May 11: The Suns have officially announced the hiring of Budenholzer, making it official in a press release.
“Mike’s exceptional basketball acumen, championship pedigree and his standing as one of the NBA’s premier coaches will be invaluable as we compete for a championship,” Suns general manager James Jones said in a statement. “We’re confident that under his leadership our team will reach new levels of success.”
May 10, 5:32pm: Budenholzer and the Suns have agreed to a five-year deal worth in excess of $50MM, sources tell Charania (Twitter link).
May 10, 11:05am: The Suns are hiring Budenholzer, the Arizona Republic’s Duane Rankin tweets.
The hiring will “most likely” be officially completed this weekend, according to John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7 (Twitter links), who adds that Phoenix liked Budenholzer’s “ability to hold players accountable.”
May 10, 9:24am: The Suns are planning to hire Mike Budenholzer as their head coach, Shams Charania of The Athletic reports (Twitter link). Budenholzer’s multi-year contract is expected to approach eight figures per year, Charania adds.
It’s a swift move by Suns owner Mat Ishbia and the front office, as they announced the firing of Frank Vogel on Thursday. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported later in the day on Thursday that Budenholzer was the frontrunner for the job.
Like Vogel, who lasted just one season with Phoenix, Budenholzer brings a championship résumé to a roster with three stars — Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal — and a collection of role players, mostly on veteran’s minimum contracts.
“They view Mike Budenholzer as a clear choice that can really come in there and optimize those three guys,” Charania said on FanDuel TV’s Run It Back program (video link). “That’s really where this all hinges at, that the big three (is) being fully maximized and utilized the right way offensively.”
A two-time Coach of the Year and an Arizona native, Budenholzer won a championship with Milwaukee in 2021. He coached the Hawks for five seasons and the Bucks for five seasons, compiling a 484-317 regular season record and a 56-48 mark in the postseason.
Phoenix had the league’s third-highest payroll in ’23/24, and that figure is projected to continue to grow in ’24/25. The Suns have very little flexibility to make roster changes, due to their salary being above the second tax apron, so changing coaches is one of the few ways of shaking things up unless they look to move one of their stars.
In a full story for The Athletic, Charania, Doug Haller and Eric Nehm report that David Fizdale, Vogel’s top assistant, is expected to be offered a front office role with Phoenix. However, the belief is that Fizdale will turn down that offer.
Smh. He was always horrible with making adjustments in the playoffs. How is he any better than Vogel? Giannis won that championship for Milwaukee despite Bud’s horrible coaching. We might as well give Awful Coaching 200K subscribers now. He’s going to have unlimited content with Bud coaching again.
Somehow Vogel got 49 wins that crap roster and often injured “star” players. He probably should have received Coach of the Year with the success he had.
When you are expected to not only win one playoff round but the whole darn thing… The easiest scapegoat is the coach. Considering the cap crunch and their hands being tied, this is ultimately the best of a series of bad moves. If you were given the option of trading Durant or firing your coach, then you would probably choose the latter as well.
That was media tho. Like most basketball fans thought Beal was the worst contract in sports. And everyone saw the issues at PG.
They would have been better off keeping Ayton. Bc now they have no trade asset this offseason. Nurkic isn’t worth a dime.
Yeah did anyone actually think they were contenders to win it all coming into the season? That narrative was pushed by the media. I think their season went just about the way I expected it to.
The 4th quarter was always a problem all season long. That’s a coaching issue. Not saying Budenholzer is the answer, but Vogel definitely wasn’t.
AC is up to like 85k, up like 20k since the start of the playoffs. Ham, Rivers, and Nick Nurse gave him so much content and exposure.
What I like about Lakers and Suns is that they have the best superstars and they are targeting championships
The only thing they want is rings
He won a championship in Mil and they couldn’t get rid of him fast enough…great hire Suns
Damn. Budenholzer is not even officially hired yet and he’s already on the hot seat. Wouldn’t be surprised if we’re back in this same scenario next year because Ishbia doesnt like how the team performs next year
The question is how many coaches Ishbia wants to pay at the same time. This is starting to look like the bad years for the Kings with Ranadive meddling.
Yeah, for real. I’m pretty sure they’re still paying Monty Williams too, no?
Probably not because he got a new job.
Mostly thats not true, but in this specific case I believe his contract had strange language so that he was only owed the money if he didnt take another job, but it was part of why DET had to pay the premium they did since he was losing 30M or something taking the new job, and I believe his wife has cancer so he was just going to take a break and get paid till they through the bag at him.
Good for Bud in securing the bag.
Work for a year in sunny Phoenix and get canned by this time next year after a 45 win season and another 1st round debacle. Walk away with millions.
Good work if you can get it.
I said the same thing here yesterday. Agreed 100%, Snells.
Vogel back to Lakers? lol
He’s LeBron’s guy so I wouldn’t rule it out. But LeBron also fired him so..
Congratulations Bud, as long as the contract is fully guaranteed this a win/win situation for Budenholzer. Phoenix Suns have become in a dysfunctional organization with out any salary cap or draft picks only with two declining super stars and Devin Booker that at least still on his prime, besides that nothing else. I don’t know what Budenholzer can do to fix this team but at least I imagine he will get a nice paycheck just for trying.
PHX like Budenholzer’s “ability to hold players accountable.” This is one of the classic pillars of coaching, yet something few NBA coaches do. Still, I doubt it’s due to them being unable to do it. More likely its due to their organizations not empowering them to do it. Based on the reports out of PHX, the team should have been looking for a coach with the ability to kiss the butts of their stars, because that the team will empower them to do.
GM- KD sucks compared to GM-Bron ……
Next move trade Beal
Bud shouldn’t be an NBA coach anymore. Adrian Griffin would’ve been a better hire.
Someone will eventually wake up and hire Griffin. He deserves a better opportunity than that mess in Milwaukee.
Wow. Ishbia figured out the NBA. In his 3rd season too. He’s the smartest owner. Congratulations. You rock, Matt! You’re so cool and great at owning a basketball team. No way you lose now…
Beal to the Knicks !!!!!!!
You wish ……. rather DeM
Lakers go get JJ and Harden lol.
Suns using the college model – pay a guy heaps, fire ’em, keep paying ’em while paying the new guy too
KD back to gsw
No. Too fickle. Aging a little bit too. Need to really build some good youth. I’m jealous watching OKC wings flourish.
No matter who you hire, it’s never a good thing to chase a big name just because. And that’s clearly what the Suns did here seeing as how quickly they moved on this after firing Vogel. They didn’t even pretend to conduct a thorough interview process. Just “this guy has won a championship and is a veteran coach”. Guess who else that could be said of: Doc Rivers. Yeah.
Looks like Ishbia has learned nothing from his previous failures.
I don’t mind Bud, he is a good coach i just think Phoenix isn’t a team capable of making the right decisions to win a championship under Ishbia.
Their last three coaches Monty (won coach of the year) and helped drive them to the NBA final, Frank Vogel (won a title in 2020 with the Lakers) and Bud (twice coach of the year and won a title in 2021) all have great resumes and previous success but since that 2020/21 season they have gone downhill and made bad decision after bad decision.
Everyone loves to mock Monty Williams but look at that finals run he had, beat the defending champions the Lakers, swept the Denver Nuggets, then beat the Clippers in the WCF before losing to MVP Giannas in 6.
That team was strong, you had a smart veteran PG in CP3, an elite scorer in Booker, 3 solid 3 and D forwards in Crowder, Cam and Mikal and a former number 1 pick in Ayton at centre who was one of the league best rebounders.
They then trade Bridges, Johnson and Crowder plus 4 firsts and a pick swap for a 34 year old KD. Then give up Ayton for Nurkic and CP3 for Beal.
Going from a promising young team to past it hopefuls in the space of 3 seasons.
What they needed to do was find an understudy or replacement for CP3 who had shown signs of aging, put Ayton on the market and seen what was being offered.
What’s crazier is 3 days before the KD trade Kyrie Irving was trade from Brooklyn to Dallas for Dinwiddie, DFS, 1 first round pick and 2 seconds.
So they could’ve replaced CP3 with Kyrie at a fraction of the price.
Regardless now the only way Phoenix can possibly turn this around is trade Bradley Beal and hoping he waived his no trade clause.
Like I’ve said I’d try offer Utah, Beal and Roddy for Clarkson and Collins. Then get CP3 through FA after the Warriors waive him.
CP3 Booker KD Collins Nurkic
Clarkson Allen Little ONeale Eubanks (I guess)
next retread up .. good luck coaxing a good season out of beal
Why they overpay and give him 5 years? No other team would even offer close to that money and that many years. Competing against themselves lol.
5 years?! 5 FREAKING YEARS?!?! Are owners not seeing the swindling that is happening directly underneath their noses???
The owners are part of the class that have more money than sense…
Basketball shows just how much luck they had to get where they are…
Only a few owners are smart enough to stay the hell out of the basketball operations…
5 years is a message to the players.
This ball club be paying Monty, Frank and bud soon enough. More dollars than sense.
Not Monty williams. He got a new job.
Will Bud make it to May 10th 2025?
Doubt it… That is a nice payday for a coach for a single season though.
Like others have said, great deal for Bud.
Since his teams always deliver in the regular season, he will probably win around 52 games or so with that team. Then lose in the first or second round to the Mavs or Wolves. Ishbia will fire him and he’ll get his 50 million for a good regular season.
Yes he’ll probably get his entire 50 million. But it’ll be over 5 years unless he finds another job. That’s why it took 10 million per year to get him. He was going to make 8 million next year to sit at home for the final season of his Bucks contract extension signed after they won the championship. LOL