After being discovered at the local playground, 5'7" (1.70 m) point guard Greg Grant enrolled at Trenton State College in 1986, and led Division III in scoring in 1989. That same year he was selected with the 52nd overall pick by the Phoenix Suns in the NBA Draft. He spent nine years in the NBA, playing for six different teams.

With nearly 1,200 games in the NBA, small forward Eddie Johnson scored the second-most career points among players who never played in an NBA All-Star Game, behind only Jamal Crawford. The "awards highlight" of Johnson's career occurred in 1989, when he received the NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award as a member of the Suns.

In his first full season with the Suns (1988-89), point guard Kevin Johnson set a franchise record with 991 assists. Averaging 20.4 points and 12.2 assists, he joined Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas as the only players in NBA history to average at least 20 points and 12 assists in a season. His rapid improvement earned him the 1988-89 NBA's Most Improved Player Award.

Power forward Larry Nance was a 3-time NBA All-Star 1985, 1989, and 1993, and an NBA All-Defensive Team First Team member in 1989, and a Second Team Member in 1992 and 1993. He was also consistently one of the league's better shot blockers, averaging 2.2 blocks per game during his career. In 1982-83, he set a franchise record with 217 blocks.

Suns point guard Jason Kidd committed 14 turnovers against the New York Knicks on November 17, 2000. Kidd tied John Drew, who also turned the ball over 14 times in a game on March 1, 1978.

In 1988, shooting guard Craig Hodges played 23 games for the Suns, finishing with a franchise-best .544 3-point field goal percentage. Along with Larry Bird, Hodges is one of only two players to win three consecutive Three Point Contests at the National Basketball Association All-Star Weekend, winning the competition in 1990, 1991, and 1992.

Alvan Adams was a rookie on a Suns team whose season included an improbable playoff run that took them all the way to the 1976 NBA Finals. That same year, he was selected to play in the All-Star Game and won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award. Adams spent his entire career with the Suns and retired in 1988 as the second all-time Suns scorer with 13,910 career points.

Two months after the U.S. release of The Matrix, the Phoenix Suns selected a lengthy forward with the No. 9 pick in the 1999 NBA Draft. It didn't take long for Shawn Marion's extraterrestrial arms, legs, and speed to make an impression. In the pre-season of his rookie year, Kenny "The Jet" Smith dubbed Marion "The Matrix", which would become one of the NBA's most widely recognized pseudonyms.

In the 1998-99 season, point guard Jason Kidd averaged 10.8 assists per game to dethrone Washington's Rod Strickland as the league's assists leader. He also led the NBA with seven triple-doubles (the rest of the league had just 11).

In 1974-75, Curtis Perry set a Suns record with 347 offensive rebounds. The following year, he helped the Suns win the 1975-76 NBA Western Conference championship.