NBA coaching carousel: Suns fire Mike Budenholzer

Kristian Winfield, New York Daily News on Apr 14, 2025

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The NBA regular season is over. The season of change is just beginning.

For the league’s lottery-bound teams — and even a few who still have playoff games left to play — the final buzzer on Game 82 often sounds like a starting gun for front-office and coaching staff upheaval.

The first move came swiftly on Monday morning, when the New Orleans Pelicans dismissed president of basketball operations David Griffin after six seasons. Griffin, the executive who helped build a title team around LeBron James in Cleveland, now hits the market at a time when multiple franchises are expected to shake up not just coaching staffs, but their entire leadership structure.

Griffin is the first executive out the door this offseason — but far from the first domino to fall.

Denver stunned the league weeks earlier by firing both head coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth — a bold move just ahead of another postseason run with Nikola Jokić. Memphis let go of Taylor Jenkins. Sacramento dismissed Mike Brown two days after Christmas. Teams aren’t waiting for the playoffs to end. Some aren’t even waiting for the season to finish.

The carousel is already spinning — and it’s only going to get faster.

Which brings us to the Knicks.

After back-to-back second-round appearances and a swing-for-the-fences offseason — five first-round picks for Mikal Bridges, Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo out the door for Karl-Anthony Towns — expectations have never been higher. Another early exit could bring questions. About fit. About ceiling. And about whether Tom Thibodeau is still the man to guide this group to the next level.

If the Knicks flame out — whether against Detroit in Round 1 or Boston in Round 2 — there’s every reason to believe they’ll be monitoring the expanding field of coaching candidates.

The NBA’s spring cleaning is underway. Below, we’re tracking all the major coaching and front-office moves as they happen.

Suns fire Mike Budenholzer

After a 36-46 season mired by injury and dysfunction failed to qualify for the Western Conference Play-In Tournament picture, the Phoenix Suns — star-laden with Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal — fired head coach Mike Budenholzer one year into his contract on Monday.

The Suns regressed by 13 wins this season after Frank Vogel coached the team to a 49-32 record last season. Injuries — plus the inability to move Beal’s albatross contract — led Phoenix to becoming one of the NBA’s worst defenses, and Budenholzer has now been fired twice in the last three years.

What it means for the Knicks: Budenholzer’s reputation as an offensive genius will always keep him in the conversation should a team, including the Knicks, be ready to make a coaching change. Bud won 2019 NBA Coach of the Year, won a title in Milwaukee and is a disciple of the Gregg Popovich coaching tree as an assistant on four championship-winning San Antonio Spurs coaching staffs. He was also the head coach of the 60-win Atlanta Hawks of 2015, but his only title run was on the back of one of the most dominant players in the sport (Giannis Antetokounmpo) and Budenholzer’s inability to maximize a limited but talented roster in Phoenix could be cautionary for a Knicks team with little wiggle room beneath the second apron.

Pelicans fire Griffin

The Pelicans fired Griffin after six seasons in New Orleans, bringing an abrupt end to an era defined by unfulfilled potential. The team’s downward spiral this year — one of the NBA’s worst records — can largely be traced to repeated injury setbacks, most notably with franchise centerpiece Zion Williamson. Since being drafted No. 1 overall in 2019, Williamson has missed either the entire season or appeared in fewer than 31 games in four of his six NBA campaigns.

Pelicans head coach Willie Green also completed his fourth season in New Orleans and it is unclear whether or not the organization will pursue a coaching change, though that will be a job for Griffin’s replacement to fill.

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