PHOENIX — Kevin Durant sat at his locker after Friday night’s win, a feel-good moment for a team that hasn’t had many lately. The Phoenix Suns star acknowledged the noise and tension hanging over the organization. It’s been this way for a while. And that probably won’t change.
“There’s some noise that came out (earlier Friday),” Durant said, emphasizing his point. “I’m not going to act like we didn’t see what went on today, and that’s been happening around our team the last two years.”
The Suns lack defense. Drama, they have. A strange season in the desert keeps getting stranger. That’s what happens when basketball’s most expensive team finds itself on the wrong side of .500.
Veteran NBA reporter Chris Haynes reported hours before Friday’s game that Suns coach Mike Budenholzer recently called Devin Booker into his office and implored him to “tone it down.” Per Haynes, Budenholzer told the franchise guard he was being too vocal on the court and during timeouts. He wanted the dominating voice to come from the coaching staff.
Budenholzer was asked about this before Friday night’s 125-108 win over outmanned New Orleans, a team that had beaten Phoenix at PHX Arena just 24 hours earlier.
The veteran coach doesn’t often disclose much during these media sessions. Even when benched center Jusuf Nurkić criticized Budenholzer’s communication skills earlier this season, Budenholzer stayed neutral, saying he understood Nurkić’s frustration. Nurkić was later traded to Charlotte.
Budenholzer took the same approach with the Haynes report. Asked if he recalled such a meeting with Booker, Budenholzer didn’t deny it. Instead, he said he meets with Booker all the time.
“I think it’s super healthy,” the first-year Phoenix coach said, adding that the two don’t always agree. Budenholzer said he’s fine with that.
“Everybody’s got different ways of communicating, different ways that you do it,” Budenholzer said. “We’re always pushing everything we do to be better. That’s nothing new. But (Booker’s) very vocal and that’s a good thing. I don’t want there to be any confusion about that.”
Phoenix coach Mike Budenholzer argues a call with referee Tom Washington during Friday’s win over New Orleans. (Joe Camporeale / Imagn Images)
Booker had 17 points and nine assists in Friday’s win over the Pelicans, who played without standouts Zion Williamson and CJ McCollum for conditioning and rest purposes. The Suns shot 59.5 percent and improved to 28-32. Booker left the locker room without talking to news reporters.
“It’s hard to ignore all that stuff, but that’s the nature of the beast that we’re in,” said Durant, who had 17 points and six assists. “The more that we knock them down and understand, ‘Yeah, we are playing bad basketball, we’re not playing up to our standard,’ the easier we accept that we can come out and play games like we did (Friday).”
It’s never been that easy in Phoenix. Such a switch doesn’t exist. This season has produced one headache after another. Oft-injured Bradley Beal — who has missed six of the last 10 games, the latest two with left calf tightness — could not be moved at the deadline because of his no-trade clause. Durant was surprised to learn he was getting shopped. An ESPN reporter called the Suns locker room “toxic.”
The Haynes report came several hours after Thursday night’s loss to New Orleans, the first game of a back-to-back featuring the same teams. Two days after losing 151-148 in Memphis, the Suns lost at home to the Pelicans, a game in which they rallied from an 18-point deficit only to fold in the final minutes. (New Orleans stars Williamson and McCollum played in that one.) The Pelicans won on the road for only the fifth time. The Suns lost for the 10th time in 12 games.
After the loss, Booker pinpointed Phoenix’s struggles on not executing the game plan, which he called a season theme. He discussed the importance of communication, especially defensively, and how difficult stretches too often silence the Suns. Booker said that even if two players say the wrong thing to each other, any dialogue is better than none at all.
Asked how Phoenix got to such a point, fighting just to make the Play-In Tournament, Booker delivered pointed criticism — and it wasn’t difficult to connect the dots.
“I’d say, just skipping over the details and always taking the ‘get ’em next game’ mentality,” he said. “At some point you got to draw a line, and it should’ve been drawn a long time ago.”
Budenholzer won a title while coaching the Milwaukee Bucks, but his first year in Phoenix has been so rocky that people have started to question whether he deserves a second. He sticks to a familiar script after losses. Give them credit. We got to keep working. Come in and be ready to go.
In other words, “Get ’em next time.”
“If you’ve been around sports your whole life, it’s hard to stay vocal, it’s hard to stay connected, it’s hard to do all those things,” Budenholzer said. “That’s why winning is hard. We talk to the team, we talk amongst ourself. There’s so many things you got to do to win. And that’s including fighting through adversity and continuing to communicate.”
Sitting at his locker, Durant offered no predictions for how the rest of the season might unfold. He’s been around too long. He knows better. He also understands the noise won’t stop.
“I like a little adversity,” Durant said. “Back against the wall and see how we respond. We didn’t respond well (Thursday) night. We might not respond well the next game. We (just got to) keep putting our best foot forward and keep going and see how we can get better. That’s the part of the NBA people don’t understand.”
(Top photo of Devin Booker: Joe Camporeale / Imagn Images)
