What can the Phoenix Suns expect from Head Coach Mike Budenholzer? A Bucks perspective.
hey everyone I’m Lindsay Smith in the Four Peaks mini bar and today on Valley Vibes we are joined by Dylan Hunter Carter digital content manager at 620 WTMJ [Music] Milwaukee Dylan thank you so much for joining us how are you doing today I’m doing great really excited to be here thanks for having me on the show of course you know we really wanted to get your insights around coach Bud the newest head coach of the Phoenix Sun so word on the street is that coach bud is maybe a little tight lipped if you will during his interviews has that kind of been the case for you have you notice that with him he’s pretty open about talking about um The Players his interactions with them I think private conversations is something he always Strays away from he wants to keep that closer to the vest which honestly I think is a good tactic as far as building strong relationships with players so um he’s open to talking about most things but he’s also pretty clear about where his line is and again once you get into that kind of private personal realm then he kind of shies away from it but if you’re just talking like ex’s and O’s Hoops um what you’ve seen in the game itself or what you’re expecting from the team he’s usually pretty open about that stuff what else can you tell me about his personality or his mannerisms like who he is as a man sure so he is um very basketball focused I’d say he’s there to do his job get in as far as with the media specifically um he’s coming in to talk about again like I mentioned basketball Concepts what we’re seeing on the court how players are reacting to some of these things he does give insights but he like I mentioned he doesn’t like to give up too much because that’s part of culture building and locker room trust building relationships especially with star players um that those are a lot of closed door conversations that he doesn’t necessarily want to give an insight to but as far as his open willingness to have conversations about things that are going on in practice on the court around the team he’s pretty open about disc discussing those things um also really nice with Community focused things as well he’s paying attention to what’s going on locally what’s going on with Team activations whether it’s through charity or things of the sort um his personal Endeavors he’s always willing to chat about those things and lend his voice his opinions on it as well yeah and I’m sure he’s excited for that part a little bit extra being back home in Arizona as well um what’s one of your biggest positives of having coach Bud as the leader of your team he is a as solid as they come as a coach um at the Baseline he’s good at getting teams into a structure culture building uh that’s something I focused on a lot in some of the work that I’ve done with him is you know how he builds that locker room culture and making sure that the team has cohesion on and off the court they understand each other they get to know each other I think a lot of that comes from his time in San Antonio where he learned under uh coach papovich for a long time even dating back to his college days and so part of that process is making sure that the team is together on and off the court um they have a shared Vision they have ideas about how they’re going to execute that and they’re going to follow through on it that’s what I think is the the best part about his presence um you know he’s not going to be the biggest personality in terms of getting crazy quotes out there or saying things that are Shockers something that you put on a quote graphic but um he is very boots on the ground in his approach taking care of things at the lowest level in practice in the locker room and frankly I think that’s gonna benefit Phoenix quite a bit now what about maybe a negative of having him as the leader of your team sure I think he can get stuck in his ways um maybe at times he’s not catering some of his offensive play calling or defensive structure well actually not even on defense on defense he’s pretty good about structuring around players on offense I think he could get a little bit better at learning how to utilize players in spots where they feel most comfortable um coming into Phoenix it’s going to be a little bit easier because you’ve got a bunch of guys in you know dbook and Kevin Durant and Beal who can get their own shot get to their spots and so he’s going to help set that up for them but as far as um running plays where the players are most comfortable in their spots and utilizing them in more creative ways than some of the more Baseline ways he might need a little bit of help but that’s also where assistant coaches come in to kind of help him spread his reach so in talking about like players getting to their spots and things like that we know that this Sun’s team the big three specifically I mean is a pretty mid-range heavy team right but coach Bud likes to shoot threes how do you think that kind of give and take there of this might be my bread and butter and what I really like versus this might be what we need as a team how do you think he’ll navigate that balance I think the best answer for that is to take a look specifically at Chris Middleton Chris Middleton is a guy who lives and thrives in that mid-range area and Bud knew how to get him open off ball actions that definitely helps coming off of screens um cuts and and driving back out um he does a good job of getting guys to positions that they need to when knowing that like okay this is my star player I need to get this guy into his spot so that he can be more flexible I know that’s kind of falling back on what I just mentioned but at the same time with his Stars he’s pretty pretty good at getting to know them and over time feeding into some of their habits in that regard so mid-range I think is something he wants to shy away from for role players but when you’re talking about his star players and guys who do it at that level specifically we’re talking about some of the best in the world or even all time when you get down to KD and book at hitting those tough mid-range jumpers he knows that’s his Advantage for the team you’re not going to sign on to coach the the Suns if you’re not going to get those guys in the shots that they need to uh absolutely overall how are you envisioning his fit here with the Suns and the big three I think he raises the floor and that’s important because we saw pretty clearly this season that having that top level star power isn’t necessarily the key to unlocking postseason success even in the regular season it was a little bit up and down right so he’s going to be a guy who comes in installs um consistency he’s someone who when he goes out with a team he tries to put players in a position to succeed um even role players if we want to go back to his Atlanta days that was not a team that was necessarily stacked with star power but he knew how to highlight a lot their strengths um ball movement is key and I think that would help this Suns team a lot if you’re passing the ball well crisply uh clean passing Lanes taking advantage of mismatch mismatches that’s going to take the team a long way and so I think that’s kind of where it’s going to Trend yeah I mean we did kind of have some issues where we saw things kind of stagnate out there for the Suns this past season and uh kind of fall back on the iso ball so hopefully that ball movement will be uh key for the Suns moving forward what would you grade this higher for the Suns I give it a pretty firm B because he is a solid coach he knows what to do he’s been at that Championship level I mean even against this you know maybe not exactly this team but a version of it from years past and so he’s going to be able to highlight some of their strengths now where I feel like there’s still room to grow is that I don’t necessarily know how he’s going to take some of these lower level players and Elevate them in the context of this team because when you have three star players at the top frankly accounting for most of your cap space that are kind of confining rock roster construction um getting the most out of you know the eighth ninth man especially prepping for playoffs that’s where I get nervous um the other thing is he does not at least in in the past couple years the last few years here in Milwaukee he struggled with getting out of rhythms that worked in the regular season Once it came to postseason and so making those on the Fly that’s something that I think he needs to show improvement with to then get to that next level and I think that’s also an issue that vogle had so when you’re kind of hiring a replacement who yeah he’s going to raise the floor but some of those playoff adjustments or you’re in a similar issue um that’s where I felt like there was a little bit more of an opportunity to go out and get a coach who um has a little bit more of that track record of making postseason adjustments absolutely well Dylan thank you so much for stopping by and sharing your insights with us today we really appreciate it yeah it was a bless I’m glad to help out um I I’m you know spent some years in Arizona at ASU so um I’d love to see the Suns kind of rally around and see Phoenix get that that playoff hype again it’s always fun in the downtown area especially when the suns are rolling yeah absolutely I mean we went through so many dark days it’s nice to kind of be on the their side of things at this point Thank you again everybody be sure to follow Dylan on social at Dylan Carter we’ll see you guys next time [Music]
Dylan Hunter Carter, Digital Content Manager at 620 WTMJ Milwaukee joins us on Valley Vibes to share his insight on Phoenix Suns new Head Coach Mike Budenholzer and what we can expect from him.
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