The Phoenix Suns had a major organizational overhaul this off-season. They parted ways with their head coach from last season, Mike Budenholzer, and traded away arguably their best player in Kevin Durant.
In the wake of these moves, they have attempted to retool around franchise icon Devin Booker and brought in new head coach Jordan Ott. Unlike Budenholzer, Ott is entering a situation without high expectations, and it could lead to surprise buzz in the Coach of the Year race.
Jordan Ott is in the perfect situation for a first-time head coach.
Coaching the Suns has been a very stressful ordeal for the last couple of seasons. The team had a high payroll with multiple All-Star caliber players and expectations of deep playoff runs. They gave up a lot of future draft capital to build that iteration of the team and ultimately it was unsuccessful.
The roster construction was far from perfect, which led to a tough job for the coaches. Even seasoned championship winning head coaches (Frank Vogel prior to Budenholzer) were unable to solve the puzzle of the Suns roster and the team finally had to give up on that vision.
Excited to welcome Jordan Ott as our new head coach of the @Suns! Jordan is a young and hungry coach with a relentless work ethic. His leadership and knowledge of the game will make a big impact here in Phoenix as we continue to build our organization together. pic.twitter.com/Vp8x4TeMCt
— Mat Ishbia (@Mishbia15) June 6, 2025
Now Ott gets to enter the exact opposite situation. Next season, the Suns have a little to no expectations. In fact, most projections have them third to last in the Western Conference with only the Jazz and Pelicans predicted to be lower. For the first time in a few years, it feels like the Suns are actually being underrated in preseason projections.
However, the front office is still doing their best to compete and surround Devin Booker with a reasonable roster. This includes serviceable role players in the right positions and putting prospects in situations to succeed.
As we’ve seen many times, the Coach of the Year race isn’t so much about which coach is the best in the NBA, but rather which coach exceeds expectations the most.
Last season, the award race came down to two coaches who vastly over-exceeded expectations in winner Kenny Atkinson (who Ott served as an assistant coach) and runner-up JB Bickerstaff. Meanwhile, the coach of the actual top team in the NBA, who also won the NBA championship, was not even a finalist.
If the Phoenix Suns are able to put together a respectable season, possibly even fighting for a play-in spot, they will exceed most people‘s expectations vastly. No doubt Jordan Ott will get a lot of credit, especially as a rookie head coach.
If he's able to put together a system which solves some of the Suns’ recent problems, especially on the defensive side of the ball, he can easily find himself in the running for Coach of the Year.