STEVEN M. FALK / Staff Photographer
From the whisper-filled hallways and back channels open only to a person of his power, Jerry Colangelo had learned what was ahead for him and the Phoenix Suns in the spring of 1987: a drug scandal, and its subsequent fallout, that threatened to crush the basketball organization he'd built.
Three players who were on Phoenix's roster at the time and two former Suns were indicted for drug trafficking - a bombshell born of overzealous police and opportunistic prosecutors and dropped with the help of the team's star, Walter Davis.