Kevin Durant will be playing for another new coach next season.
The Phoenix Suns fired head coach Monty Williams on Saturday, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
The axing comes two days after the Suns suffered a season-ending 125-100 loss to the Denver Nuggets on Thursday night in Game 6 of their Western Conference semifinal series.
The Suns were without star veteran point guard Chris Paul (groin strain) for Games 2-6. Deandre Ayton missed Game 6 due to a rib contusion he suffered and played through in Game 5.
Paul and Ayton’s futures with the Suns are also in doubt.
Williams, a two-time NBA Coach of the Year, was fired despite a successful four-year tenure with Phoenix, in which he posted a 194-115 record and winning 63 percent of his games.
He has been the NBA’s winningest coach since 2021.
That span was highlighted by a trip to the 2021 NBA Finals, in which the Suns blew a 2-0 lead and lost in six games to the Milwaukee Bucks, who also fired their coach, Mike Budenholzer, this week after they lost as the No. 1 seed to the Miami Heat in the first round of the playoffs.
Williams’ axing is a sharp reminder of the high expectations the Suns — who are now owned by mortgage billionare Matt Ishbia, who purchased the team from Robert Sarver last year — face to win an NBA title with the core of Durant and Devin Booker.
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This was the second season in a row the Suns suffered an ugly season-ending loss in the second round. — last year to Dallas, this year to Denver.
“Neither day feels good,” Williams said after the loss earlier this week to Denver, when asked to compare last season’s debacle to this year’s season-ending loss.
Williams also blamed himself for the team’s poor showing in their Game 6 loss to the Nuggets.
“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.”
After the Game 6 loss, Durant said it “sucked” that the Suns’ season was over.
“It was a bad feeling,” Durant told reporters at his postgame press conference.“It was embarrassing. They came out and hit us in the mouth, and we couldn’t recover.
Durant also credited the Nuggets for being “a disciplined team,” which may not have helped Williams’ case with ownership.
— with AP
