Dana Scott, AZ Central Suns Reporter

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Auto Trader. It's Dana Scott. Dana, how are you? Great. Thanks for having me. How are you? Absolutely.

I'm very well. Any type of shock or surprise? We heard Matt Ishbia say that he was going to evaluate Frank Vogel.

Any thoughts that it took 11 days? Well, no, because there was speculation that it would happen this week for the final decision. Obviously, Matt Ishbia coming to Arizona last week to speak to the media was just a gloss over what had happened.

He tried to spin doctor, you know, the sweep and say that the team is in a great position right now. It's like he's ultimate salesman, always trying to make this customer feel right at home. And the customer is always right. Right. As Americans, as we say.

So it's just I feel like this was wrong in a way for me, in my opinion, because this falls on Ishbia, to be frank. And excuse the pun, but it falls on him because he's the one who constructed this roster. He's the one who wanted Kevin Durant within his first two days of office in his first order of business. And he's the one who engineered the Bradley Beal deal with Josh Bartlestein. Frank Vogel just happened to come in, you know, last June, right after Monty Williams was fired in May following the West semi-final series against Denver. And so it's easy to put the coach in the bullseye, like he said, instead of the players.

And the coach is always the easiest to go ahead and get the boot. Now, if the players wanted him around, he wouldn't be gone. I think the loudest noise that we heard, Dana, was that Kevin Durant was not happy with how he was being utilized. I mean, was it Kevin specifically that wasn't happy?

Did we hear any other rumblings? No, it's not Vogel's fault, but did anybody else speak up? Yeah, I read that article in The Athletic and shout out to Doug Holler, who I share many media scrooms with, and also with the, you know, the athletic Sham Sharanya. And so, yeah, the thing about this in terms of player empowerment and Kevin Durant wasn't happy, as that article said in The Athletic, yeah, that could have been true. But at the same time, what is Kevin Durant happy when they lose? I mean, Kevin Durant, he's a very sensitive guy when he doesn't see success or what, as you see on Twitter and, you know, just the way, I'm not painting him out to be, you know, this miserable person, but, you know, the thing is that he is a very highly sensitive guy from what we see in the public, online, and also from what we saw in that media scrum, you know, when he addressed the media, it's asking him, who is your leader? And he said, coach is the leader. So that kind of, you know, put the bullseye in Frank as I keep using that term. So I think that when you have a guy or two guys that are making 220 million and Kevin Durant making 194 and you have Bradley Beal who's making over a quarter of a billion, they're going to have something who's going to be on the sidelines with them.

So let's make no mistake about that. Dana Scott is here with us from the Arizona Republic. It's been reported earlier this afternoon as well, not too long after the firing of Frank Vogel, that Buttenholzer is in line and he is a prime candidate to be coach. Outside of Buttenholzer, is there anyone else that the Suns may try to bring in? Yeah, I have seen a couple days ago that their Portland Trailblazers, Chauncey Billups, he might be having mutual interests according to one of the insiders, Matt Flex, you know, Felix is somebody who I trust and talk to, it's one of the times I've seen online, you know, with pH and exports, but the same time is that, you know, there's going to be a lot of names that pop up, but Chauncey Billups, so he kind of surprised me when the Trailblazers are looking to possibly move on from his coaching staff, which means inherently that would be him, to move on as well, but that is up in the air.

That's the only other name I've seen. There are other coaches available, but I think this is a wait and see thing to basically figure together how this is going to shake out once the playoffs are over and coaches get their walking papers or they're on thin ice depending on how bad they lose or their expectations fall short, but pretty much there's a lot of jobs that are set for a lot of these teams in the semi-finals, but a lot of these teams that are in the semi-finals have continuity, and so the coaches such as Joel Missoula with the Celtics and, you know, JB Bickerstaff with the Cavaliers who was kind of in the running early for the coach of the year, and Mike Malone obviously isn't going anywhere from Denver. Either is Mark Dagnold from OKC who is the coach of the year, so we'll see who actually shows up. Maybe Billy Donovan from the Chicago Bulls who there has been some speculation that he could be out of the Bulls with the rebuild and he was, the name was thrown out for Kentucky, but Mike Moonholder is the front runner right now. Well Dana, you also mentioned all of the salaries. We know about Beal and Durant and Booker, Kevin Durant being the oldest of the group, getting ready to turn 36 later on this year. What can they do with this roster? Do they have to hope and pray that somebody is out?

Do you expect all three to return later this year? They're top heavy. We all know that. They are top heavy and it's basically like a very expensive, it's buyer's remorse and what the Suns are looking at right now is if you ever bought something so expensive that you realize like, you know, why did I do this? You know, like knowing that the wallet is short after you buy it, but you know, it looks good on you, right?

Or it looks good when you drive it, you know? And so, you know, you want to find ways to kind of trade it in to get your money back, but that's where the Suns are at right now, I think, and they want to move forward with this team with coverage that has Beal and Booker and Durant, and so who wouldn't want to play with Booker? Who wouldn't want to play with Durant?

Who wouldn't want to play with Beal? And that's where the minimum, the vet minimum pay guys going to become last summer with the buzz around this team that was the hottest team to get around in free agency. And now this summer with the influx of, uh, basically the, um, the fluctuation of this team, I should say, coming with the firing of Frank Bogle after one year, I mean, it's still a super team. So there were people or there are going to be players who weren't going to want to play and work for this organization, uh, in Phoenix. So, uh, we'll see who is willing to come. And once the market opens up, uh, you know, as of, uh, the new year or the league, uh, July 1st, uh, when free agency starts to open up, uh, it's going to be interesting. And I think there's going to be some young vet minimum guys that are coming off of root contracts that might want to come in and play with Phoenix. Um, and there is going to be some shakers. It'll be interesting to see if guys like bowl bowl comes back and works on, you know, get some extension.

Um, if the Grayson Allen did not get traded after he got his extension for 70 million and such. So, I mean, they, they want to continue to build around that big three will, but, you know, the bench is really the biggest concern and figuring out who is going to want to come and free. A final question for you, Dana, are the fans buying this? I mean, Matt Ishbia, you said it, we've all heard it.

He sold the bill of goods about how everything is fixable. Are the fans rolling their eyes? What is the fan base feeling about these sons right now? Well, every team is fixable. It's just a matter of who they can get. And so the fans, they've been through a lot. I mean, they've been through a lot in this past month.

I mean, from, I'm just going to be real about it. I mean, from the biggest super fan of them all, the son, Mr. Orange, having those crazy, uh, child sex allegations, uh, that he was put up on charges for and brought into custody and awaits trial. Uh, cause he played not guilty and he got his season tickets pass, uh, revoked, uh, by the organization seemingly. And of course, sons get swept out of the first round by a team that they swept in the regular season and their three game series. Uh, and they got basically an annihilated for the first three games. And then the fourth, they lost at home for the second year in a row, actually the third year in a row, and then, you know, they have their coach that's fired. And so I think the fans right now are feeling pretty low, but there is optimism when you start to see a team that will have a new coach and they do have the big, huge investments by the owner who's willing to spend the money on the team. And because they had a former owner, Robert Sarver, who didn't have much that he wanted to spend on and let the team be dormant for 10 years until they made that 2020 run in the finals before his exit. And so, uh, because that's the expansion, uh, from the toxic workplace culture, uh, allegations. And so, you know, that was two years ago. We'll see what happens.

Everybody always got to look for the silver lining. Hey Dana, where can people follow you in your work with the Arizona Republic? They can find me at, uh, at I am underscore Dana Scott that I am underscore Dana Scott on X also on Instagram.

And you can see all my posts there as well as azcentral.com. Well, thank you, Dana. Appreciate you, man. All the best. Okay. Thank you so much.

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