Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
The Phoenix Suns recently sacked head coach Mike Budenholzer after he spent just one season with the team. Budenholzer is a championship coach, as he helped the Milwaukee Bucks win the 2021 NBA title, but Phoenix finished the 2024-25 season with a subpar 36-46 record and did not qualify for the playoffs.
Some leaks have come out since the firing, and one of them involves Boston Celtics guard Jrue Holiday. Earlier this season, Budenholzer reportedly told Suns guard Bradley Beal he wanted him to be the “Jrue Holiday of this team,” and Beal apparently got offended by the request.
Holiday and Beal are different players from a stylistic standpoint. Although he’s a very capable offensive player, Holiday hangs his hat on the defensive end of the floor and doesn’t necessarily need to score to be effective. He averaged just 11.1 points per game for the Celtics in the 2024-25 regular season, his lowest scoring average since his rookie season, yet remains an important piece.
Beal, on the other hand, is a score-first talent, considering he’s averaging 21.5 points per game for his NBA career. The Suns experimented with playing him off the bench for a chunk of his second season in Phoenix, but nothing they tried was enough to get the team to look like a contender this season.
While Beal’s scoring talent is undeniable, he’s never been much of an impactful player on the less glamorous end of the floor at the NBA level. After all, he’s never been named to an All-Defensive team. Holiday has six All-Defensive nods to his name and finished sixth in the league’s Defensive Player of the Year voting in his maiden season in Boston.
Maybe the fact that Budenholzer asked Beal to be a player he’s not played a part in Phoenix’s decision to part ways with the former. But Budenholzer isn’t solely responsible for the Suns’ underwhelming campaign, and folks shouldn’t be shocked if Beal sees his stint in Phoenix come to an end in the near future as well.
Some teams have already been named as potential landing spots for the veteran if he ends up getting bought out by the Suns.
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