Next season, Kevin Durant will play for yet another new coach. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Phoenix Suns fired head coach Monty Williams on Saturday.
This news comes just 2 days after the Suns’ season-ending 125-100 loss to the Denver Nuggets in Game 6 of their Western Conference semifinal series on Thursday night.
Chris Paul, the Suns’ star veteran point guard, was out for Games 2-6 due to a groin strain. Deandre Ayton missed Game 6 due to a rib contusion, but he played in Game 5. The futures of Paul and Ayton with the Suns are also in doubt.
Williams, a 2-time NBA Coach of the Year, was fired despite a 194-115 record and a 63 percent win rate during his four-year tenure with Phoenix. Since 2021, he has been the winningest coach in the NBA.
This period was highlighted by the Suns’ trip to the 2021 NBA Finals, where they blew a 2-0 lead and lost in six games to the Milwaukee Bucks, who also fired their coach, Mike Budenholzer, this week after losing as the No. 1 seed to the Miami Heat in the first round of the playoffs.
Williams’ firing serves as a stark reminder of the high expectations that the Suns — now owned by mortgage billionaire Matt Ishbia, who bought the team from Robert Sarver last year — face in winning an NBA title with a core that includes Durant and Devin Booker.
