The Q&A: Mike Budenholzer eager to start next chapter in Phoenix

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During the NBA season, a head coach might talk to reporters four or five times between games. Postgame, post-practice, another post-practice, post-shootaround, pregame … It can be a little irritating after a while, particularly when those chinwags are bracketed by defeats.

Then there was Mike Budenholzer, who showed up at the recent National Basketball Coaches Association meetings in Chicago looking full of vim and not at all short on vigor. Budenholzer looked trim, bouncy and ready to go in his first season with the Phoenix Suns.

Not only that, the 55-year-old – a two-time Coach of the Year (Atlanta 2015, Milwaukee 2019) – hasn’t suffered through a loss since April 26, 2023, the longest such gap in an NBA coaching career that began back in 1996, holding a clipboard next to San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich. The 2023-24 season was Budenholzer’s first away from the league since then, more than 500 days now since Bucks ownership fired him after the first-round failure against Miami.

He’s back now, with a box of shiny toys at his disposal and a mandate to do better than the Suns’ 49-33 finish, a sixth seed in the West and their abrupt 0-4 ouster from the playoffs vs. Minnesota.

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NBA.com: Welcome back. Did you miss us?

Budenholzer: I’m incredibly excited. With the players in Phoenix, the talent on the roster, I just feel fortunate to be able to coach this team in that city. I feel like there’s a ton of potential, not just in the short term but in the long term.

I had forgotten you’re a native of Arizona.

Yeah, I grew up in a very small town [Holbrook] in northern Arizona. It’s a very nice piece added to this. I grew up a Suns fan, I grew up listening to Al McCoy on radio and TV.

Who was your favorite Suns player growing up?

Paul Westphal probably. But y’know, Walter Davis, Alvan Adams, Van Arsdale brothers. Truck Robinson, all those guys.

What is the key to tapping into the talents of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beat and the team’s potential overall?

Putting the players in position to play together. Play fast. Compete at a high level. We need to compete defensively. And offensively, it means doing all the little things for each other. We have a ton of talent. It’s just finding ways for them to be their best selves.

An 82-game NBA season is about 4,000 minutes long. A glaring stat is that Durant, Booker and Beal were on the floor together for only 863 minutes. They missed 50 games, combined. Was that just bad luck?

Certainly health is a key to any team’s success. The more good health we have with KD, Book and Brad, logically we would be better. Keeping them together on the court for a significant portion of the season, their natural abilities will affect winning and be a real positive for us.

Booker drew rave reviews for how he fit into Team USA’s scheme at the Paris Olympics. Steve Kerr [the squad’s coach] called him the “unsung MVP.” Durant has shined on that stage before, but what did you make of Booker’s performance?

It was great for the whole basketball world, but especially for those of us in Phoenix to see what those two meant to that team. For Book to really embrace a role as kind of a “glue guy” – a guy who defended at a high level, who made big shots, who made big plays and set the tone for the team getting off to good starts in big games – he was incredibly important to their success. And Kevin, the same. We’ve been seeing it from him for a lot of years with USA Basketball and this summer was the same. We’re very proud of both.

Your Bucks teams built their success around 3-point shooting and drop coverage defensively. How will that translate to the personnel you have in Phoenix? Do you have to alter your system to fit the style of your stars or do you shoot for some sort of hybrid between the players you have and the style you prefer to play? [Phoenix ranked 25th in 3-point attempts last season and 13th in defensive rating at 113.7.]

The most important thing for NBA coaches to have success is to find what fits the talent of your team the best. That’s the challenge for me. You used the word “hybrid” – I think that’s a good way to describe it.

There are some things that are just fundamental to winning that, no matter what team I’ve been with or anyone else, you’ve got to do. And then there are things that will be specific to our talent and what we have in Phoenix. We have to maximize it.

For a long time, Tyus Jones had the label of “best backup point guard in the NBA.” Last year he was the starter in Washington but that team struggled. What does he bring as a free-agent addition?

Certainly we feel like Tyus has established himself as a great starting point guard in our league and he will be our starter. When you put him out there with Kevin, Brad, Book and Nurk [Jusuf Nurkic], we feel like we’ve got a strong starting five. And a really strong bench behind them.

Tyus can help us play faster. He’s great with the kick-aheads, he’s great with getting teammates involved in transition. But then also in the halfcourt. He’s a guy who has always been a high assists guy, low turnovers. He can get us organized. Everyone talks about how much talent we have. Hopefully he can put them in positions to be their best.

He has the clout to tell one of those guys “No” in key moments or on a given night?

Hopefully the whole team can feel who’s got it going. But to have a point guard who’s got the IQ, the experience, the leadership, the ability to communicate, with everyone trusting him – his coach and his teammates – yes, we feel like Tyus has got that in him. He’s got that DNA.

Any lingering thoughts on your team in Milwaukee, from what that team accomplished to how it ended there for you?

Just very appreciative of everything Milwaukee gave me. The opportunity there. The players I had there. The coaching staff, the front office, the ownership. It was a great five years. I have nothing but great memories and appreciation.

You got caught up in what looks as much as ever as the NBA coaching carousel. Or roller-coaster. What do you make of it? A couple of your assistants – Chares Lee puts in his time, he gets an opportunity now in Charlotte. But Darvin Ham did that, got the opportunity in L.A., then got fired. Frank Vogel went from a title with the Lakers to getting dumped, then to Phoenix, then fired again. And here you are. What does it say about your profession?

What I’ve tried to do the whole time – from being an assistant coach to being a head coach, to being out for a year to now being back – there are a ton of positives to coaching in the NBA. It’s not easy, but if you don’t focus only on those things that are hard or maybe don’t go your way, I don’t think life gets any better.

I just feel incredibly fortunate to be an NBA coach. I feel fortunate to be back. It’s never easy but the rewards and the joy you get out of it are pretty special

Did you do what so many other exiled coaches do in their “gap years,” dropping by other teams’ camps or practices?  

My approach was a little bit different. I’d say I did very little of that. I did some basketball but I put a lot more time into my kids – I have four children – and a lot of time into my personal health and my personal growth. Traveling. And just kind of re-energizing and re-focusing on a more personal level. With a sprinkling of basketball.

Did you ever worry that if that life felt so good, you might not want to get back in?

[Laughs] Can I go off the record? No, in all honesty, it’s great to have some time to yourself. A sabbatical at some point in your working life probably could be great for all of us to incorporate into our career paths. But one of the great things is coming back. I’m excited about coaching, I’m excited about the Suns, I’m excited about the work.

You have to have confidence that you can get the job back. Or another one. A lot of us dare now step away.

[Laughs again] That’s a good point.

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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.

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