I truly thought that Leandro Barbosa was done in the NBA after he tore his ACL with the Celtics. He hadn’t looked very good that season, and an injury of that magnitude for a marginal player usually spells “EUROPE” or “CHINA”.
He managed to come back the next season, though, with the Suns. How he did that, I have no idea. He even had a good game with them, which I’m pretty sure I made highlights of. Even more surprising he managed to contribute non-trivially to the NBA champion Warriors the season after that, and contributed again to their championship-winning season last year. At least, I’m pretty sure the Warriors won it. I stopped paying attention when they were up 3-1 in the finals.
Anyway, Barbosa probably gets to play with the Suns as long as he likes at this point. The ownership want to remind fans of all the fun they had with Steve Nash and his band of three-point shooters and fire-extinguisher punchers. The Suns have some exciting young players right now, but it’s more fun for everybody to relive days of glory past.