Jordan Spurgeon
The Phoenix Suns have its third coach in three season, after Mike Budenholzer was named the new head coach.
On Friday afternoon, an introductory press conference was held to introduce Budenholzer alongside James Jones.
Here are a few takeaways.
Expectations are still the same
There’s a reason Phoenix is a revolving door at the head coach position the last few summers. A championship with the superstars on this roster is the expectation. Anything short of that is failure in the organization’s eyes under owner Mat Ishbia.
Budenholzer understands this. He dealt with it for years in Milwaukee with Giannis Antetokoumpo as his superstar. He delivered in 2021 against Phoenix, and still was unemployed two years later.
“Talking about championships is kind of meaningless,” Budenholzer said during his press conference. “Talk is cheap. It’s what you do every day that’s powerful.”
Get more from role players
This may be obvious, but teams can’t win games with just three players, no matter how great they are.
Lots of attention is brought to how a coach can handle Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal playing together.
While Budenholzer did say he will look to extract more from their greatness, he knows that to take this team where it needs to go, he must maximize all the skills of the role players on the roster.
“I pretty much know what I’m going to get from the Big 3 night in and night out,” Budenholzer said. “We will need to focus everyday on competing and making sure our role players are being maximized… confidence is a key component to that.”
Roster construction still needs clarity
Lets be real. Budenholzer is a great coach. He will maximize this team’s ability. But he needs a more functional roster to do so.
He wouldn’t say whether or not this team needs a true point guard or a rebounding forward.
Those discussions are happening internally, and it sounds like he may be in the room with James Jones and Mat Ishbia more than the previous two coaches were. He has experience helping build rosters, and the Suns would be wise to listen to his input.
We’ll see what moves they make in the next few months. I’m guessing there isn’t many feasible options out there to improve the skillset of the overall roster.
