3 massive mistakes the Phoenix Suns made this season

The Phoenix Suns continue to limp towards the end of the regular season, with the potential of a play-in tournament spot still not a certainty as we enter April. This despite the teams around the Suns losing key players to injuries - but when you give yourself no margin for error after plenty of disastrous losses up to this point - this is what happens.

Although some of what has happened has been beyond the franchise's control - Luka Doncic being gifted to the Los Angeles Lakers for example wasn't ideal - much of what has happened has been their own fault. You simply can't have Kevin Durant and Devin Booker on your roster, and be quite this bad.

The Suns messed up in three key areas throughout the season.

Being honest some of the seeds for the disappointment that 2024-25 would become were sown last year. Although he won't appear on this list, having to break up a valuable future first round pick just to ditch center Jusuf Nurkic was not a good side quest to embark on at the deadline. Then again, neither was playing him as much as the coaching staff did either. Strap in, this will not be pretty.

3. Attempting to trade Kevin Durant at the deadline

This is a move that is only getting worse as time has gone on, but quite what the Suns were doing trying to move Durant at the deadline is unclear at this point. They had fallen in love with the prospect of what Jimmy Butler could bring to Phoenix, that much we do know. Given how he has transformed the Golden State Warriors, it is not hard to see what the organization envisioned on that one.

But letting it be known publically that Durant was available both annoyed him - he was the one who was rumored to have rejected the chance to go back to San Francisco - but it has also negatively impacted his trade value this summer. It is hard to move a 36-year-old who has had some serious injuries, although to be fair to Durant he has played brilliantly for much of the campaign.

Perhaps the front office thought they were being clever in lighting a fire under him for the remainder of the season, and he has taken it up a notch in recent weeks. But with Booker unlikely to be moved and Bradley Beal unable to because of that no-trade clause, Durant always figured to be the odd man out. There was no need to let him know that during this rocky season.

This also appeared to validate - to some fans at least - the job head coach Mike Budenholzer has done in year one in The Valley. Durant and Budenholzer have appeared to clash several times this season - but if one of them is going to survive the offseason - right now it looks like coach Bud. Then again, the Suns surely don't want to pay off another coach massive sums of money. A misfire.

2. Hiring Mike Budenholzer in the first place

Even before coach Budenholzer and Durant were getting into it on the sidelines, many had begun to question the job that was being done by the head coach in Phoenix. Which is a shame, because he was rightly viewed as an excellent get last summer. An Arizona native who had beaten the Suns in the 2021 NBA Finals joining the team after the not very good Frank Vogel experiment.

Boy how this team could use Frank Vogel now. With the benefit of hindsight, the fact he was able to turn Nurkic, Beal and a not as good roster one year ago into a league average defensive outfit was a minor miracle. Imagine if he'd had rookies Ryan Dunn and Oso Ighodaro to use in his effective defensive schemes as well.

Fans had braced themselves for a regression on that end when coach Budenholzer took over, but sitting 26th in defensive efficiency (116.9) this season is unacceptable. Even more puzzling, the Suns actually score the ninth most points of any team in the league (115.3), yet on most nights the offensive cohesion just isn't there.

The 3-point flurry that many hoped they'd see never really came together (37.7 per game, 12th in the league), with the "stretch Nurkic" experiment a bad one. In summary then taking a massive step back on one end - and not balancing that with huge improvement on the other - has left coach Budenholzer running a team that on most nights appears bland and easy to score on.

1. Figuring out the right players to use too late in the season

It is hard trying to fit Beal into the puzzle here when he is making $50 million this season, although the franchise did eventually do the right thing in bringing him off the bench. For much of the season though players have gotten minutes based on merit more than anything else. Point guard Tyus Jones being one such example, as well as the likes of Grayson Allen and Mason Plumlee.

It took until after the All-Star break for the coaching staff to give Dunn and Ighodaro some real run in games they needed to win, and the results right away were more promising. The same is true of Collin Gillespie, the two-way player who immediately injected a sense of urgency when he was on the court. Then there was Bol Bol, who enjoyed that run as a starter on this team.

Obviously if you're relying on the above players in big spots you're not a true contender, but these guys did help solve one of the biggest problems the Suns had. Namely if you put hard working guys who can shoot the ball around the talents of Durant and Booker, you are going to be competitive in a lot more games.

It is no coincidence that the Suns rattled off four wins - including victories over the Cleveland Cavaliers and Milwaukee Bucks - at a time when they had the hardest schedule remaining in the league, and that was after trusting the fringe players more. A feel-good story sure, but it came much too late in the season to actually make a difference. Some painful lessons learned.