Ranking the 7 head coaches Devin Booker has had since 2015

With the recent news that the Phoenix Suns had parted ways with Frank Vogel after only one season in charge, superstar Devin Booker is going to enter the 2024-25 season playing under his seventh head coach since being drafted back in 2015.

Not exactly what you want when trying to build a championship contender - with continuity and consistency an important part of the puzzle - although no a personal level Booker has thrived under everybody he has played for. He's made the NBA Finals and is a multiple time All-Star, and is only getting better.

But if you look back at all of the previous head coaches during Booker's time with the franchise, it is clear some performed better than others.

We now know that former Milwaukee Bucks leading man Mike Budenholzer will be the next head coach of the Suns, and he will be tasked with getting the best out of not only Booker, but also Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal as well.

His free-flowing offensive schemes in complete contrast to the more rigid sets of Vogel, and the hope is that Booker won't be asked to play the point guard position as much next season either. Buckle up for this one though Suns fans, because this is a trip down memory lane that will likely include some stops you tried to erase from your memory.

7. Igor Kokoskov

In a frantic race to the bottom, Serbia's Igor Kokoskov receives the distinction of being the worst head coach that Booker has played under to this point in his career. On the plus side, when Kokoskov got the job back in 2018, he became the first European born head coach in the history of the league.

Winning Eurobasket with Slovenia in 2017 meant that he got the job to some fanfare, but a 19-63 season quickly extinguished any hopes that he could be a long-term solution for what was a slowly growing Suns team. The General Manager who made the call to can Kokoskov? James Jones, who is still in the position today although that could be under threat after how 2023-24 unfolded.

Really though the reason Kokoskov finishes last here is because the roster he managed to finish bottom of the Western Conference with was not that bad. They had a young Booker and Mikal Bridges, while a nearly but not totally washed Tyson Chandler was manning the paint. Throw in a splash of Deandre Ayton, Trevor Ariza and Jamal Crawford, and there's vibes to be found here.

If anything it was the presence of these veteran players who had been around a long time that was likely the downfall of Kokoskov. If he'd been given Booker, Ayton, Bridges and Dragan Bender and been allowed to coach them through their mistakes, this might have actually ended better. Only it didn't, and Kokoskov has been an assistant in the NBA ever since.

6. Earl Watson

Before there was one year of Igor Kokoskov, there was one full-time year (and three games) of former point guard Earl Watson back in 2016-17. This... did not go well. Granted the Suns were rebuilding and Watson wasn't the person who drafted Bender, Alex Len and Tyler Ulis, but he failed to get much of anything going while at the helm.

By the time he got his marching orders the team had gone 33-85 under his watch, and looked like a franchise that was going nowhere fast. To add to the underwhelming youngsters who were brought in to grow with Booker, this version of the Suns also had Brandon Knight and Eric Bledsoe on their books.

In other words, it was a strange and not very good mix of players who would not be up to the task of being major building blocks for the organization, and veterans who didn't have the right temperament for the long road ahead of them. In fact some of them didn't want to be there at all.

So although it may seem harsh to blame this rocky part of Suns history exclusively on Watson, it is telling that he has never been a head coach since departing the team. In fact he's not even an assistant anymore, having last been on the bench for the Toronto Raptors as recently as 2023.

5. Jay Triano

It was tough to separate Watson and the head coach who ended up taking over from him - again for one season - in Jay Triano, but he edges it for two reasons. The first is that he's currently an assistant coach with the Sacramento Kings, and anybody who is trusted by the much respected Mike Brown to help his team has to be doing something right.

The second is that he was only ever the interim head coach of the Suns - and in 79 games at the helm after Watson was given his aforementioned marching orders three games in - Triano went 21-58. Again though it's not like he had much to work with outside of Booker, with guys like Marquese Chriss and Greg Monroe on this roster.

Really the most puzzling aspect of this is why the Suns let Triano kind of just float through the season with this group for as long as he did. They could have committed to him to be a long-term solution - although admittedly that wouldn't have worked out - or else gotten somebody else in midway through the season to try and turn things around.

The Suns weren't trying to win at this point, but the back-to-back-to-back of Watson, Triano and Kokoskov sent the franchise into a nosedive that it really only properly got out of once Chris Paul arrived. Just a completely uninspiring era of Suns basketball, with Triano the best of a bad bunch only because he was never signed to be the solution like Kokoskov and Watson were.

4. Jeff Hornacek

Jeff Hornacek acts as the bridge between the pre-Booker era and where the Suns went after drafting him, and he finished his tenure with the organization with a 101-112 record. Unlike the others who have already appeared on this list though, Hornacek coached this team at a time when they were actually trying to win before drafting Booker.

The organization added Chandler to help with this, and in his first season in charge the Suns went 48-34. That roster had players like Goran Dragic and Channing Frye - really solid professionals who had long careers - as well as Chandler. The franchise did draft the Morris twins around this time, and that would go down as an underwhelming move in hindsight.

The next season is when the roster got bloated and the wheels began to come off, with everybody from Zoran Dragic and Seth Curry to a pre-All-Star Isaiah Thomas suiting up for the team. There was some Gerald Green, P.J. Tucker, T.J. Warren and Anthony Tolliver - and when all was said and done - a 39-43 record.

After beginning the next season 14-35 Hornacek made way for Watson, although it is an interesting what if to consider how he could have shaped a rookie Booker if given more of a chance. Hornacek is the best coach to appear so far, but that also isn't really saying a lot either.

3. Frank Vogel

It speaks volumes about Booker's tenure with the Suns that a head coach who only lasted one season - and nobody was surprised to see him get axed - finishes in the top three here. Vogel's time in The Valley was unique though because under most other circumstances, he surely would have been given more time to turn things around.

Only he had to contend with a new owner in Mat Ishbia who is impatient in trying to make the most out of having Booker, Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal on the same roster. They don't have time to see if he can turn this roster into a defensive monster - although the early returns weren't promising anyway - and so he had to go.

In fairness to Vogel, he went through an entire regular season with no traditional point guard, having to rely on center Jusuf Nurkic each night and Beal missing a lot of time through injury. Any time Bol Bol looks like the actual solution - and he did a few times after Christmas - you know you can only go so far.

History may be kind to Vogel as well - as not only did he avoid the play-in and win 49 games in his only year in charge - the sweep at the hands of the Minnesota Timberwolves could look very different a few months from now. At the time it was downright ugly but if they make the finals, then how much of this season can really be blamed on Vogel? Good coach + new owner = wrong time.

2. Monty Williams

Again for Monty Williams to finish runner-up here says a lot about the last decade of Suns basketball. As of this moment he is the highest paid head coach in the league, and is running a Detroit Pistons organization that is going nowhere fast. That fanbase does not want him around, and it is telling that a lot of Suns fans would have taken him back in a heartbeat.

But to be fair to Williams, he was the guy who helped get the Suns to the NBA Finals back in 2021. To do so while getting the best out of Ayton on the defensive end is no mean feat, although you could make the case that both Hornacek and Vogel could only heave dreamt about having the roster that Williams had at his disposal.

Williams was able to call upon Booker, Paul and Ayton, while Bridges was one of the best two-way players in the league and the kind of defender this current version of the Suns could only dream about having. Take nothing away from Williams though, he didn't overcomplicate things or make what was an ideal situation any worse with his coaching style.

If anything he was canned at the right time, because he is remembered in a much more positive light than others on this list. He also got the best out of Booker on that run to the finals, but again balance of the roster was a lot better than it was for Vogel or Kokoskov before him.

1. Mike Budenholzer

Mike Budenholzer goes straight in at number one here, despite having never coached Booker a day in his life. The CV alone makes him the no-brainer top choice, and he will be joining a Suns organization that is about to benefit from the prime years of Booker. If any coach can get the best out of that situation, it is the offensively fluid Budenholzer.

He was a Coach of the Year in his two previous head coaching roles with the Atlanta Hawks and Milwaukee Bucks, and he won a championship over the Suns in 2021 while with the latter. Prior to that he was an assistant with the San Antonio Spurs for well over a decade, and picked up four rings on that bench.

Last season if not for injury to Giannis Antetokounmpo and personal issues off the court for Budenholzer, the Bucks may not have even fired him. Certainly they're not better off with Doc Rivers in charge, bowing out at the first hurdle in the postseason again this year. The team that knocked them off last season when Budenholzer was there - the Miami Heat - also went to the finals.

So he is without doubt the most accomplished head coach Devin Booker will have ever played under, but he now has to back that up by getting the most out of a complicated roster. He knows how to work with superstars which is a plus, but will have to work under the same constraints as Vogel. Either way, he's already the best coach Booker has ever had.