The NBA seems to be getting closer and closer to expanding, with Seattle and Las Vegas at the top of everyone’s mind. That could potentially bring on an expansion draft, which there’s plenty of precedent for in this league.

Unfortunately for the New York Knicks, though, that precedent includes a history of losing out on a future multi-time All-Star. Especially for an organization that spent so many years struggling to acquire top-tier players, it must have really burned when the Phoenix Suns snagged Dick Van Arsdale away in the 1968 expansion draft.

Here’s a quick look into the career of a Knick you never knew, who ended up being known as the “Original Sun” because of his fantastic career in Phoenix.

How Dick Van Arsdale helped the Suns burn the Knicks

Nine different teams passed on Van Arsdale with the first 12 picks of the 1965 NBA Draft, setting the Knicks up to grab him with the 13th overall selection. The guard was half of a pair: his twin brother, Tom Van Arsdale, also played guard at Indiana before being drafted in 1965. The Detroit Pistons drafted Tom with the very next pick, 14th overall, beginning the brothers’ parallel careers.

Dick, the Knick, played three seasons in New York. He started 198 of his 236 career games in orange and blue, averaging at least 11 points per game in each of his first three years in the league. Then, his career took a turn when the Knicks left him unprotected in the 1968 expansion draft.

The Suns took him first overall, going on to select Gail Goodrich with the fourth pick in the very same draft. The two ended up comprising a dynamic backcourt duo in Phoenix, with Van Arsdale making three straight All-Star Games starting in his very first year with the group out west.

The guard played nine total seasons for the Suns, helping them make a run to the NBA Finals in 1976 before retiring after the next year. Tom, his twin brother, retired in the exact same offseason.

Are the Knicks doomed to repeat history in next expansion draft?

Given that New York went on to win two NBA Championship trophies in the following years, it was far from the end of the world that Van Arsdale went on to shine so brightly across the country.

But with two cities on the western side of the United States leading the race to home the NBA’s newest franchises, the Knicks might want to make sure they hold onto all of their young players this time around.

It would sting plenty of New York’s fans to see Mo Diawara lead the Las Vegas Vipers to the 2036 NBA Finals. But if that’s the karmic price to pay for a Knicks championship in 2033… They might just be “all in.”