7 Suns players who will thrive playing under Mike Budenholzer

2. Jusuf Nurkic

If there's one player that needs to work under coach Budenholzer, it is without doubt Nurkic. His position as the starting center likely isnt under threat for now, and last season went better than anybody could have expected. He stayed mostly healthy, and was the Suns' enforcer every night.

In the postseason his play dipped considerably, but nobody was really surprised when that happened. Unfortunately for Nurkic, it is not clear just how much a coach like Vogel - who in theory should have been the ideal individual to be coaching him - was able to have a positive impact on what he did on the defensive end of the court.

Nurkic was added to this Suns team to provide passing out of the post and an above average offensive arsenal for a big man. He did that in year one, and there's plenty of reason to believe coach Budenholzer can take that to another level. He'll never be a Brook Lopez like shooter for this team, and he's not even as big as the Bucks' center either.

But the front office are clearly leaning into outscoring opponents even more with the Budenholzer hire, which is music to the ears of Nurkic. Whereas before the coach in Vogel was meant to create the defensive scheme, and the stars were meant to score, that is out the window of an all-out attack approach. Nurkic will profit from this.