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The Phoenix Suns retired Alvan Adams's number 33 because of what he represented: that a player and a franchise can be genuinely inseparable. Drafted fourth overall in 1975 out of Oklahoma, Adams played thirteen seasons in Phoenix and retired a Sun in 1988 — no player has given the franchise more years. He earned NBA Rookie of the Year honors in 1976 and led that 42-40 team on an improbable run to the NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics, featuring the triple-overtime classic Game 5 many historians call the greatest game ever played. Adams was a playmaking center before the league had language for it, threading high-post passes to cutters and averaging 14-plus points and 8-plus rebounds at his peak. He was the constant through every roster change. Number 33 hangs at Footprint Center because he chose to stay and build something rather than chase it elsewhere.
From Lawrence to Phoenix: A Rookie Who Won Over an Entire City
Alvan Adams was born July 19, 1954, in Lawrence, Kansas, and developed at the University of Oklahoma under coach John MacLeod — who would later coach him at the professional level — into one of the most versatile big men in the Big Eight Conference. The Suns selected him fourth overall in the 1975 NBA Draft, and Adams arrived in Phoenix as a 21-year-old center with a skill set that was unusual for his era: a 7-footer who could pass from the high post, handle the ball in space, and operate as a secondary initiator in ways that most centers of the 1970s simply could not.
The impact was immediate. Adams earned NBA Rookie of the Year honors in 1976, his first professional season, and led the Suns to the most improbable run in franchise history — a team that finished the regular season at 42-40 and somehow advanced to the NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics. The triple-overtime classic of Game 5 that year, still cited by many historians as the greatest game ever played, was a showcase for what the Suns could be with Adams as their center. He was 21 years old. He played like a veteran. He played like a Sun.
The Playmaking Center: A Concept Ahead of Its Time
What made Adams genuinely distinctive across his career was his ability to function as something the NBA barely had language for in the 1970s: a playmaking center. His high-post passing, his ability to thread the ball to cutters from the elbow, his vision in the short roll and pick-and-roll — these were skills the league would not widely prize for another two decades. In Phoenix's offensive system, Adams was the hub from which the Suns' ball movement flowed, a role he executed with intelligence and precision across thirteen seasons and through multiple coaching staffs and supporting casts.
He averaged 14+ points and 8+ rebounds per game at his peak, numbers that reflected consistent excellence rather than the transcendent individual production of a franchise cornerstone. But Adams's value was always larger than any single statistic could capture. He made the Suns better every year he played. He made players around him better. He was the constant — the player who was there when teammates came and went, who maintained the standard when the roster changed, who showed up and competed with professionalism that lasted until his final professional game in 1988.
Why the Suns Retired #33
The case for retiring Alvan Adams's #33 is straightforward and unassailable: thirteen seasons with one franchise, a Rookie of the Year award, a Finals appearance, and a style of play that was ahead of its time. But the deeper case is about what his career meant to Phoenix as a basketball city in its formative decades. Adams was the Suns through the late 1970s and the 1980s — the face, the constant, the player that three generations of Phoenix fans grew up watching. His loyalty to the franchise, maintained through every change and transition over thirteen seasons, gave Phoenix something it needed: a player who chose to stay and build something rather than chase something elsewhere.
Number 33 in the rafters at Footprint Center is the franchise's way of saying: we noticed. We noticed that you stayed. We noticed that you gave us your career and not just your talent. We noticed that you were a Sun when being a Sun wasn't glamorous, and that you were a Sun when it was, and that you were a Sun right up until the end. Alvan Adams deserved that recognition, and he received it. #33 will be up there as long as the Phoenix Suns play basketball.
