Frank Vogel Fired by Suns After Playoff Sweep to Wolves; Budenholzer Reportedly Eyed

The Phoenix Suns fired head coach Frank Vogel on Thursday on the heels of a first-round exit at the hands of the Minnesota Timberwolves,

According to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski. former Milwaukee Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer will be a "prominent part" of Phoenix's ensuing head-coaching search:

Vogel was only in his first season at the helm, but his ouster doesn't come as a complete shock. With Phoenix in a 3-0 hole against Minnesota, Wojnarowski reported there was a belief the coach was on shaky ground:

NBA Countdown colleague Malika Andrews had teed up Wojnarowski with perhaps the decisive factor pointing toward a change already.

Phoenix is hemmed in with the current roster. The front office has exhausted all of its best draft capital in acquiring Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, and the more restrictive collective bargaining agreement makes it tough to execute even marginal moves in the free-agent and trade markets.

The Suns' issues weren't all on Vogel to be clear.

Beal missed 29 games in the regular season. The concerns about the absence of a true facilitator were well-founded as the team ranked 24th in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.82). And there was only so much the coaching staff could do to scheme around the lack of depth behind the trio of Beal, Durant and Devin Booker.

But firing Vogel is the biggest gambit left for the organization in pursuit of a championship with the current core.

There's basically no way for president of basketball operations James Jones to make any big additions, and trading Beal, Booker or Durant would mean taking a step back in the short term. The one remaining hope is that a different head coach can get more out of the present squad than Vogel could.

The defensive-minded Vogel was a poor fit with a roster that leaned so heavily into offense following the Beal trade. A new voice in the locker room with a much different scheme could yield positive results.

After the way the 2023-24 campaign unfolded, however, it's worth asking whether the Suns, within the context of wanting to be a title contender, are already cooked.

Phoenix didn't encounter an obvious stroke of bad luck that would point to an improvement by running it back.

Beal did miss time but was on the floor for the playoffs, and his production didn't fall dramatically from his Washington Wizards days. He averaged 18.2 points on 51.3 percent shooting (including 43.0 percent on threes) along with 5.0 assists.

Durant, meanwhile, continued to defy Father Time by scoring 27.1 points a night on 52.3 percent shooting and putting up 6.6 rebounds and 5.0 assists per contest.

Booker matched Durant's scoring average (27.1 points) and set a career high in assists (6.9) while serving as the primary floor general for the first unit.

In the playoffs, the Suns' star trio combined to average 70.8 points and they all played at or near 40 minutes per contest.

All of that amounted to 49 wins, the eighth-best net rating (plus-3.1), per NBA.com, and a first-round series in which Phoenix looked totally overmatched.

Looking ahead, where is the jump supposed to come from? Maybe the collective returns of Beal, Booker and Durant can be a little more, but how much more? The supporting cast is where the growth really needs to come from, and in that respect you're looking at a lot of reserves who have maxed out already.

The West isn't shaping up to be any easier, either.

This era for the Suns is on track to be a case study in asset mismanagement. With a new coach incoming, the 2024 offseason might be the front office and ownership's last shot at avoiding that outcome.