Add Victor Wembanyama’s Spurs to the Suns’ list of long-term obstacles

The Suns have played 58 seasons in Phoenix. They possess the fifth-best winning percentage in NBA history. Math says they should’ve won a championship by now.

They are also a franchise with a bad case of buzzard’s luck, perpetually running into brick walls, hurdles and mountains too high to scale.

Cover your eyes. It’s happening again. There is no overstating the visual and contextual impact that accompanied Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, when the Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama emerged as the next transcendent superstar in basketball.

No one of his height (7-foot-4) and wingspan (8-feet) has ever played with such skill and fluidity. His 41-point, 24-rebound performance on the road included a must-have, pull-up 3-point shot from Steph Curry’s area code. He played a staggering 49 minutes and was still dominating in the second overtime, when most big fellas are gassed.

It was the night a superstar was born, the NBA’s version of Shohei.

Suns fans surely heard the alarm bells. It’s bad enough that the Spurs and Thunder are potential dynasties, threatening to dominate the next half-decade with star power, youth, relentless depth and flexibility. But Wembanyama is clearly the game’s next unstoppable force, and we’ve all traveled this road before. We know how it ends.

The Suns famously lost a coin flip for Lew Alcindor in 1969, a player who had won three consecutive championships at UCLA, winning 88 of 90 games. He was so dominant that college basketball put a ban on dunking, which only made him angrier, forcing him to perfect his legendary sky hook.

The Suns called heads on that fateful day, and I wonder if Jerry Colangelo has ever watched “No Country for Old Men,” and what he thinks of the scene when a great cinematic villain (Javier Bardem) asks a gas station attendant: “What’s the most you’ve ever lost on a coin flip?”

Imagine what comes next, when Alcindor became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and suddenly too big for Milwaukee, when he was traded to the Lakers in 1975, where he would win five NBA titles in the next 14 years.

Or 1997, when the Spurs went from 59 wins to 62 losses overnight following a foot injury to David Robinson. The Spurs bucked the odds at the NBA draft lottery, and Tim Duncan would soon become the heart of a dynasty that rejected every contender Phoenix could conjure.

Then it was Shaq and Kobe. And now it’s Wembanyama, who might be a modern-day Wilt Chamberlain; who might stretch the streak of MVP trophies won by foreign-born players well into double digits. Watching him is both exhilarating and horrifying.

The Suns have limited options. They can stay on course and keep Devin Booker in Phoenix, even though the Thunder and Spurs might collectively have five players currently better than the Suns’ No. 1 option. They can pay Dillon Brooks, stay patient with Jalen Green, and pacify the fan base with token playoff appearances in the coming years. They can sell tickets while buying time. They can reset and reload at the start of the next decade.

Or they can try a bold maneuver like trading for Zion Williamson.

Or they can revisit their strategy, reexamine the blueprint entirely and entertain low-key discussions with the Pistons, a franchise that was embarrassed in Game 7 at Detroit and badly needs another scorer like Booker to pair with Cade Cunningham. The Pistons have plenty of draft capital, and now might be exactly the time to get four first-round picks in return for Booker. Which owner Mat Ishbia has sworn he will never do.

Either way, it appears the next big thing has arrived in the NBA. It again appears in the form of an alien giant. As usual, it’s standing right in our path.

Reach Bickley at dbickley@arizonasports.com. Listen to Bickley & Marotta weekdays from 6 a.m. – 10 a.m. on Arizona Sports 98.7.

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