Mike Budenholzer engages the Suns from Kevin Durant on

On By Littum

It’s nit-picky to find too many serious flaws in the Phoenix Suns’ 7-1 start under head coach Mike Budenholzer.

As we learned last season with Frank Vogel at the helm, there can be red flags and warning signs in wins just as much as losses. The record may be an indicator that any issues with Phoenix for now will raise questions about the ceiling rather than the floor.

Because if you judge the Suns on an individual basis so far, there’s a case to be made that a very strong majority of players are confident, comfortable and buying in.

Suns president and CEO Josh Bartelstein gives a good deal of credit to head coach Mike Budenholzer, who has made his approach as much about human relationships as the X’s and O’s.

“The attention to detail is off the charts,” Bartelstein shared Arizona Sports’ Bickley & Marotta on Friday. “He comes to one of our first meetings (after Budenholzer was hired) and he has a list of every player on our team, from the stars to the two-way guys: ‘Here’s my plan to meet them.’ Don’t just talk to them on the phone, go and meet them in person.”

So Budenholzer visited Jusuf Nurkic in Europe and dropped by Kevin Durant and Devin Booker in France around their Olympic run. On and on down the line.

“I think what we’ve built is a caring factor and a trust factor with him and our staff and our players,” Bartelstein said. “They really think the coaching staff cares about them, that matters. When you actually don’t care, you can coach them as players. You can hold them accountable. You can tell them when they took a bad shot, you can tell them when they don’t defend the right way, but they need to know you care about them first.”

Soles trending up and down have earned Mike Budenholzer’s trust

To this point, Nurkic’s season is a great example of what this player-coach trust means. He was torn from his regular rotation role twice against the Lakers in the first week of the season because of matchup issues and mistakes as he was still getting his legs back after missing the preseason.

The minutes have built up again in the last week against Philadelphia and Miami, with Nurkic posting 20 points and 18 rebounds Wednesday in a win against the Heat. There he outplayed Olympian Bam Adebayo.

On the other side of the spectrum are Durant and Bradley Beal, who have been effective offensively and active defensively.

There has been buy-in from Beal, who plays the third banana role with an emphasis on his defensive duties, while Durant has found his points in a more efficient manner compared to last season.

“What he’s doing is just ridiculous,” Bartelstein said of Durant. “I think it comes down to optimizing our team … from bringing in Bud, to the guys around our roster from Tyus (Jones) to Monte (Morris), to re-signing Royce (O’Neale) and Grayson (Allen) , the draft picks, how do we put KD in the best position to be as dominant as he is.

“That’s (about) where he gets the ball down the field, the actions we run for him so there’s not as much stress where he catches it. Defensively, too — he’s been great defensively — but not having to guard the best guys every night.”

Durant is shooting 55% overall and 42% from 3 this season, and he’s adding 1.4 blocks as his defensive activity has increased.

Phoenix’s challenge is how to keep bench players engaged with the rotation already tightening up after the first few games.

The solution is the same thing, Bartelstein believes: To keep people engaged and have confidence in the coaching staff.

“There are some guys who aren’t playing right now who are really good NBA players. We’ve been really intentional about building out our team,” the CEO said. “Everybody has a role and we talk about it all the time .

“We have playgroups where we had training yesterday where the guys who haven’t played that much play 5-on-5 and stay in shape. And Coach engages them. Some teams, the guys who aren’t stars, who don’t play as much, you don’t have the same level of communication, you don’t take them to dinner, you don’t ask them how their family is doing. For us there is no difference. We’re going to spend the same amount of time with player 15 as we do with player 1. I think they see that and they don’t feel forgotten.”