{"id":125426,"date":"2025-02-24T14:30:49","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T19:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=125426"},"modified":"2025-02-24T14:39:11","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T19:39:11","slug":"suns-locker-room-league-executives-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/24\/suns-locker-room-league-executives-reports\/","title":{"rendered":"Suns Locker Room In Flux From Standpoint of League Executives"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Phoenix Suns were supposed to look different this season. Former champion head coach Frank Vogel was shown the door last year after an early postseason exit. Another former champion head coach was brought in to right the ship: Mike Budenholzer. Unfortunately, things look worse than the 2023-24 campaign, and with\u00a0<\/span>less than 30 games remaining in their season<\/span><\/a>, the Suns are on the outside looking in. It’s progressed to be such a disappointing season that even though they’re not out of the playoffs mathematically, some anonymous NBA executives are already ruling Phoenix out.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Suns Locker Room In Flux From Standpoint of League Executives<\/h2>\n

ESPN’s Tim Bontemps Says League Executives Ruling Out Phoenix Suns from the Playoffs<\/h3>\n

Phoenix has one thing on its side right now: time. They have time left in the schedule to win as many games as possible to reach the playoffs. At the very least, they have time to reach the play-in with a chance to get to the playoffs. Alternatively, what is not on their side is their remaining schedule, which includes\u00a0<\/span>seeing 20 opponents all over .500<\/span><\/a>, some of them well over .500 with top seeds. The Suns lost to the\u00a0<\/span>Toronto Raptors<\/span><\/a>\u00a0yesterday by 18, 127-109, in a game Phoenix should have won. These are the types of games that Phoenix has been unable to get up for all season long. Unfortunately, it’s why they may have already missed out on the playoffs before they even begin.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If the Suns’ hometown fans are living in doubt, they’re not alone.\u00a0<\/span>ESPN senior NBA writer Tim Bontemps got the inside track<\/span><\/a>\u00a0on the league-wide perception of Phoenix’s season from the perspective of some front-office executives. The perception isn’t kind to the Suns. Bontemps’s reporting further fuels the rumors that the Suns locker room may be in flux.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Phoenix, which is wild to say,” <\/em>a West executive told Bontemps. “They look like they can’t stand being around each other.”<\/em><\/p>\n

“It feels like the wheels have fallen off,” <\/em>another West exec added about Phoenix’s season.<\/p>\n

Maybe Ramona Shelburne Wasn’t Far Off After All<\/h3>\n

These comments reflect those of ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne’s own reporting just weeks ago<\/a> when she claimed the Suns locker room was “toxic” following the organization’s failed pursuit at trading for\u00a0<\/span>Jimmy Butler<\/span><\/a> and\u00a0<\/span>Kevin Durant<\/span><\/a>‘s trade rumors. Durant came out and refuted Shelburne’s reporting, labeling her story as “lazy” and “unfair.” Well, if some executives are seeing a similar mood that matches Shelburne’s reporting, perhaps there is something to talk about after all.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe Durant doesn’t want to give any fuel to the fire, but this “toxic” perception appears to be growing.\u00a0<\/span>Durant publicly stated over the All-Star break<\/span><\/a>\u00a0that he was disappointed in the lack of winning and results that he,\u00a0<\/span>Devin Booker<\/span><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/span>Bradley Beal<\/span><\/a>\u00a0have provided as a big three in Phoenix. Last year, Phoenix was bounced in round one at the hands of Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves. This year, if they manage to get in, it’s hard not to envision the same thing happening again.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Phoenix Suns were supposed to look different this season. Former champion head coach Frank Vogel was shown the door last year after an early postseason exit. Another former champion head coach was brought in to right the ship: Mike Budenholzer. Unfortunately, things look worse than the 2023-24 campaign, and with\u00a0less than 30 games remaining […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":125425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28,1608,62],"tags":[311,352,142,69],"class_list":["post-125426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-suns","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-bradley-beal","tag-devin-booker","tag-jimmy-butler","tag-kevin-durant"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125426"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125445,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125426\/revisions\/125445"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}