Do the Suns owe Frank Vogel an apology?

The Suns are in NBA purgatory, and it isn’t because of Frank Vogel.

The Phoenix Suns are bruised and battered, and as fans, we’re right there in the trenches, feeling every bit of that sting. A comedy of errors has brought us to this bleak moment in Suns history. A 15-18 record, an overstuffed payroll, a barren treasure chest of draft picks, and a sense of suffocating stagnation. Feels like no way out, doesn’t it?

But in the NBA, there’s always a way out. When your owner is willing to crack open the checkbook and spend like there’s no tomorrow, hope lingers on the horizon. The trouble is, Mat Ishbia built this minefield himself, and now he has to find a way to navigate it.

Let’s talk about new owner syndrome. You’ve heard of it. The phenomenon where a freshly minted franchise owner charges in, guns blazing, making decisions as if they’re playing NBA 2K on rookie mode. Phoenix is living that right now.

The ink on Ishbia’s ownership papers had barely dried before he went full speed ahead, flipping the script and trading for Kevin Durant. It was a blockbuster move, sure, but one that gutted a team built on organic chemistry; a team that had fought its way to the 2021 NBA Finals. Draft capital? Scattered across the league like confetti. And trust me, Houston fans are salivating at the thought of Phoenix’s first-round pick in their hands next season.

Mistakes were made. And the real fear with mistakes? The frantic spiral of trying to fix them, only to dig a deeper grave. Enter Bradley Beal: a glowing, neon sign of that vicious cycle.

The Beal trade is the albatross around this team’s neck, a monument to short-sighted desperation. An aging, injury-prone guard who overlaps positionally with Devin Booker — the Suns’ undisputed franchise cornerstone — Beal comes with a max deal that stretches into 2027 and the league’s most infuriating contractual cherry: a no-trade clause. If you wanted to design a “worst-case scenario” player contract in a lab, Beal’s deal is the Frankenstein’s monster of mismanagement. His acquisition has shackled the Suns, squandering the Durant-Booker era in slow, agonizing fashion.

And as the Beal mistake casts its shadow, other cracks in the Suns’ foundation come into view. Were those missteps, too?

Take Frank Vogel, the sacrificial lamb. Fired after just one season, Vogel became the scapegoat for a team that stumbled despite clawing its way to a 32–18 record over the final 50 games last year, securing the sixth seed in the West. Sure, they were body-slammed out of the playoffs by a ferocious Timberwolves squad, but was that collapse really Vogel’s fault? Or was he set up to fail from the start?

Remember, Vogel was hired on June 2nd with a shiny five-year deal and the promise of coaching a team led by Kevin Durant and Devin Booker. That was the draw, the carrot dangling on the stick. Two weeks later, Bradley Beal entered stage left, and suddenly Vogel’s vision for the team was flipped on its head. Chris Paul was shipped out, Deandre Ayton — the center Vogel openly praised as a potential defensive linchpin — was traded away, and the roster became a patchwork of mismatched parts.

The team Frank Vogel signed up to coach wasn’t the team he got. And when the wins didn’t pile up, the front office didn’t hesitate to show him the door. But was the fault his? Or was it the impossible hand he was dealt? The Beal trade, the roster shake-ups, the misaligned expectations? Each decision layering onto the next until even the best coach couldn’t make sense of the chaos.

Frank Vogel had his flaws, don’t get me wrong. By season’s end, whispers turned to shouts that he’d lost the locker room. But despite the turmoil, his team still fought on the defensive end, clawing their way to the NBA’s 13th-best defensive rating. Compare that to this season’s Suns, free-falling to a dismal 25th. Vogel, with his patchwork roster and mismatched pieces, still squeezed out 49 wins.

Fast forward a year, and James Jones has supposedly “fortified the depth,” yet here we are, staring down the barrel of a 37-win season. The odds? Stacked higher than ever. So, who takes the fall this time? Is Mike Budenholzer next on this season’s version of Food Network’s Chopped?

No. That’s not the answer. It’s not Vogel. It’s not Budenholzer. It’s poor roster construction. It’s acquiring Bradley Beal. That’s the original sin, the sliding-doors moment that sent this era of Suns basketball into its current purgatory.

Father’s Day 2023 became the day this team sealed its fate. The Beal trade was supposed to be the missing puzzle piece, but instead, it shattered the picture entirely. Players have been blamed. Coaches have lost their jobs. Yet the truth is as stark as the Arizona sun: the Phoenix Suns failed Devin Booker. They failed Kevin Durant. They failed Frank Vogel. And now they’re failing Mike Budenholzer.

Because once that initial mistake was made, the frantic scramble to fix it only compounded the mess. Now, we’re left with a fractured team. An aging All-Star who’s a shell of his former self anchors a roster paralyzed by his bloated contract. The Suns have backed themselves into a corner with no wiggle room, no flexibility, and no clear path forward.

Frank Vogel deserved better. So did Booker. So did Durant. So does this fan base.

The Suns owe everyone an apology, and they can start by looking in the mirror.