1988–89 Phoenix Suns season

The 1988–89 NBA season was the 20th season for the Phoenix Suns in the National Basketball Association. The Suns received the seventh overall pick in the 1988 NBA draft, and selected power forward Tim Perry out of Temple University, and also selected shooting guard Dan Majerle from the University of Central Michigan with the fourteenth overall pick. During the off-season, the Suns fired head coach John Wetzel, and replaced him with director of player personnel (and former head coach) Cotton Fitzsimmons, who coached the team for the '70–'71 and '71–'72 seasons, and signed free agent and one-time All-Star forward Tom Chambers.

The Suns showed a lot of improvement over the previous season, holding a 29–17 record at the All-Star break, posting a nine-game winning streak between March and April, and finishing in second place in the Pacific Division with a 55–27 record, which earned them the #3 seed in the Western Conference. All home games were played at Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

Three members of the team averaged 20 or more points per game, as Chambers averaged 25.7 points and 8.4 rebounds per game, while sixth man Eddie Johnson averaged 21.5 points per game off the bench, and was named the NBA Sixth Man of the Year, and second-year point guard Kevin Johnson provided the team with 20.4 points, 12.2 assists and 1.7 steals per game, and was named the NBA Most Improved Player of the Year. In addition, second-year forward Armen Gilliam averaged 15.9 points and 7.3 rebounds per game, while Jeff Hornacek contributed 13.5 points, 6.0 assists and 1.7 steals per game, Majerle provided with 8.6 points per game in only 54 games, Tyrone Corbin contributed 8.2 points and 5.2 rebounds per game, and Mark West averaged 7.2 points, 6.7 rebounds and 2.3 blocks per game. Fitzsimmons was named the NBA Coach of the Year after leading his team to a 27-game improvement.

Chambers was the only member of the team to be selected for the 1989 NBA All-Star Game in Houston, Texas, which was his second All-Star appearance; Chambers and Johnson were both named to the All-NBA Second Team, while Johnson finished in eighth place in Most Valuable Player voting, and with Chambers finishing in ninth place.

In the 1989 NBA playoffs, the Suns swept the Denver Nuggets in three straight games in the Western Conference First Round, and defeated the 7th-seeded Golden State Warriors four games to one in the Western Conference Semi-finals. The Suns saw their playoff fortunes reverse in the Western Conference Finals, when they faced off against the NBA Most Valuable Player of the Year, Magic Johnson, and the top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers, getting swept four games to zero. The Lakers would reach the NBA Finals for the third consecutive year, but would lose to the Detroit Pistons in four straight games.

Following the season, Corbin was left unprotected in the 1989 NBA expansion draft, where he was selected by the newly expansion Minnesota Timberwolves.