
*	34	34	41.6+	.432	.314	.795	3.4	8.3+	1.9	.1	20.8+
	79	79	40.7+	.440	.340	.851#	9.3	2.7	2.1	1.3+	19.0+
*	24	14	21.1	.484†	.	.516	5.8	0.7	1.0	.5	5.8
	55	53	36.8	.475†	.200	.713	9.0	1.4	1.2	1.6+	20.6+
*	4	0	2.5	.000	.	.	0.3	0.0	.0	.3	0.0
	66	43	24.3	.507†	.	.740	5.2	0.9	.6	.4	6.6
*	61	17	14.1	.524†	.	.500	4.3	0.1	.4	.8	4.3
*	16	10	16.7	.525†	1.000^	.692	4.5	0.4	.9	.4	7.3

- Stats with the Suns.

- Minimum 70 games played or 2000 minutes, 400 assists, 100 blocks, 1400 points.

† - Minimum 300 field goals made.

^ - Minimum 55 three-pointers made.

- Minimum 125 free throws made.

Transactions

Trades

Free agents

Additions

Date	Player	Contract	Former Team
July 16, 2003	Scott Williams	Re-signed to 1-year contract for $1.07 million	Phoenix Suns
July 22, 2003	Jake Voskuhl	Re-signed to 3-year contract for $5.1 million	Phoenix Suns
September 23, 2003	Trevor Huffman	Undisclosed	Brandt Hagen (Germany)
September 23, 2003	William Pippen	Undisclosed
September 26, 2003	Nick Sheppard	Undisclosed	Gary Steelheads (CBA)
September 26, 2003	Ray Weathers	Undisclosed	Shanghai Sharks (China)
October 1, 2003	DerMarr Johnson	Undisclosed	Atlanta Hawks
October 8, 2003	Dejan Koturović	Undisclosed	Virtus Bologna (Italy)

Subtractions

Date	Player	Reason left	New team
September 29, 2003	Alton Ford	Free agent	Orlando Magic
October 8, 2003	Trevor Huffman	Waived	Stal Ostrów Wielkopolski (Poland)
October 8, 2003	William Pippen	Waived	Tokyo Apache (Japan)
October 16, 2003	DerMarr Johnson	Waived	Long Beach Jam (ABA)
October 23, 2003	Dejan Koturović	Waived	Tau Cerámica (Spain)
October 23, 2003	Nick Sheppard	Waived	Beijing Ducks (China)
October 23, 2003	Ray Weathers	Waived	Dakota Wizards (CBA)
January 6, 2004	Charlie Ward	Waived	San Antonio Spurs
January 28, 2004	Scott Williams	Waived	Dallas Mavericks
February 20, 2004	Ben Handlogten	Waived	Utah Jazz

References

Standings on Basketball Reference

References

"2003-04 Phoenix Suns Roster and Stats".
Frank Zicarelli. "NBA's global games have Brazilian Blur abuzz". TheWhig.com.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

phoenix-suns-seasons

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about 2003–04 Phoenix Suns season — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report