The Phoenix Suns have fired Monty Williams, two years after reaching the NBA finals and a year after he was the overwhelming choice as the coach of the year.
Williams had great success in his four regular seasons in Phoenix, winning 63 per cent of his games.
But three consecutive years of playoff frustration was likely too much for the Suns to overlook — especially after trailing by 30 points at half time of elimination games at home in consecutive years.
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The Suns had a 2-0 lead in the 2021 NBA finals, only to lose the next four straight. They lost in the second round in each of the last two seasons, both times in an embarrassing home finale — last year to Dallas, this year to Denver.
The Suns now become yet another high-profile coaching opening, after Toronto fired Nick Nurse and Milwaukee fired Mike Budenholzer. Nurse won the 2019 NBA title with the Raptors, while Budenholzer was the coach who overcame Phoenix’s 2-0 lead in the 2021 finals.
It’s the second major decision made by new Suns owner Mat Ishbia in about three months since the closing of the sale that gave him control of the club.
In February, Ishbia green-lighted a blockbuster trade that brought Kevin Durant to Phoenix and gave the Suns a core — Durant, Devin Booker, former No.1 pick Deandre Ayton and Chris Paul — the team hoped would be enough to deliver a title.
It didn’t work, at least, not this year. Paul got hurt in the playoffs to continue a bad run of post-season injuries, Ayton sat out the finale and Booker and Durant simply looked gassed by the time it was over.
Williams, after the season ended, blamed himself.
“I take that personally, not having our team ready to play in the biggest game of the year,” Williams said. “That’s something that I pride myself on and it just didn’t happen … That’s something I have to take a deep look at, everything I’m doing.”
Ishbia clearly took a deep look as well, and decided to make the change.
It’s anyone’s guess what other changes are coming. The roster surely will change, and so will the system with a new coach in place.
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Williams had been the coach with the fifth-longest tenure with his current team entering Saturday — just four years. Gregg Popovich has been coach in San Antonio since 1996, Erik Spoelstra in Miami since 2008, Steve Kerr in Golden State since 2014 and Michael Malone in Denver since 2015.
Phoenix becomes the fourth team to currently have an opening, along with the Raptors, Bucks and Detroit Pistons.
Of the last nine coaches to take a team to the NBA finals, only Kerr and Spoelstra are still with the franchise they got to the title series.
The others — Boston’s Ime Udoka, the Los Angeles Lakers’ Frank Vogel, Cleveland’s David Blatt and Tyronn Lue, along with Budenholzer, Nurse and now Williams — have all been fired by the team that they brought to the finals.
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