Phoenix Suns first-year head coach Jordan Ott has received league-wide praise for the job he’s done during his debut season in The Valley, and now he’s being lauded by yet another source.
Although ESPN recently listed Ott as a “long shot” to win Coach of the Year honors at season’s end, Max Kellerman acknowledged the job Ott has done in Phoenix on his Game Over with Max Kellerman and Rich Paul podcast.
Max Kellerman delivers nothing but praise for Suns coach Jordan Ott
“The job Ott’s done in Phoenix is unbelievable,” Kellerman said. “They’re playing like a great college team plays. They’re playing together. They’re playing defense.”
Kellerman added that the Suns only have one true superstar on the team, which Rich Paul recognized as two-time All-NBA guard Devin Booker, “but they have other guys who play, two-way players who get after it.”
Shoutout to Jamaree Bouyea, the two-way talent who’s stepped up for the Suns with multiple guards sidelined due to injury. He’s scored a career high 18 points on two separate occasions this season, and he put together a 12-point, six-rebound, four-steal effort in a Jan. 2 win against the Sacramento Kings to begin the new year.
Kellerman added that the 2025-26 Suns play “fast and with intensity.”
Credit where it’s due for Ott in his first gig as a head coach, but the retooling of the roster cannot go unnoticed.
It’s why it’s unfortunate that future Hall of Famer Kevin Durant seems to hold animosity toward the organization that opted to trade him this past offseason.
After delivering a dagger 3-pointer to sink the Suns on Jan. 5, KD didn’t hold back in his assessment of how he and the Suns parted ways.
“It feels good to play against a team that booted you out of the building and scapegoated you for all the problems that they had,” Durant said.
It’s honestly a shame that KD feels that way, provided it was the Suns who failed him during his tenure with the team.
Were it not for the short-sighted Bradley Beal trade that hamstrung both the team’s organizational depth and salary cap flexibility, perhaps the KD era in The Valley would have been looked upon more fondly.
If anything, the job Ott has done further solidifies how the Suns let KD down, because he played under three coaches in three seasons in Phoenix — never finding the right fit.
Ott is willing to go deep into his bench and trusts lesser-known guys to contribute with the skill sets they possess. Dillon Brooks’ impact on the culture is a huge part of that "playing like a great college team" turnaround, but a roster with depth that isn’t as top-heavy as it was during KD’s time with the Suns certainly helps.
As a point of comparison, in the Suns’ final playoff appearance with Durant in 2024 (a first-round exit against the Minnesota Timberwolves), Phoenix had just three players who averaged double digits in scoring during that series: Durant, Booker and Beal.
Compare that to this season where, if you include the injured Jalen Green in a very limited sample size, the Suns have seven different guys averaging double-digit points. Impactful bench guard Jordan Goodwin is barely out of that mix at 9.3 points per game.
In the NBA, depth matters. It’s not something they had in the KD era, and I personally don’t think Suns fans are scapegoating Durant as the reason for the team failing to meet or exceed expectations.
Rich Paul echoed Kellerman’s take on Ott by saying, “Any coach in the league will tell you this: ‘I want my team to have the four E’s consistently: Energy. Effort. Execution. Every night out.’”
“If you do that, you’re going to be competitive,” Paul concluded.
With buy-in up and down the roster, Ott’s version of the Suns is competing hard every night, which gives them all they need to beat opponents in any given matchup.
It shows the right fit on the sidelines is more important than chasing an outdated "Big Three" when building the roster.