The Phoenix Suns fired Mike Budenholzer shortly after their 2024-25 season ended without so much as a trip to the play-in tournament. Rather than hire another veteran coach, the Suns decided they wanted a new head coach to help establish a new culture. They found that with Jordan Ott, who was most recently an assistant with the Cavaliers.
Ott and Phoenix are 8-6 through the first few weeks of the season, having won five of their last six games. As ESPN’s Tim MacMahon said on the “Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective” podcast, the early results of Ott’s time in the desert are ‘very encouraging’.
The Suns’ two previous head coaches, Budenholzer and Frank Vogel, were hired largely because of their championship backgrounds. Phoenix traded for Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal to go all-in on winning a title, but the closest the Suns came was reaching the second round of the playoffs in 2023, and that was before the Beal trade.
After a 2024-25 season that couldn’t possibly have been more disappointing than it was, Mat Ishbia and Phoenix knew a lot of things had to change. The head coaching job came down to Ott and Johnnie Bryant, both promising candidates, but Ott had the edge. Devin Booker, who signed an extension this offseason, was part of the hiring process. He liked Otte.
So far, so good.
Jordan Ott looks like the coach the Suns needed
Ott was tasked with taking over a roster with several new faces and trying to get that roster to win as many games as possible as Phoenix is unable to tank.
Devin Booker looks like Devin Booker, averaging 28.4 points, 4.1 rebounds and seven assists per game. Dillon Brooks, acquired in the Durant trade, is averaging 22 points per game and shooting 45.9% from the field. He also brought the energy. Grayson Allen is also playing well (what about that backcourt?), averaging 18.5 points per game and shooting 44.7% from three on 8.8 attempts per game.
There were a lot of questions this past summer about what the Suns would look like and whether they even had a chance in a stacked conference. It’s still early, but two games above .500 and an eighth-place finish in the West is a solid spot to be in.
Before Sunday’s two-point loss to the Hawks, the Suns had defeated the lowly Pelicans, Mavericks and Pacers, but all by double figures. Before that, they posted two wins over a Clippers team that has since fallen even further apart. The Suns took care of what was in front of them before colliding with the Hawks.
The next games on the schedule will be a good test for the Suns, with games against the Timberwolves, Spurs, Rockets and Timberwolves. Looking at the upcoming stretch of the summer schedule, you might not have thought those games would be so competitive, but this Phoenix team has proven otherwise. Ott is leading the way in this.
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