Report: Mike Budenholzer had issues coexisting with Devin Booker, Phoenix Suns players

The Phoenix Suns announced Monday that they have fired head coach Mike Budenholzer after the former title-winning coach (with the Milwaukee Bucks) spent just one season in Phoenix.

According to ESPN’s Shams Charania, Budenholzer had issues coexisting with star guard Devin Booker and others on the Suns roster.

“Budenholzer had issues connecting with the locker room this season, with team officials concluding that the roster failed to respond to the 2021 NBA championship coach, sources said,” Charania wrote. “Budenholzer’s inability to coexist with his players centered around the franchise’s cornerstone, Devin Booker, and went down the roster, those sources said.”

The 2024-25 season was a nightmare for the Suns, as they finished 11th in the Western Conference and failed to even make the play-in tournament. Despite having a trio of Booker, Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, the Suns won just 36 games in the 2024-25 season, finishing 10 games under .500.

Last season, the Suns made the playoffs as the No. 6 seed in the West, but they ended up getting swept in the first round by the Minnesota Timberwolves. The franchise then moved on from Frank Vogel (the team’s head coach in the 2023-24 season) and brought in Budenholzer in an attempt to take the Suns to a higher level in the 2024-25 campaign.

Phoenix reportedly gave Budenholzer a five-year, $50 million contract last offseason, but he was unable to deliver the results that the franchise was expecting.

This season, the Suns struggled mightily when Durant was out of the lineup, winning just three of the 20 games that he missed. The Suns also went through a strange period at the trade deadline where they nearly moved Durant to the Golden State Warriors.

“Durant was nearly traded to the Golden State Warriors at the trade deadline in February before making clear in league circles that he did not want to return to his former organization,” Charania wrote. “He will be in the final year of his deal next season.”

The Suns will have a lot of decisions to make with their roster this coming offseason, and it seems like their star trio could get broken up.

Budenholzer, who has been a head coach for the Atlanta Hawks, Bucks and Suns, has won one title in his NBA coaching career while posting a career record of 520-363 in the regular season. He missed the playoffs for just the second time in his career as a head coach in the 2024-25 season.