Phoenix Suns fans didn’t get an opportunity to see Kevin Durant return to the Valley after a blockbuster trade sending him to the Houston Rockets this past summer.
KD missed the Nov. 24 game against the Suns due to a personal family matter. The next opportunity for Suns fans to welcome Durant back won’t be until April 7 at Mortgage Matchup Center.
In any case, after the two parties parted ways, it should be clear to the fan base that the Suns organization bungled the Kevin Durant era.
Whether or not fans defend the trade to acquire Durant — which sent “The Twins” Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson along with a plethora of first-round draft picks to Brooklyn — the events that occurred after show that Phoenix failed the future first-ballot Hall of Famer when he was wearing Purple and Orange.
Suns’ Bradley Beal trade was an airball
The first (and most glaring) mistake was opting to follow the blockbuster deal for Durant with another big-swing trade to acquire Bradley Beal from the Washington Wizards.
That acquisition proved nothing short of a disaster.
Putting aside the fact that Phoenix surrendered Chris Paul, Landry Shamet, cash considerations and another huge haul of draft picks to acquire Beal in the first place, his tenure in the desert left much to be desired.
All told, Beal missed 58 regular season games over the course of two seasons in Phoenix due to injury. The combination of health troubles and team fit was a square peg, round hole situation as there simply weren't enough touches to go around among Devin Booker, Durant and Beal — three volume scorers who need the ball in their hands to be effective.
The Beal acquisition handicapped the Suns’ roster and financial flexibility, in part dooming the KD era.
Setting aside the ill-conceived Beal deal, Phoenix also never found the right fit on the sidelines with Durant in tow.
Jordan Ott proving Suns organization failed Kevin Durant
Durant played two full seasons in Phoenix, plus eight regular season games in 2022-23 after the February trade to acquire him. In that time, the Suns had three different head coaches.
Monty Williams patrolled the Suns’ sidelines in 2022-23 before being fired after a second consecutive playoff loss in the Western Conference semifinals.
Frank Vogel — who won a championship with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020 during the COVID-19 shortened season — was hired to a five-year, $31 million contract from there. His Suns went 49-33 and got swept in the first round of the playoffs by the Minnesota Timberwolves. He was subsequently fired after just one season.
That led the Suns to bring in Arizona native Mike Budenholzer, who likewise won a championship as a head coach previously with the Milwaukee Bucks in 2021. Somehow, his brief tenure was even worse than Vogel’s.
Under Coach Bud, the Suns went a paltry 36-46 and missed the playoffs altogether.
This is incredible & explains a lot about how this Suns team went from where they were last year to where they are now.
— Anthony DeFalco (@addefalco) November 25, 2025
Can you imagine Budenholzer doing any of this? Bud was just biding his time waiting for practice to end so he could use his per diem towards a steak & a Martini https://t.co/UmVbFjgk2h
Now, again, the roster construction in Phoenix was no doubt a big part of the problem. However, neither Vogel nor Budenholzer can be absolved of all blame when they still had the duo of Booker and Durant to lead the way.
The problem always seemed to be buy-in and confidence with the leading voice in the room. That’s something the Suns now appear to have with first-year head coach Jordan Ott.
“We come in everyday after a win or a loss and it’s a get better every day mindset,” Booker said via NBA on NBC. “We’re all rallying behind coach. We’re all having fun with it.”
When Ott was hired away from the Cleveland Cavaliers, building a culture was top of mind.
“My goal is to build a culture that across all levels — from coaches to players to support staff — will work hard every single day to put a product on the floor that makes our fans proud,” Ott said.
The early returns are exactly what the Suns wanted and needed.
The league as a whole still doesn’t really know what to make of the Suns, but virtually all of the sources weighing in on Ott’s iteration of Phoenix basketball have been positive.
"They've been way better than I thought," a West scout said of the Suns, per reporting from ESPN’s Tim Bontemps. "They've got enough pieces around Devin where they'll win the games they should win. [Ott] has them playing the right way and competing."
In an NBA tier list ranking by ESPN that otherwise disrespected the Suns by putting them in the second-lowest tier, reporter Kevin Pelton praised Phoenix for having “the best vibes in this tier.”
That’s been a common refrain in the early going — vibes and culture.
So much of what makes any successful sports team successful is the attitude in the locker room.
Ott is getting the buy-in from players that Budenholzer and Vogel never seemed to have with a more star-studded roster.
It’s just a shame the Suns couldn’t get the right fit from a coaching perspective when Durant was still in the Valley.