Even though Durant and Booker combined to score 82 points and tie the NBA life-and-death record set by the Jan-Ou duo in the 2016 Finals, they still couldn't stop the decline, and the slight 6-point lead was fleeting, and what awaited them was a cold 0-4 sweep. Recall that last offseason, when the new owner of the Suns, Ishbia, gritted his teeth and pulled the trigger of the trade, in exchange for Beal's partners Durant and Booker to form a luxury triumvirate lineup, and used the veteran's base salary to find powerful veterans such as Roundface Deng, the Suns were regarded by the outside world as a strong contender for the championship. Even with the ups and downs of the regular season, fans still have high hopes for a full-fledged Big Three. However, the reality is that the BIG 3 lineup, which is proud of its book strength, collapsed without even a playoff victory, and their future is uncertain.
In fact, regardless of whether Durant, Booker and Beal will break up and go their separate ways, head coach Frank Vogel's coaching career at Phoenix may be coming to an end. This is not alarmist, and it has even become a consensus in the NBA world that the practice of cutting the head coach first in case of indecision has become a consensus. There was a scene in the game that was telling that when Beal was substituted off the court and trotted all the way past the bench, he high-fived the assistant coach and teammates on the bench, even the teammates at the end of the bench - he ignored the latter with a wave of his hand as he passed by head coach Vogel.
At that time, it was still in the game, the score between the two sides was deadlocked, and Vogel, as the head coach, was ignored by his own stars, how should this be successful? And how should he implement his own coaching philosophy and tactical thinking? Some fans may say, could it be that Beal happened to swing his hand off? Then the report of "The Athletic" named Shams Charania basically confirmed the internal strife within the Suns, and everything was foreshadowed.
According to Charania, not just others, the Big Three have lost trust in Vogel and are asking the team to change the coaching staff, citing the inability of the current coaching staff to build an effective output system to maximize the output of the Big Three. Back in the regular season, the rift between Vogel and the players was already over, and against the Clippers, they opened the game with a 4-35 collapse. After the loss, Vogel was in a rare outburst in the locker room, and according to reports, the champion coach's angry shouts could be heard outside the locker room.
The most heart-wrenching thing is that the forced anger of the good old man Vogel can't wake up the Suns players who pretend to be asleep, and even some players told sources that everyone is rolling their eyes in the face of the head coach's lesson, and even some players said that they were holding back their laughter. In desperation, Vogel had to get angry again in shooting practice the next day, but unfortunately it still had little effect. At this point, we realized that the Suns started their playoff journey with a discordant debuff, and it would be a rare thing to win in this situation, losing an average of 15 points per game in four games, which is the truest portrayal of their current situation.
For the Suns, there are only two ways to go, either find a good old coach like Hamm who can get along with the players, don't look at the "Sporovich" on-the-spot adaptation, he has done what Vogel did not dare to do, let Wei Shao substitute, the young master has no objection to this. Or find a hard-willed coach like Thibodeau, who pursues 100% control of the locker room. Otherwise, no matter how luxurious the book strength is, it will be useless if it cannot be condensed into a rope. The brutal sweep of shame taught a good lesson to the rookie boss Ishbia.