On Monday, the Phoenix Suns took their first step toward righting a sinking ship by firing coach Mike Budenholzer. It’s the first of many offseason questions that need answers this summer, but make no mistake about it: Just because the Suns‘ problems extend beyond Bud doesn’t mean it was the wrong decision.
Obviously it’s a bad look for an organization to fire three head coaches in a three-year span, and that speaks to broader issues that need addressing. As we wrote back in 2023 when Monty Williams became Phoenix’s first coaching casualty, there were certainly grounds for making the decision to go in a new direction. But they had to get their next hire right if they were going to fire a guy coming off an NBA Finals appearance in 2021 and a 64-win season in 2022.
They didn’t.
Much like Williams, Frank Vogel was far from the Suns‘ only problem as they won 49 games before being swept in the first round of the playoffs. But for those who forgot about that early April loss to the LA Clippers where Phoenix trailed 35-4 in the first quarter, Vogel had clearly lost the locker room — a phrase that is a death knell for NBA coaches these days. After taking their time to conduct interviews with players following the end of the season, the front office made the decision to axe Vogel. Their problems ran deeper, but it was a necessary decision.
Yet again, the Suns needed to nail their next hire, and yet again, they failed with Mike Budenholzer. He was far from a sexy hire at the time, but on paper, he felt like a proper fit. One of the biggest complaints about Vogel — a notoriously nice guy — was how he catered to the team’s stars and lacked the disposition to hold anyone accountable.
Bud was seen as more of a hard-ass who would demand accountability from everyone involved, as well as another recent NBA champion and a two-time Coach of the Year who routinely coaxed top-10 offenses and defenses out of his teams in Milwaukee and Atlanta. Budenholzer was going to finally get the Suns to take more 3-pointers, which had been one of their biggest Achilles heels during the Monty Williams era. If anyone could get more out of an improved Suns roster, it was the native of Holbrook, Arizona who was praised for his attention to detail and meticulous approach.
Unfortunately, that very methodology also came with a “my way or the highway” mindset that rubbed everyone in the organization the wrong way. Multiple sources informed PHNX Sports throughout the season that Mike Budenholzer was difficult to work with or even communicate with — sentiments echoed by Arizona Sports’ John Gambadoro, not to mention Jusuf Nurkic‘s famous (likely exaggerated) comments about not speaking with Budenholzer for two months, or multiple players off-handedly citing his “old school,” “tough” approach.
There’s nothing wrong with accountability, and the players bear plenty of blame for how the most disappointing season in franchise history played out. But aside from the clear lack of belief or buy-in or execution that was on display on a nightly basis from February onward, it was telling how many players cited a lack of winning habits, identity or culture.
“I think that’s one of the steps that we skipped,” Devin Booker said. “Learning through the wins and the losses and just continuing to get better every day, no matter what the circumstances are. Like I said, we had spots where we did it, but it has to be something that’s turned on at all times.”
“I think it’s just inconsistencies throughout the year,” Bradley Beal agreed. “And you just allow those to continue to build up and they — I don’t wanna say become habitual, but they’re just constant inconsistencies. So instead of having that, putting a couple games together and 10 games together, we had a couple and then lose, and lose four or five. And that’s tough. So I think it was just the attention to detail, especially on the defensive end and the effort piece.”
Mike Budenholzer’s on-court and off-court failures
Again, the players are not blameless in this! But establishing an identity and a culture starts with the head coach, and it’s something Phoenix hasn’t had since Monty Williams left.
Take, for example, how quickly the Suns went away from one of Mike Budenholzer’s core principles: shooting more 3s. From the start of the season through Dec. 15, they ranked eighth in the NBA in 3-point attempts, taking 39.6 a night. Over the next month, they dropped to 29th in the league, attempting 32.8 per game. On the season, they wound up finishing 12th in attempts, but the Suns went 7-10 over that period, and that disillusioned stretch was enough to drop them out of the top 10 for the season.
The defensive buy-in was even worse. Going from Vogel’s 13th-ranked defense (with worse defensive personnel) to Mike Budenholzer’s 27th-ranked defense was inexcusable, especially with how often he stubbornly declined to play some of his more defensive-minded personnel. Rookies Ryan Dunn and Oso Ighodaro were chief among those, and their inexplicable benching midway through the season may have been a big contributing factor in losing the locker room.
As Kevin Durant put it in one of a few heated sideline exchanges with Budenholzer, “You need somebody who can guard.”
From the start of the season through Jan. 24, when Budenholzer still giving Dunn consistent rotation minutes, the Suns’ defensive rating was 114.9. From Jan. 25 until March 10, when Dunn joined Ighodaro on the outskirts of the rotation, that defensive rating plummeted to 120.5. In both scenarios, Phoenix was a bottom-10 defense, but that difference of nearly six points per 100 possessions made winning games impossible, and it’s no wonder the Suns went 8-14 over a stretch that featured far more favorable opponents than their gauntlet to close the season.
Couple that with waiting too long to bench Tyus Jones, not putting the ball in Devin Booker‘s hands as the lead playmaker for large stretches of the season and a myriad of other questionable decisions regarding the rotation and team’s playing style, and it felt like Bud continually pressed all the wrong buttons.
In short, Mike Budenholzer’s Suns have looked lost and lifeless for a while now, so no one should be surprised by Monday’s news. Moving on from Bud was an inevitable, necessary decision.
Firing three coaches in three seasons certainly speaks to an organization with problems that run much deeper than the head coach. But before blame shifts to certain star players being “uncoachable” or “coach killers,” it’s worth noting that it is entirely possible to have multiple problems and still make the wrong hire twice in a row. Mike Budenholzer is living proof of that, and his tenure exacerbated the Suns’ underlying issues this season.
What comes next after firing Mike Budenholzer
With Bud officially out, once again, the Suns find themselves in a position where they cannot afford to mess up their next hire. Striking out on both Vogel and Budenholzer in back-to-back years contributed to this franchise wasting two straight seasons of a still-in-his-prime Kevin Durant, and now that chapter may have already closed. What comes next for KD, Bradley Beal, the other role players and even the front office will obviously play a major role in how Phoenix attempts to retool around Booker.
But the next coaching hire — Booker’s eighth head coach in 11 seasons — cannot be another one-year misfire. Book is 28 years old, and while he and the Suns remain committed to each other for the long haul, patience always reaches its breaking point at some point.
Beyond that, while Mike Budenholzer is far from a scapegoat, his hiring is symptomatic of a larger problem. The Suns have to conduct a wide-ranging, extensive search for someone who can implement a winning formula on and off the court, re-establishing the type of culture and identity the Suns have lacked since Monty Williams. They need someone who’s young and hungry and not potentially just in it for one year of work for five years of pay. Someone who can relate to the players, get them to buy in and still get them to play modern basketball. And, preferably, someone who didn’t sit on the sidelines for the past year before the Suns hired them, like Vogel and Budenholzer did.
That’s a lot of boxes to check, and there’s plenty of room to question the front office’s ability to get it right this time. But that certainly doesn’t make Mike Budenholzer a scapegoat in all of this, and his immediate departure was a necessary step in attempting to get this thing back on the rails.
