In the modern NBA, it takes a great deal of talent, calculation and luck to win a championship. As far as the calculation part goes, there are so many numbers, percentages and figures that go into it, both on the court with analytics and off the court with all that salary cap maneuvering. But back in 1969, the Phoenix Suns‘ odds of winning a title sat squarely at 50-50. Win a simple coin toss for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and you’d be guaranteed at least one championship. Lose that coin toss, and, well….
Who could’ve known how the Curse of the Coin Toss would take its toll on the Suns franchise for more than 50 years?
Back in the 1968, the Suns and Milwaukee Bucks joined the NBA for their inaugural seasons as the league expanded to 14 teams. Both expansion teams finished at the bottom of the league’s two respective divisions: The Bucks posted a 27-55 record at the bottom of the East, while the Suns went 16-66 to finish at the bottom of the West.
Yet despite the Suns finishing with the league’s worst record by far, posting 11 fewer wins than the Bucks, the NBA had determined that a coin flip between the teams at the bottom of each division would that the fairest way to figure out who would be awarded the No. 1 pick. The winner of that coin toss would earn the right to select UCLA’s Lew Alcindor, a transcendent talent who would go on to be known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, one of the greatest, most accomplished basketball players of all time.
We all know what happened next: Those calculated 50-50 title odds came with zero luck, and they lost out on a franchise-changing talent.
On March 19, 1969, NBA commissioner J. Walter Kennedy flipped a coin on a three-way call with Phoenix and Milwaukee. The most agonizing part is, the Suns got to make the call for that coin toss. It wasn’t Suns president Richard Bloch who incorrectly called “heads,” but rather, a predetermined decision based on a poll in The Arizona Republic that let Suns fans themselves vote on whether Phoenix should go with heads or tails.
Are Suns fans to blame for the half-century of misery that followed? Are we the drama?? Tails never fails, you fools!
In all seriousness, even if you don’t believe in curses, it’s excruciating to think of what could’ve been if the legendary career of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar began in Phoenix.
What if the Suns won the coin toss for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar only spent six seasons in Milwaukee before requesting a trade to play elsewhere, ultimately landing with the Los Angeles Lakers. But even if that exact same situation had unfolded in Phoenix, it’s fair to assume most Suns fans would’ve been juuuust fine with what he accomplished during his first six years in the league:
- 1 NBA championship
- 1 NBA Finals MVP award
- 6 All-Star selections
- 5 All-NBA selections (4 First Team, 1 Second Team)
- 4 All-Defensive Team selections (2 First Team, 2 Second Team)
- Rookie of the Year award
- 2-time league leader in scoring
- 1-time league leader in blocks
That six-year Bucks resume alone would’ve cemented Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the greatest Phoenix Sun of all time, even if he had left Phoenix for LA just like he did with Milwaukee. It’s not difficult to envision him leading the Suns to a title during such a short period of time, since he literally led the Bucks to their first championship in 1971, his second year in the league.
During Kareem’s first championship season, the league only had 17 teams, and he was a game-changing, league-altering talent. Watching Connie Hawkins — who arrived in Phoenix in 1969 thanks to another, separate coin flip that probably wouldn’t have happened if the Suns had won the Kareem coin flip — lead Phoenix to prominence in just a few short years, it’s pretty easy to imagine Kareem carrying the Suns to a title during his early years there.
The Suns never would’ve had to chase a franchise center for years on end. They finally addressed that glaring need in 1975 when they drafted Alvan Adams, but ever since Adams retired, they’ve been chasing it still (which low-key may have played into another major Suns what-if, when they passed on Luka Doncic in the 2018 NBA Draft and took Deandre Ayton to be their “franchise big man” instead). Even if most current fans wouldn’t have been alive to see it, the desperation within the fanbase for that long-awaited championship wouldn’t feel as pressing. The mentality of this organization and entire city might look completely different.
With a championship to their name at some point in the ’70s, perhaps the Suns could’ve built around Kareem Abdul-Jabbar better than Milwaukee did, preventing him from ever joining the Lakers…and in the process, denying Phoenix’s eventual rival of multiple championships. Don’t forget, this was a man who played for 20 NBA seasons, was the league’s all-time leading scorer until LeBron James passed him in 2023, won an NBA-record six MVP awards, earned 19 All-Star selections and 15 All-NBA selections, and won six titles.
Even having Kareem for the first six incredible years of his career would’ve been game-changing, but if the Suns had managed to keep him for his whole career? The entire trajectory of this franchise looks completely different. Maybe the Suns grow up as one of the league’s most prestigious organizations rich with championship history, replacing the Lakers at the top right alongside the Boston Celtics. The ripple effects are unfathomable.
But most importantly, had the Suns won that coin flip, they would’ve avoided the curse that’s hovered over the franchise for a half-century. That is not an exaggeration, either: It took Phoenix exactly 50 years from the Kareem coin toss to finally win their first No. 1 overall pick, and they chose the wrong guy. Almost 60 years after that coin came up tails, the Suns have yet to win a championship, and they’ve only reached the Finals three times.
Even when they got close to getting over the hump in 2021, the Curse of the Coin Toss still doubled back to bite them. Just before Game 2 of that championship matchup against none other than the Milwaukee Bucks, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar breathed new life into the curse, trolling Phoenix with a coin toss video where he said: “Some 50-odd years ago, the Bucks and Suns had to flip a coin to see who would get the opportunity to draft me. This time, I’m taking charge of it. Bucks in six. Fear the deer.”
The Suns won Game 2 later that night…and then lost four straight to fulfill Kareem’s mid-series prophecy. Fifty years removed from the coin toss, and the bad juju still found a way to haunt Phoenix.
Whether you believe in curses or not — and most Suns fans probably should by now, given the half-century of playoff heartbreak, bad injury luck, hip check suspensions, poor drafting and other forces beyond anyone’s control that has served as evidence — losing the coin toss for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was the earliest reason Phoenix has yet to win an NBA championship. It’s the underlying foundation of of nearly six decades’ worth of angst, the pinnacle of wondering what could have been, and the quintessential dose of that pervading feeling that the basketball gods have shunned this city.
One day, the Suns will eventually win their first NBA championship. But until that day arrives, losing the opportunity to draft Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will loom overhead as the first example of how calculation, talent and luck don’t always line up. And the most brutal part is, the calculated odds were a literal coin flip.
