It will be four head coaches in four years for the Phoenix Suns after they fired Mike Budenholzer, with the failures of those three coaches having just as much to do with the Suns’ own, if not more.
Phoenix’s lead decision-makers failed for the second straight year to identify the right head coach in these make-or-break Kevin Durant years, both of which snapped in two with no resistance.
Budenholzer and Frank Vogel going out the way they did in consecutive years begs the question of if this job was even doable in the first place, if a voice out there was capable of connecting to this group. Various reporting from ESPN and The Athletic immediately dropped with the news, citing Budenholzer’s “inability to coexist with his players,” which all you needed to do was watch the product from December on to see.
The possession-to-possession effort was a much better representation of this, but in one statistical example, the largest stylistic storyline upon Budenholzer’s hiring was going to be his ability to get the Suns to take more 3-pointers after Vogel failed at getting that buy-in. In the first 25 games of the season, Phoenix attempted 39.6 3s, tied for the eighth-most in the NBA. But from mid-December until Jan. 20 across 18 contests, Phoenix’s average dropped to 32.8, 29th in that time.
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Mike Budenholzer becomes 3rd fired Suns head coach in 3 years
That timeframe, uncoincidentally, is when the Suns’ defense began showing incredibly worrying signs ahead of a putrid February on that end that tanked the season to such a degree that they couldn’t even win 39 games for a play-in spot.
The players deserve a ton of blame for that. Phoenix also knew better than anyone that Vogel struggled tremendously to get through to the locker room, so a head coach with a track record of accountability was at the top of the list. That’s what the Suns thought they had in Budenholzer.
And boy, what a terrible read on the situation that was.
To take a brief moment here as someone born and raised in the Valley, that as a toddler was at The Madhouse on McDowell before growing a love for the game in America West Arena and so on, it’s embarrassing to watch this organization become a laughing stock once more. And given Budenholzer’s local background and connection to the franchise, it is disheartening that it happened on his watch, especially without any visible frustration showing for playing a role in that embarrassment.
Budenholzer across abnormally short press conferences went on an autopilot “we gotta be better” routine, humiliating loss after humiliating loss. Sometimes, it is a coach’s prerogative on how to motivate his team, and neglecting to do so with public callouts is somewhat understandable. But at a certain point, it became insulting to the fanbase of an organization he himself had a connection to, a connection that was so invisible that you probably forgot about it by now.
For as easy as it is to look back on a decade straight of no playoff appearances in the 2010s and look down on the franchise with zero championships, an extended stay back in the basement would not be like the Suns. At all.
Once Phoenix got its act together in the mid-1970s after the Suns missed the postseason six of their first seven seasons, a Finals run in 1976 began a run of 28 playoff berths in 35 seasons. That’s 80% of the time. Since the Western Conference Finals nod in 2010, though, it’s 31.3%. That percentage looks destined to drop over the next couple of years.
Even with the recent tumbles, the Suns sit fifth in all-time winning percentage among the 30 active franchises.
There is too much of a rich tradition of winning basketball for this city, a city that is a basketball town first, to have its franchise be a joke again. The next person for the job needs to possess some real pride in what that actually means.
There was zero sense of pride from Budenholzer’s players, either. Consistent engagement over 48 minutes was a chore for this team, with short stretches of rapidly reeling play putting them to bed dozens of times over the last two years. It was not just a Budenholzer thing.
He also was the coach who went 36-46 with 75 games played for Devin Booker and 62 for Durant. No one survives that.
Who should Suns hire to replace Mike Budenholzer?
Some irony in this is that the type of coach the Suns should be looking for is one like Monty Williams, the first of those three coaches fired in the Mat Ishbia tenure.
His abysmal single season in Detroit was so bad that it forced the Pistons to fire him with five years left on his contract. It completely silenced any validity to arguing Phoenix made a mistake in letting him go three summers ago. But there was an inherent risk in doing so because of the culture and identity that Williams helped mold, something the Suns are just as devoid of now as they were through the dreary back-half of the 2010s.
We actually knew what Suns basketball was, the traits and attributes that embodied what a Suns player was. Phoenix had to be confident it could either maintain that or reshape a new foundation under a new leader. It was dead wrong about that. Twice.
A third time is the charm, as the saying goes, but if it isn’t it will be the latest death blow for an organization covered in gaping wounds already.
Candidates with a track record of establishing a culture and developing young talent should be priorities, ones that would be able to form a strong relationship with Booker like Williams did.
The two immediate standouts are the two coaches that were shockingly fired late in the season, Michael Malone and Taylor Jenkins. Arizona Sports’ John Gambadoro is reporting, however, that both will not be considered.
Who the Suns hire will be the most important move they make this offseason. Not what they get in return for a potential Durant trade or do with Bradley Beal, nor who they draft.
If you learned anything from watching this past Suns season, it should be that talent only matters so much. There are plenty of less talented basketball teams still playing right now. That should provide a source of hope, and at the same time, was a harrowing game-after-game reminder of how far this franchise has to go to be taken seriously again.
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