{"id":678769,"date":"2026-06-01T23:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T23:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/678769\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T23:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T23:48:08","slug":"jusuf-nurkic-claims-mike-budenholzers-alcohol-issues-ruined-the-phoenix-suns-big-3-he-was-literally-explaining-to-kd-how-to-make-a-basket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/678769\/","title":{"rendered":"Jusuf Nurkic claims Mike Budenholzer’s alcohol issues ruined the Phoenix Suns’ “Big 3”: “He was literally explaining to KD how to make a basket”"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the absolute biggest “what-ifs” in modern NBA history will undeniably be the failed project of the\u00a0Phoenix Suns<\/a>, who, backed by a massive financial injection from team owner Mat Ishbia, attempted to assemble a powerhouse superteam featuring a “Big 3” of\u00a0Kevin Durant<\/a>, Devin Booker<\/a> and Bradley Beal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This particular “what-if” won’t fade anytime soon. While basketball history is littered with star-studded superteams that eventually collapsed under their own weight, the fact that this specific squad failed to even scratch their way into the Play-In tournament has left NBA fans completely in wonder.<\/p>\n

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However, a jarring new perspective has surfaced courtesy of a man who witnessed the entire implosion from the front row: former Suns center\u00a0Jusuf Nurkic<\/a>. In a recent appearance, the Bosnian Beast placed the lion’s share of the blame squarely on the then-head coach\u00a0Mike Budenholzer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“A situation came where he became extremely negative from the very first day of training camp,”\u00a0Nurkic\u00a0revealed<\/a>\u00a0on the “X&O’s CHAT”.\u00a0“Toward everyone. Literally, there was no difference whether it was Booker, me, or someone else. It could have been some European player who had just landed there, every single practice was: ‘You’re no good. You’d be better off just getting dressed and leaving. You shouldn’t even be playing basketball.'”<\/p>\n

“That side of him came out. At first, nobody took it seriously, and secondly, we didn’t understand that the guy had genuinely lost his compass at some point during the season. He no longer cared about how anyone felt, and in that kind of team, that was probably one of the most important things,”\u00a0he added.<\/p>\n

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Nurkic realized from day one that the entire operation was heading in the wrong direction<\/p>\n

Budenholzer arrived in Phoenix carrying the heavy pedigree of a proven, elite NBA head coach, the same man who in 2021 guided the\u00a0Milwaukee Bucks<\/a>\u00a0to their first championship franchise title in 50 years, ironically doing so by defeating these very Suns. He was supposed to be the savior who would replicate that magic in Arizona.<\/p>\n

On paper, the pure offensive arsenal at the team’s disposal was entirely off the charts. The expectation was that the Suns could practically cruise through the regular season on autopilot until the playoffs arrived. At that point, the Arizona native would put on his championship cap and sprinkle some postseason magic.<\/p>\n

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Instead, the Bosnian center realized from day one that the entire operation was heading in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n

“He was literally explaining to KD how to make a basket. If he were telling me, or Gordon, or Royce, or Grayson, or anyone else, okay,”\u00a0the 12-year NBA vet stressed.\u00a0“But explaining to Kevin Durant how to score? I don’t know, man. That’s like explaining to a pilot how to fly an airplane. To me and to everyone else, that was such a clear sign of the system we were in and the situation we had gotten ourselves into.”<\/p>\n

“Then later you find out that the guy really was, I don’t know if this should be said, but an alcoholic, someone who genuinely had a drinking problem. People knew about it. Did that affect things? I don’t know. With the team, with everyone… he made things personal. He would call one-on-one meetings just to provoke people,”\u00a0he added.<\/p>\n

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Related: Julius Erving picks LeBron James over Kobe Bryant for a very interesting reason: “Kobe’s another imitation of Michael Jordan”<\/a><\/p>\n

Budenholzer has been pulled over multiple times over the past decade for DUI<\/p>\n

These are incredibly heavy allegations coming from a player who saw his role dramatically diminished mid-season, plummeting from everyday starter to the bench before ultimately being shipped away via a mid-season trade. The Suns’ disastrous campaign ultimately spiraled into an 11th-place finish in the Western Conference with a dismal 36-46 record, despite turning in All-Star performances from both KD and\u00a0Book<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Granted,\u00a0Beal<\/a>\u00a0was heavily plagued by injuries, but the roster still possessed more than enough foundational talent to at least secure a playoff berth. Instead, Budenholzer, who has famously been pulled over multiple times over the past decade for DUI, had a completely broken relationship with his players from the jump.<\/p>\n

If Nurkic’s account is to be believed, the blame falls entirely at Budenholzer’s feet. The grand experiment concluded ignominiously, with Durant, Beal, the head coach himself, and several other pieces of the roster all parting ways with the franchise by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

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It remains a staggering cautionary tale, proving once again that true basketball success cannot be manufactured overnight simply by stacking marquee names onto a roster, but must be systematically built through chemistry, culture, and weathering the shared highs and lows of a season.<\/p>\n

Related: Jeff Teague shared how James Johnson got cut from the Atlanta Hawks by Mike Budenholzer over a baseball game: “He can’t play here”<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Basketball Network<\/a> on Jun 1, 2026, where it first appeared in the Latest News<\/a> section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the absolute biggest “what-ifs” in modern NBA history will undeniably be the failed project of the\u00a0Phoenix…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[463,14696,36057,104714,5556,57032,247937,360,355,6415,99,95710],"class_list":["post-678769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-arsenal","tag-bradley-beal","tag-devin-booker","tag-jusuf-nurkic","tag-kevin-durant","tag-mat-ishbia","tag-mike-budenholzer","tag-milwaukee-bucks","tag-nba","tag-phoenix-suns","tag-sports","tag-the-suns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}