Phoenix Suns fans didn’t get a chance to see Kevin Durant return to the Valley after a blockbuster trade sent him to the Houston Rockets last summer.
KD missed the November 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 the Mortgage Matchup Center.
Regardless, after the two sides parted ways, it should be clear to the fanbase 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 to Brooklyn along with a plethora of first-round draft picks — the events that transpired afterward show that Phoenix didn’t make the future Hall of Famer the first-ballot option while he was wearing Purple and Orange.
The Suns’ Bradley Beal trade was an earring
The first (and most glaring) mistake was the choice to follow the blockbuster deal for Durant with another major trade to acquire Bradley Beal from the Washington Wizards.
That takeover turned out to be nothing short of a disaster.
Aside from the fact that Phoenix gave up Chris Paul, Landry Shamet, cash considerations and another massive amount of draft picks to acquire Beal in the first place, his tenure in the desert left a lot 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 concerns and team fit was a square peg, round hole situation, as there simply weren’t enough touches between Devin Booker, Durant and Beal – three volume scorers who need the ball in their hands to be effective.
Beal’s acquisition hampered the Suns’ roster and financial flexibility, partially dooming the KD era.
Aside from the ill-conceived Beal deal, Phoenix also never found the right fit on the sideline with Durant in tow.
Jordan Ott proves the Sun 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. During that time, the Suns had three different head coaches.
Monty Williams patrolled the Suns’ sideline in 2022-23 before being fired following a second straight 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 from there to a five-year contract worth $31 million. His Suns went 49-33 and were swept by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round of the playoffs. He was then fired after just one season.
That led the Suns to bring in Arizona native Mike Budenholzer, who also won a championship in 2021 as head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks. Somehow his short 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 and explains a lot about how this Suns team went from where they were last year to where they are now.
Can you imagine Budenholzer doing something like that? Bud was just waiting for practice to end so he could use his per diem for a steak and a martini https://t.co/UmVbFjgk2h— Anthony DeFalco (@addefalco) November 25, 2025
Once again, roster construction in Phoenix was undoubtedly a big part of the problem. However, neither Vogel nor Budenholzer can be absolved of all blame, while they still had the duo of Booker and Durant leading the way.
The problem always seemed to be the acceptance and trust of the leading voice in the room. That’s something the Suns appear to have now with first-year head coach Jordan Ott.
“We come in every day after a win or a loss and it’s a mentality to get better every day,” Booker said via NBA on NBC. “We all support the coach. We all enjoy it.”
When Ott was hired by the Cleveland Cavaliers, Building a culture was paramount.
“My goal is to build a culture that at all levels – from coaches to players to support staff – will work hard every day to put a product on the floor that our fans are proud of,” said Ott.
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 sources offering their opinions on Ott’s version of Phoenix basketball are positive.
“They were a lot better than I thought,” one West scout said of the Suns, according to reporting from ESPN’s Tim Bontemps. “They have enough pieces around Devin where they can win the games they should win. [Ott] makes sure they play and compete the right way.”
In an NBA rankings from ESPN that otherwise disparaged the Suns by placing them in the second-lowest tier, reporter Kevin Pelton praised Phoenix for having “the best atmosphere at this level.”
That was a common refrain in the beginning: atmosphere and culture.
A big part of what makes a successful sports team successful is the attitude in the locker room.
Ott gets 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.
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