Mike Budenholzer - Officially Suns new Head Coach

Hoop Head

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I’ve never felt more strongly that this is the time to trade KD. We are not getting past the Denver, Minnesota, Dallas and OKC’s going forward. Our best player’s best ball is behind them and we can’t improve the margins enough to make a difference. Ishbia won’t admit his creation failed but the right basketball move is a mini rebuild. Randle, Bogdanovich plus three 1st’s can probably get it done as the Knicks would be trading nobody from their playoff lineup for a top-15 guy.

New York would be a good target, depending on the plan. I'd rather have Mitchell Robinson or Hartenstein in place of Bogdovich so we can then try and move Nurkic elsewhere. I wouldn't let them be a deal breaker though.


That gives us a more balanced team. I'm not sold on Julius Randle but he is an All-Star who can score. We'd have a more well rounded team.
 

clyde2tw

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IMO, it's premature to give up on contending ambition and to rebuild. Beal was healthy the 2nd half of the season and showed he still can play. It's about the right team concept from defense to offensive game plans to on court execution that need improve.
 

GatorAZ

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IMO, it's premature to give up on contending ambition and to rebuild. Beal was healthy the 2nd half of the season and showed he still can play. It's about the right team concept from defense to offensive game plans to on court execution that need improve.

Do the playoffs count as the 2nd half of the season? Beal and KD’s best are behind them. Book is probably maxed out unless he improves his 3pt shot.

I wouldn’t call it a rebuild if KD is traded because you’re not going from contention to non-contention. You’re going from non-contention to still non-contention.
 

clyde2tw

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Do the playoffs count as the 2nd half of the season? Beal and KD’s best are behind them. Book is probably maxed out unless he improves his 3pt shot.

I wouldn’t call it a rebuild if KD is traded because you’re not going from contention to non-contention. You’re going from non-contention to still non-contention.
The team lost trust in Vogel, without defense as a team, everything is in vain. Beal gave up in game 4 as his guesture at the 6th foul exit showed.
 

Superbone

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I'm torn. I don't think we have any real chance to improve whether we add on or blow it up unless we blow it up completely and start using cap space to generate future assets. But if they blow it up with the hopes of a quick turnaround, we could be screwed for the better part of a decade.

Personally I lean towards trading everyone. Try and bring in young players that Bud can develop and just live with the worst record for the next few years. It will hurt each year come draft day but that's the future we've created. OTOH, the temptation of possibly adding Lebron on a minimum salary has to be tempting to this FO.
You can lean that way but Ishbia isn't. He wants to try and win now. I just hope they can work some player personnel magic and that Bud can do a lot better with our lineup than what Vogel could.
 

clyde2tw

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You can lean that way but Ishbia isn't. He wants to try and win now. I just hope they can work some player personnel magic and that Bud can do a lot better with our lineup than what Vogel could.
Ishbia has good reason to do so. Last season's team never had a consistent and smooth development of chemistry and proper game plans, except for big-3 isos. While Oubre, DJones, Jalen Johnson, Bitadze etc. came out big contributing for their respective teams, our min player acquisitions all failed miserably except for Gordon and partly Eubanks, yet we wasted until trading deadline to integrate them. As a team we were consistently medicre on defense except maybe a couple games, and far below expectation on offense, as we never solved the hard bodying-up and quick double teaming on Book and KD. We squeezed in purely on average talent but immediately embarassed by the young and dynamic Wolves, without means to adjust.
The failure is mainly on coaching and management for the roster composition and game preps. The players have their shortcomings but good team play shall properly feature their strength and cover the shortcomings, as no roster is perfect, not even the new champion which ever of Mavs and Celts would win out. So, better coaching and smarter small-range roster moves may just be enough.
 

Chaplin

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So Darvin Ham is now Milwaukee's lead assistant. That puts to bed the narrative that he said no to Bud because he wanted to take a year off. So then, what other reason could he have to say no? Hmmm...
 

Superbone

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So Darvin Ham is now Milwaukee's lead assistant. That puts to bed the narrative that he said no to Bud because he wanted to take a year off. So then, what other reason could he have to say no? Hmmm...
Bratwurst?
 

Hoop Head

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So Darvin Ham is now Milwaukee's lead assistant. That puts to bed the narrative that he said no to Bud because he wanted to take a year off. So then, what other reason could he have to say no? Hmmm...

Because there's a higher chance he ends up as the HC in Milwaukee vs Phoenix. Doc could very well be canned this coming year while I don't see that happening with Budenholzer.
 

AzStevenCal

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Because there's a higher chance he ends up as the HC in Milwaukee vs Phoenix. Doc could very well be canned this coming year while I don't see that happening with Budenholzer.
Unless the geographic location means a lot to him, I'd think he evaluated the two franchises and chose the best situation.
 

Yuma

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So Darvin Ham is now Milwaukee's lead assistant. That puts to bed the narrative that he said no to Bud because he wanted to take a year off. So then, what other reason could he have to say no? Hmmm...
There was conjecture about him being behind Fizdale in the pecking order.
 

Mainstreet

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Suns to add former college head coach Mike Hopkins to coaching staff.

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JCSunsfan

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Like you said, we don't have any change in our pocket. There's rumor we could flip Allen and Royce this season. IDK. I think that only comes into play if we flip Nurk and NEED bigs.
Looking backward in trades is a loser proposition. Regret only leads to more regret. They just need to make the best move for the team right now.
 

JCSunsfan

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He’s playing with Book and Beal so it’s going to be heavy-iso offense. Exactly what he came from with the Nets so maybe he’s got a short memory lol. Golden St was the outlier because nobody needed the ball. Even Curry could run off screens and spot up but we just don’t have that personnel. In 2022 we had a top-5 offense but the Point God was still in elite form. Now we have a bunch of ISO guys with no PG and play slow.
Our “big three” is a flawed group. In an effective big three there is a defensive specialist, Uber rebounder, or a distributor floor general. We have no of those. We have three scorers. In an ideal world Beal has to go. However he is the least tradable of the three. Someone like Jrue (in that mold, not the actual player) would be a much better option.

Chris Paul would have a better option if he wasn’t so old and didn’t break down in the playoffs every year.
 

95pro

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Looking backward in trades is a loser proposition. Regret only leads to more regret. They just need to make the best move for the team right now.

Thats my creedo, no ragrets, no what i'm saying?
 
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Mainstreet

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Looking backward in trades is a loser proposition. Regret only leads to more regret. They just need to make the best move for the team right now.

I'm more like those who don't learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it person.
 

JCSunsfan

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I'm more like those who don't learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it person.
I get that. But what I am taking about is the "if we trade this guy for that guy, then we will have traded these three guys for only that." You cannot undo the past. Learn from it but don't let past failures keep you from making the right deal in the present.
 

Cheesebeef

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I'm more like those who don't learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it person.

Says the guy who still pines for one of the only THREE teams in all of NBA HISTORY who lost back to back 2-0 series leads and was stumbling and bumbling to a 30-26 record the next season.
 

Mainstreet

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Suns lose 0-4 to the Timberwolves in the opening round of the playoffs in 2024.
 

Phrazbit

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Says the guy who still pines for one of the only THREE teams in all of NBA HISTORY who lost back to back 2-0 series leads and was stumbling and bumbling to a 30-26 record the next season.

We sure fixed that problem.
 

Hoop Head

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Says the guy who still pines for one of the only THREE teams in all of NBA HISTORY who lost back to back 2-0 series leads and was stumbling and bumbling to a 30-26 record the next season.

Bashing someone for being a Suns fan and believing this team's future was brighter pre-KD than it is today is in character for you. How much wider did KD make our championship window? I mean, 33-22 at the trade deadline is really something to celebrate. Same goes for failing to win a single playoff game.
 
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