The halo of championship coaches has faded, and Budenholzer’s Phoenix is ​​at the point of no return.

After failing to qualify for the play-offs in the 2025 season, the Suns' willful owner Ishbia fired the famous coach Budenholzer at a single order, regardless of his five-year salary of approximately 50 million. This is also the third consecutive year that the Suns have fired their coaches (the first two were Monty and Vogel).

Ishbia invested a huge amount of salary and spent a lot of first-round assets to build the team, but it did not enter the play-offs. The record was worse than in the 2024 season (sixth in the Western Conference). It is really unacceptable.

Compared with the high expectations during the offseason, Budden can only lament that life is unpredictable and things are unpredictable.

This famous marshal had an aura before he came to the Sun.

Master tactician. He has built a good offensive and defensive system from the Hawks to the Bucks. The Hawks' civilian player system was first in the Eastern Conference in the 15th season and was called the Eastern Spurs. During the Bucks period, he focused on Antetokounmpo as a tactical basis and won the Eastern Conference first place three times (19, 20, 23 seasons), a championship (21 seasons), and helped Antetokounmpo get two MVP awards.

Champion coach. In the 21st season, he led the Bucks to defeat the Suns and win the championship.

Grandmaster of the Alliance. His disciples are all over the league. For example, Hamm, Snyder, Atkinson, and Jenkins have all served as coaches. After the "Popovich team", the league has a "Buden team".

Of course, what he has always been criticized for is his on-the-spot command, but his flaws do not outweigh his flaws.

This is the reason why the Suns management has hope for it. However, the ideal is too full and the reality is too skinny.

Let's be objective. If the Suns don't advance to the play-offs, it's unfair to throw all the blame to Budden.

The team's three giants Durant, Booker and Beal lack the ability to organize and connect. They are all super scorers. Booker and Beal are super scorers with overlapping positions. The team's introduction of Jones and Morris seems to be of no help. This is destined to make it difficult for the team to play a good team offense.

The team lacks functional tall forwards. O'Neal is only 1.98m, and the forwards with good height are Durant and Dunn. The Suns had to add three more guards, from Vogel to Budden. In addition, the defense of the Big Three itself is average, which makes the team unable to defend well.

But the Suns' record is not as good as sixth in the Western Conference during Vogel's era, and Budden cannot escape the blame.

Let’s talk about the offensive system first.

Vogel is a classical academic coach, while Budden is a modern space basketball master. The latter is obviously much more glamorous than the former.

But in the 2024 season, the Suns' offensive efficiency was 117.6 (9th in the league), and in 2025 the offensive efficiency dropped to 116.2 (10th in the league). After the master came, did they retreat instead of making progress? Why is this?

Let's take a look at some interesting sets of data:

Buden "modernized" the Suns at the beginning of the season: greatly increasing the ratio of three-pointers and reducing the ratio of mid-range shots.

His idea is almost to copy the Bucks model. He wants Nurkic to be Lopez and Bill to be Holiday.

This is completely cutting the feet to fit the shoes. This model was once extremely popular and ranked first in the Western Conference at the beginning of the season, but then it gradually became unaccustomed to the local environment.

The one who suffers the most is Nurkic. In the 24th season, he made 0.3 of 1.2 three-pointers (24.4%). This season, he made 0.8 of 2.4 three-pointers (32.2% shooting percentage); this incremental significance is too small.

In addition to being a pick-and-roll wall in the 24th season, Vogel also asked him to be a support point; in the 25th season, he turned into a pick-and-roll wall and a space point. For this reason, he did not hesitate to lose weight. His protection of the basket, pick-and-roll and rebounding levels plummeted, and he became a toy in the league. He was DNPed by Bud, and regretfully left for the Hornets.

The remaining centers after Nurkic were sent away were Richards, Plumlee and Iguodaro. They were all difficult to reuse, which ultimately led to the decline of the Suns' center line and a lot of scoring in the penalty area.

Compared to the 2024 season, the Suns' 25th season has more three-pointers, but it cannot fill the gap of weakened penalty area offense.

The other one is Bill. Budden once expressed to Bill that he hopes Bill will become the team's Jrue Holiday, play like Holiday, and be a top defender.

This is because of the overlap between Bill and Booker. Budden hopes that Bill will delegate the offensive ball rights, stop being a scorer, and focus more on organization and defense, and be the defender.

But Big Boss has never played like this in his entire career. His defensive level can only barely pass, and it is impossible to reach Holiday's level. He once said: "Don't let me play another player."

This made Bill very uncomfortable, and he even hesitated to put Bibo on the bench.

The unsuccessful transformation of Nurkic and Bill made it impossible for Budden to copy the Bucks model. Budden tried to let Booker, Bill, Jones, and Gillespie act as point guards, but he was unable to connect the whole team. Booker and Bill are not good at organization, Jones is more than stable but not enough in attacking the basket, and Gillespie has similar problems.

Therefore, the Suns can only rely on star players to play in isolation. Durant and Booker have full playing time, one averaging 36.5 minutes and the other 37.3 minutes, which in turn causes injuries among players.

The Suns especially relied on Durant to score points, which caused Durant to suffer injuries.

In the absence of a good point guard, the Suns still achieved an offensive efficiency of 116.2 (10th in the league). It can only be said that the stars' individual abilities are too strong, and the team's three-point shooting is very good. Gillespie, Durant, Allen (the touch has declined slightly compared to the 2024 season after gaining weight), O'Neal, Jones, and Bill all have very high three-point shooting percentages (but they cannot use the space to attack the basket).

Let’s talk about the defensive system.

The Suns' shortcomings are too obvious. There are too many defensive loopholes, such as Booker, Bill, and Jones. Moreover, the team is not tall enough and lacks a tall striker..

I have to say that Vogel is a defensive master. When he coached in the 24th season, his defensive resources were worse than Budden. With O'Neal's defense, Durant's coverage, and Nurkic's protection of the basket, the Suns ranked 13th in the league in defensive efficiency of 114.6.

In the 25th season, the team added Martin, Dunn and other good defensive players, but Budden's system was in disarray, Nurkic was used, and the team's defensive efficiency dropped to 119.3 (28th in the league).

In fact, the Suns' key ball offense is pretty good. With Durant and Booker, they are at the mid-level level in the league. However, due to poor defense, they are often missed at critical moments.

In terms of rotation, Budden was even more chaotic. He used 35 sets of starts, and even sent Jones, Bill, etc. to the bench. In the end, he could not find the optimal answer.

His handling of the locker room was even more chaotic. He once accused the star player Booker and asked him to "make less noise" during the game/timeout, which caused Booker's dissatisfaction. During the game against the Lakers, Budden had a conflict with Durant.

The players' roles are confusing, the practice is not arranged coherently, and there is no chemical reaction, which causes dissatisfaction among the players. For example, as mentioned above, asking Bill to learn from Holiday caused Bill to be dissatisfied and protested. For example, Nurkic was sent to the bench, marginalized, and the rotation was unstable, and the coach did not tell him in advance why he would not play. Nurkic once said: "Buden and I did not communicate." He was traded during the season. For example, during a match between the Suns and Rockets, players from both sides clashed, but Bol Bol did not help, and he was DNPed for the entire season because of this.

Why did Budden fail so badly coaching the Suns, but was so successful coaching the Hawks and Bucks?

Looking back at the movie, it seems that Budden's team's background is defense, and only the offense based on defense has a first-class level; an offensive team like the Suns is really not suitable for him.