The recent announcement that former Sun Casey Jacobsen is returning to the NBA has inspired me to finish up a post I started working on a few weeks ago. It's hard to believe that only four players remain from the 2004-05 team that started the Nash/D'Antoni run-and-gun era, and brought the fast break back in vogue. I thought it might be fun to track down what happened to the other guys who were on that team, and are no longer playing for the Suns. Of the players that took the floor in November 2004, only Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire, Shawn Marion, and Leandro Barbosa are still with the team. Here is what I was able to find out about the ones that have moved on:
- Zarko Carbakapa has been mostly warming the bench at Golden State since being traded mid-season in 2005. He is a restricted free agent this summer, and has not yet been signed according to NBA.com's free agent page.
- Steven Hunter remains in Philadelphia, where he signed after finishing his season with the Suns in 2005.
- Casey Jacobsen won the 2007 German Basketball championship, and was named MVP of the finals. He recently signed a two-year deal with the Memphis Grizzlies.
- Maciej Lampe played for the Hornets and the Rockets after he was traded by the Suns. According to Wikipedia, he most recently played in the Russian league.
- Joe Johnson languishes in Atlanta as "the man" on a team which has won fewer games in the last two seasons than the Suns won in 2006-07.
- Bo Outlaw returned to Orlando, where he previously played five seasons. He is an unrestricted free agent, and as of this writing, doesn't appear to have been signed.
- Quentin Richardson met with some hard luck in his first season after being traded to the New York Knicks. He lost his brother (murdered during a robbery) and broke up with his famous fiancée (Brandy) in 2005. He remains with the Knicks, averaging 13 points and seven rebounds in 2006-07.
- Yuta Tabuse became the first Japanese-born player to play in the NBA when he made the Suns roster in 2004. His time with the Suns was short-lived, though, as he only appeared in four games before he was waived. He met a similar fate in 2005-06 with the Los Angeles Clippers. The most recent information I can find on him (via his Wikipedia page) is that he played with the 2006 Dallas Mavericks summer league. He also played in the D-League for the Albuquerque Thunderbirds in 2005-06. His official web site has a news page with some recent information, but I'm not able to read it.
- Jake Voskuhl played in Charlotte for two seasons, and recently signed a one-year contract with the Milwaukee Bucks.
- Jackson Vroman played for the summer league Hornets in the recent tournament in Las Vegas.
- Jim Jackson, who came to the 2004-05 Suns mid-season via a trade, appears to have had his final shot at glory when he rescued the shooting guard position for the Suns during the playoffs after Joe Johnson suffered a fractured orbital bone in the second round. He was waived by the Suns the following season and finished out his career (so it appears) with the Lakers in 2006.
- Walter McCarty, the final mid-season pickup for the 2004-05 Suns, recently became an assistant coach at the University of Louisville.
So there you have it - the latest information I could find for all the 2004-05 Suns who are no longer with the team. If I get time, and the news is slow enough, I might follow this up with additional Where Are They Now? installments for other seasons. Let me know in the comments if there's a particular season you would like me to do next.