After hearing from 14 fully-rostered players, three players on two-way contracts, three players on training camp invites, one owner, one general manager, one CEO and one new head coach, 2024 Phoenix Suns Media Day was officially in the books!
Monday’s four-hour media session at The Footprint Center marked the unofficial start of a new season, where optimism is always in the air and every team feels like the upcoming year will be special. But Suns Media Day had more reason to feel like those hopes were realistic, given that their core remained intact, they addressed some needs in free agency and the draft, and they hired a new coach who will hopefully tie it all together.
From owner Mat Ishbia to GM James Jones to coach Mike Budenholzer to the Big 3 of Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, there were a ton of quotes and interviews to sift through. Luckily, yours truly was there to transcribe all three hours of audio from Suns Media Day and provide the five biggest takeaways from the event.
1. Mike Budenholzer is the right fit for the job
To be fair, there was a similar amount of optimism in the air last year when coach Frank Vogel was the fresh new face at the helm. But reading between the lines in their responses this year, it became clear the Suns soured on Vogel and lost belief in their head coach. This time around, they feel more confident they’ve got their guy.
“We feel great about coach Bud, he’s been amazing,” Ishbia said. “We have really high expectations for him and what he’s gonna accomplish here. And to be honest with ya, he’s exceeded those so far. We haven’t started yet, we still have a lot of things to do, but everything he’s been doing — the details, the leadership, the execution — super, super happy with coach Bud.”
So how has Budenholzer exceeded expectations before the season has even started? Attention to detail, work ethic and a willingness to lead have all apparently stood out.
“His care factor is off the charts,” Ishbia explained. “He’s a wonderful man, extremely hard worker, but he’s also the leader. He has great leadership skills. I can take directions from him just like Josh [Bartelstein] or James [Jones] can, and just like the players will. And we love that. We want people to come in and step up and outperform their role.”
More tangibly, the front office believes they’ve found a coach that can harness this roster’s talent and pair it with a playing style more suited for the modern NBA. Suns CEO Josh Bartelstein pointed out that, for all the subjective opinions on how the team should play, there are certain objective measures teams have to meet in order to give themselves a better chance to win.
Taking more 3s and moving the ball are big parts of that, and both tie into the offensive philosophy Budenholzer brought with him to Atlanta and Milwaukee.
“Bud’s obviously had incredible success, he’s a championship-level coach, the details that Mat talks about,” Bartelstein said. “There’s attention to every single thing we do on both ends of the ball. So the talent is great, and then you gotta build a margin for error in the style you play with. And I think what you’re gonna see this year is those two things being married together, to have incredible talent on the court but also play a style of basketball that gives us a chance to win the championship.”
From the players’ perspective, most of the guys said they haven’t gotten too deep in the weeds with Budenholzer about their individual roles or the team’s playing style yet. Their new coach has mostly been trying to get to know them on a personal level, having conversations with Kevin Durant and playing some golf with Devin Booker.
“He’s a hell of a golfer,” Booker said with a grin. “We actually got a round in, and he’s a competitor. We obviously seen a lot of him in the [2021] Finals run, and he just wants to win. So I’m rallying behind him, what he says, that’s always been my motto. He wants to lead, and we want to follow.”
Offseason pickup runs at the practice facility have given the Suns players a better chance to get to know each other, but also to familiarize themselves with their new coaching staff.
“These last two weeks of us getting some pickup games and being around each other was key for us,” Durant said. “We got to understand one another, understand the coaching staff and what they want from us, and hopefully, now we can move forward with training camp and preseason games and kind of build out who we are.”
2. Jusuf Nurkic and the Suns will take more 3-pointers
In terms of who the Suns want to be, we mentioned it briefly, but taking more 3-pointers has been a staple of Bud’s teams throughout his career.
As we pointed out in our lingering concerns from a few weeks back, the Suns have ranked 25th, 17th, 26th and 15th in 3-point attempts over the last four years….despite being a top-10 team in 3-point percentage in all four of those seasons.
When asked what he brings to the table that’s different from Frank Vogel and Monty Williams, Budenholzer politely skirted the question.
“With a ton of respect for both Frank and Monty, we’re gonna try and instill things that we hope are helpful to us being successful and winning in the playoffs and advancing,” Bud said. “I think there’s things that fit this roster, there’s a style of play that fit this roster and the talent on it, and we can instill and bring to the table and the players embrace it and we become elite and one of the top teams in the league and compete for a championship.”
To sum it up a little more bluntly, the difference is 3s. Mike Budenholzer brings a torrential downpour of 3s that Williams and Vogel simply couldn’t get out of this midrange-heavy roster. In fairness, Vogel talked about wanting the Suns to take more 3s, but Budenholzer has walked that walk throughout his career.
“He preaches a lot of 3s, and I know that’s something we want to get more up and was a weak point of our team last year and the attempts that we got up,” said Grayson Allen, a former player of Bud’s in Milwaukee. “We have a lot of great shooters, we just need to finally get more attempts up. I think his personality and coaching style fits the team really well.”
Allen went as far as saying he hopes Phoenix is top-five in 3-point attempts per game this season after they finished 25th last year. To make that type of climb last year, the Suns would’ve had to jump from 32.6 attempts per game to 38.1. It’s a sizable gap on paper, but as Allen noted, it’s only one extra 3 per person for their top-six rotation guys.
Getting a Big 3 made up of midrange maestros to adjust will be the key, but James Jones said they’ve been receptive to Bud’s 3-point sermons.
“They’ve been great,” Jones said. “Those guys are shot-makers, right? And if the shots that are presented, the shots that are created are 3s, they’ll take ’em. And if the shots that are created are midrange shots, they’ll take ’em as well.”
On one recent occasion, Budenholzer pulled Bradly Beal into his office to show him 5-6 clips where he could’ve taken a 3 but instead chose to drive into the defense and turned it over.
So are the Suns really ready to finally take more 3s?
“Well, we don’t have a choice,” Beal joked. “But when you see the championship teams, like, they are first, second, third in attempts and makes and percentage. So in order for us to be in that race, we gotta start shooting ’em.”
The key will be generating more catch-and-shoot looks for those guys than they were able to conjure up last season, namely by getting into their sets earlier in the shot clock, playing with pace and doing a better job of moving the ball to collapse the defense.
One other potentially helpful piece of the puzzle would be having a somewhat reliable stretch-5. Jusuf Nurkic spent his summer working on that aspect of his game, under Budenholzer’s direction. The Suns want him practicing 3s and they want him taking them in games too.
“There definitely has been, I think, intentional work by Nurk and conversations with him about what we think he can do and add and grow, and most obviously is a 3-point shooter,” Budenholzer said. “He’s done it a little bit in his past, and we’re gonna push that envelope.”
Offseason workout videos can be misleading, but Nurk does have some prior experience here. In his last season in Portland in 2022-23, the 7-footer took a career-high 2.3 long-range attempts per game and made 36.1 percent of them. Having Nurkic take 1-2 triples a game and shoot a percentage somewhere in the mid-30s would be enough to change the dynamic of how defenses have to guard the Suns.
Last year, Nurk was routinely attempting 3s until about the midpoint of the season. Of his 90 3-point attempts last year, 77 of them came before Jan. 11. After that point, he only took 13 3s the rest of the way. According to Nurk, the decision to remove that shot from his games was not his.
“Not trying to go too deep on that because it was not my decision,” Nurkic said. “So I can tell you that was more about coach [Vogel], what he wanted to do.”
In fairness, Vogel told Nurkic to stop taking 3s because he was only shooting 27.3 percent from deep at that point. This season will have to be different, both in Nurk’s conversion rate and in his coach’s faith that Nurkic can be a dependable stretch-5.
“I feel like since day one coach Bud came and having great conversation with him man-to-man,” Nurkic said. “Was really helpful to see the way we want to play. It doesn’t mean I’m gonna just shoot 10 3s a game — I wish, but not gonna happen. And especially as a team, we want to get better there, attempting and making more 3s. But for me, that’s gonna be just a plus. I think it will just go back to the season in Portland that I had kind of free will to take the 3s, and it was a good experience.”
3. Suns Honor Al McCoy
In honor of the passing of Al McCoy, Mat Ishbia announced the team will honor him with a band on their jerseys that reads “Al” this season.
“That will be out to commemorate his legacy a little bit, so we can always remember him and think about him for the whole season,” Ishbia said. “I’m sad we couldn’t bring him a championship while he was alive, but hopefully we’ll get one with him on our jersey, and I know he’ll be watching from above.”
Many of the Suns’ current players weren’t in Phoenix long enough to really get to know Al McCoy, but Mike Budenholzer — a native of Holbrook, Arizona — grew up listening to Al’s calls on the radio. McCoy even introduced him as head coach during his introductory press conference over the summer, which was an emotional, full-circle moment for Bud.
“I think everybody could see and know the special place he has in probably the whole state’s heart, all basketball fans’ heart, the Suns’ heart, my heart,” Budenholzer said. “So to honor him, I think, is important to everybody, including me. What an incredible career, what an incredible life, an incredible man. I feel fortunate to have known him just a little bit. So hopefully the way we play, the way we represent ourselves would be something that Al would be proud of.”
As for Devin Booker, there was no question he and Al McCoy built a special relationship over the years. Book said it means something to be able to honor Al with the jersey band — even though he correctly noted it would’ve been “iconic” for it to read “Shazam” instead. He also said it’s his job to let the guys know how important that patch is and what McCoy meant to the city.
“Al is the historian of this franchise,” Booker explained. “He was here from day one and somebody that I grew super close to over time, somebody that I view as a really good friend of mine. And obviously tough for all of us, but he’s embedded in this culture and in this city forever. So it was like losing a family member for a lot of us.”
4. point guard talk dominates Suns Media Day
For the first few weeks of free agency, the Suns were ready to roll into the new season with a backup point guard, but seemed content about not having a starting point guard. Then they realized they might actually have a chance of landing Tyus Jones on a veteran minimum deal, and everything changed.
“When did we think we were gonna get him? We didn’t think we had a chance, to be honest, at the beginning,” Ishbia said. “But spending time with it, that didn’t mean we didn’t make the calls. When you have a 1 percent chance or something, then it just rose to 5, 10, 20, 30 and all of a sudden, you’re like, ‘We might be in the game here.'”
Thanks to the recruiting team of Ishbia, Jones and Bartelstein, plus conversations with Grayson Allen, Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, Jones agreed to join Phoenix as the best bargain signing of the summer.
“If someone takes millions and millions of dollars less to be part of an organization, it shows that Tyus is one, a winner, two, he understands the big opportunity in front of him, and three, it’s a kudos to our players, our coaches and the culture we’re trying to build here in Phoenix, and our fans,” Ishbia said. “He’s like, ‘I want to play. I want to compete for a championship.’ And so I’m really excited about Tyus. I’ve loved getting to know him, and I think he’s gonna be a great great part of our organization, and hopefully it’s not just this year.”
Between Jones and Monte Morris, the Suns have the two guys who have routinely jostled for the NBA’s best assist-to-turnover ratio over the last five years. Despite being undersized defensively, there’s no question they’ll be able to keep the offense organized and make life easier on the Big 3.
“Historically good as far as taking care of the ball and leading their teams,” Jones said. “I think what it’ll do is give our guys a little comfort and a little more trust in the offense and the ball movement. We want to shoot more 3s. We want the ball to pop. We want the ball to move. And as long as those guys are somewhat the conduit in between, I think whichever decision they make will be an optimal decision and I know everyone will respect it.”
Having trust that those guys will make the right play is key, and Budenholzer said he’s been impressed with Jones’ on-court presence as a confident leader and intelligent communicator. There’s also the obvious benefit of putting Booker and Beal back into more off-ball scenarios again.
“I think for our roster, especially to have a point guard, a starting point guard in Tyus, I think it puts all three of those guys — but not just Book and Kevin and Brad, but the entire group — in a position to be their best also,” Budenholzer explained.
Both Booker and Beal seem excited about the addition too.
“I can definitely go back to being the Brad we all have hoped,” Beal said. “I’m excited for it for sure. I mean, I’ll still have some ball-handling responsibilities, but obviously not being a focal, primary point guard, which helps all of us. It helps me, helps Book, helps K, helps Grayson, helps all of us because now we can go back to being in our traditional roles and we can flourish in what we’ve done well and got us to this point on careers.”
“We can say it how it is: We got him for a steal,” Booker added. “I remember the news being broke while we were at USA and all the guys in the locker room was like, ‘Man, how did y’all get that done?’ But someone I’m super excited about. Obviously everyone talks about the assist-to-turnover ratio, but he’s definitely not someone you can leave open either. So he’s just a true ultimate winner, and I’m glad that he’s on a stage now where he can show it.”
Even Grayson Allen, who will be moving to the bench with the addition of Tyus Jones, helped recruit his former Duke teammate to Phoenix, just because he knew it would be a perfect fit.
“I think we’re gonna have a great team with Tyus out there as the point guard,” Allen said. “I know we had a lot of talks last year about, like, ‘Does this team need a point guard?’ And a lot of times, I was kind of the guy who thought ‘no,’ but there’s not many guys out there like Tyus, not a whole lot of point guards out there that play like Tyus. So I really think he is the perfect fit for our team.”
From his kick-aheads and pushing the tempo, to being able to run pick-and-rolls and being a good spot-up shooter off the ball, Jones will help this offense run a lot smoother. And after spending a season with the Washington Wizards, he’s excited about the opportunity to feed the ball to this kind of Big 3.
“They’re gonna make my job really, really easy, and I plan on doing the same for them,” Jones said. “They are three of the best scorers in the world, and for me as a point guard who likes to get guys the ball and get others involved and put guys in the best position to score the ball, I can’t imagine a better trio to do that with.”
5. No clarity Yet on Kevin Durant’s contract extension from Suns Media Day
We’ve covered why it might make sense for Durant to wait until next summer to sign an extension with the Suns, so we won’t waste any time panicking over the lack of clarity from Suns Media Day on this.
Durant and the Suns avoided giving any insight into that potential one-year, $59.5 million extension that KD is currently eligible for, but they affirmed their commitment to each other.
“We talk to him and his agent, Rich Kleiman, all the time,” Ishbia said. “There’s different restrictions, but we don’t really go through contract extensions publicly. But I’ll tell you this: Kevin loves it, we love Kevin, we plan on Kevin being here, and nothing’s changing with that.”
“We love having KD here,” Jones added. “We want him here. We’ll figure that out. Like Mat said, we don’t really talk about that publicly, but the thing we do talk about publicly is, like, who really wants to be here and who’s a great fit for us. And so we love KD, he loves being here.”
For now, Durant is more focused on the upcoming season than the Oct. 21 deadline for a contract extension that wouldn’t kick in until 2026-27.
“I got two years left on my contract,” Durant pointed out. “I’m focused on being the best that I can every day in the moment, and we’ll figure that stuff out when it’s time.”
