Suns coaching history: Mike Budenholzer joins Monty Williams, Frank Vogel as latest coach fired by Phoenix

The Suns will have yet another head coach in 2025-26.

Phoenix fired Mike Budenholzer on Monday, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania. The decision comes after the team went 36-46 this season, missing the postseason entirely despite owning the highest payroll in NBA history.

Budenholzer’s firing is just the latest in a line of Suns head coaches to be fired. As the team has disappointed since its 2021 Finals run, also switching up the roster, it has implemented new voices almost every season.

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Here’s a look at Phoenix’s head coaching history after the team fired Budenholzer.

MORE: Why the Suns fired Mike Budenholzer

Suns coaching history

When the 2025-26 season comes around, the Suns will be led by their fourth coach in as many seasons. The constant turnaround has come ever since they parted ways with Monty Williams.

Williams helped Phoenix become an annual contender in the Western Conference, with Devin Booker, DeAndre Ayton and Mikal Bridges becoming his core pieces. In 2019-20, the team went 34-39. The next season, it lost in the NBA Finals.

Despite the Suns winning 64 games in 2021-22 and making the playoffs again in 2022-23, the team fired Williams following its 2023 playoff loss to the Nuggets. It wound up bringing in former Lakers head coach Frank Vogel, who was expected to be a strong players’ coach with Kevin Durant and Booker in the fold.

Under Vogel, the Suns went 49-33 in 2023-24, but lost to the Timberwolves in the first round of the playoffs. The disappointing playoff result was enough for Vogel to lose his job. Phoenix fired Vogel, searching for another head coach, then landed on Budenholzer.

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With his championship experience (which came against Phoenix in 2021), strong schemes and ability to previously guide superstars to success, the Suns were hopeful that Budenholzer was the answer. Durant and Booker were still around, and the team added another star in Bradley Beal.

Instead, the 2024-25 season was a train wreck for Phoenix. Durant and Booker performed well, but Beal showed more signs of decline. Despite fielding the most expensive roster in the NBA, the Suns went 36-46, missing the Play-In Tournament, and fired Budenholzer on Monday.

Counting the team’s one season under Igor Kokoskov in 2018-19, there have now been four head coaches let go by Phoenix over the past seven seasons.

Here’s a full breakdown of the Suns’ head coaches since 2018:

Suns coaching contracts

The Suns’ recent head coaches also haven’t come cheap. Williams was given a multi-year contract extension in 2022, and when he was fired just one season later, it was reported that he had three years and around $21 million remaining on the deal.

When the team signed Vogel to be its next head coach in June 2023, he was given a five-year, $31 million deal, per Spotrac. Vogel was fired one season into the contract.

Budenholzer, meanwhile, was signed to a five-year, $50 million deal to be Phoenix’s head coach in May 2024. Like Vogel, he was fired after one season.

Phoenix has dished out a total of $81 million in salary for head coaches over the last two offseasons, based on the reported numbers. From Williams’ extension to Vogel and Budenholzer’s contracts, 11 years of head coaching deals have gone unfulfilled.

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Mike Budenholzer coaching record

Budenholzer finished his one-year tenure with the Suns with a 36-46 record with the team. He does have a full decade of NBA head coaching experience outside of his Phoenix job, though.

Overall, Budenholzer has a career record of 520-363 (.589) as a head coach. The most wins in a season by a Budenholzer-led team is 60, a total reached by the 2014-15 Hawks and 2018-19 Bucks, while the fewest is 24, which happened for the 2017-18 Hawks.