1986–87 Phoenix Suns season

The 1986–87 Phoenix Suns season was the 18th season for the Phoenix Suns of the National Basketball Association and their final season under the original ownership group led by Karl Eller, Donald Pitt, Don Diamond, Bhavik Darji, Marvin Meyer, and Richard L. Bloch.^[1] The Suns started their fourteenth season under head coach John MacLeod. At 22–34 (.393) in late February, management decided to replace the longstanding MacLeod with Dick Van Arsdale,^[2] a former Suns player from the 1975–76 Finals team (coached by MacLeod), who was working as the team's color commentator for TV and radio at the time, despite having no prior coaching experience.

Phoenix went 14–12 (.538) in those last 26 games under Van Arsdale to finish at 36–46 (.439), and missed the 16-team playoffs by one game. All of the Suns' home games were played at Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

Walter Davis again led the Suns in scoring, averaging 23.6 points for the season. The Suns had another 20-point scorer in Larry Nance, who garnered a career-high 22.5 points and a team-high 8.7 rebounds a game. Third-year point guard Jay Humphries averaged 7.7 assists per game to go with 11.3 points per game. For the 32-year-old Davis, it was an All-Star season for him, his 6th in 10 seasons with the Suns, and would be the last time of his career he was honored as an All-Star.

This season was notably infamous for being the key point where the Phoenix Suns organization was hit with a drug scandal that stayed behind the scenes until around the end of this season. On April 17, 1987, one day before the Suns would play their final game of the regular season against the Los Angeles Clippers, Maricopa County law enforcement officials revealed that five present at the time or former Suns players were indicted on drug-related charges, with six more present at the time or former Suns players being linked to the case by that time.^[3] Despite the indictments, Jay Humphries and Grant Gondrezick were both allowed to play in the final game of the season while All-Star Walter Davis and rookie William Bedford were not allowed to do so despite their immunity from the case.^[4][5] The scandal would also involve a gambling case regarding a February 21, 1987 game between the Suns and the Milwaukee Bucks where at a nightclub called Malarkey's, James Edwards and two Bucks players named Jack Sikma and Paul Mokeski (according to Malarkey's manager James Jordan) allegedly claimed that the game between them would not exceed a total of 226 points scored (which was correct since it favored the Bucks 115–107 that night).^[6][7] While the scandal would eventually end with no major punishments being involved for any of the players that were named in the case outside of Gondrezick serving three years of probation for tampering with a witness,^[8][9] it would lead to a very hectic and uncertain offseason period for the Suns as they entered the upcoming season following this one.