Mat Ishbia and Phoenix Suns focusing on bright future

Mat Ishbia and Phoenix Suns focusing on bright future

It is our pleasure on this Friday to have a conversation with the owner of the Phoenix Suns and the owner of the Phoenix Mercury, Matt Ishmia, joining us right now here on the flagship home of the Phoenix Suns and the Burns in Gambo Show. Matt, as always, we do very much appreciate the time and the conversation. Thank you for joining us and happy Friday to you, man. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, thanks for having me. Excited to be here with you guys. Yeah, Matt, I got to tell you this great story. I’m in Germany last week, right? And I’ve got this I got this tour guy and uh don’t really never met the guy before, but he’s my tour guard. He’s taking me to the castles. He’s taking me all over the place. He’s the biggest Suns fan in the world. He’s like, I have every jersey and he’s showing me pictures of every He showed up in a Suns jersey to pick me up at the airport. I’m like, oh my god. Then I get to Austria, I run into this guy, Matias Schweigoffer. He’s like, I’ve watched every Suns game since I moved to Austria in 2004. There are Suns fans everywhere. I’m on vacation in Europe and I’m running into all these diehard Suns fans. I love it. I love it. You know, we’re going to keep continue expand. We’re going to take care of all the fans and I love hearing that about fans across the world turning the Suns on. Yeah. So many fans across the world. So many. All right, let’s let’s talk about the big decision. Last year, you guys didn’t win any playoff games. You decided to stay with the big three and uh you brought in a new coach. this year after not making the playoff, you make the decision to move on from Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal, try a reset around Devin Booker. What was it about the way the team played this year that brought you to that decision to move on? Yeah, I mean, I watched every second of every game like a lot of you guys did and it wasn’t fun to watch. It was a it was a disappointing, embarrassing season. The guys didn’t play the way we expected, you know, from the effort to the care factor to the every aspect of what we want to do. and and they could take that from the whole organization did not do what we needed to do and the fans weren’t enjoying it and nobody was really enjoying it. I don’t think the players enjoyed it either. So, we made a decision to say listen that that didn’t work. You know, um when I bought the team, we said I came in and I wanted to kind of leave the basketball group alone and give them some extra money and say, “Let’s go bluy tax. I don’t care. Whatever you guys got to do, let’s go try to win. We’re close.” And uh gave a lot of flexibilities. We did a lot of things and and they didn’t work. And you know what? I’m happy we tried, but I learned a lot from it. And now we’re going to do it the right way, which is we’re going to build around a superstar player, Devin Booker. We’re going to get a lot of young players. We’re going to have an ascending fun team to watch and we’re gonna have a lot of competition. We’re going to go out there and do a lot of things. We’re going to play tough. We’re going to do a lot of things. And we just didn’t have that set up the right way. And the and you saw it on the court, unfortunately, fold out, play out the way that we none of us thought it would happen that way, but it did. So, we uh we’re pivoting. Yeah. Let let’s talk about the most recent decision, the uh the the waving and stretching of Bradley Beal. Uh, I totally agree with it. I think it’s what you guys needed to do to kind of move forward. It does get you under the apron. It unlocks a lot of options that were not available to you before. Can you talk about those options, how you may benefit from them, and then, you know, why you don’t believe that pushing money down the road is going to impact your ability to put together a competitive team? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, obviously, he’s a great a big decision we had to make on on Brad in general. Brad’s a great guy. it just didn’t work here in Phoenix, right? And um for a lot of reasons like we want to have an identity of toughness, effort, attitude, all the things, grit, all the things like so we’re building a team that way around Deon Booker and you saw some of the guys we got in the Durant trade, which I’m sure we can talk about in a minute. But on Brad Beal specifically, it was, hey, he doesn’t fit in here. Let’s let him go do good things in his career. We wish him nothing but the best, but we’re going to build around a different identity here. And Brad Beal was not part of that going forward with the decision on the the wave and stretch versus, you know, uh people thought the no trade clause caused an issue. The no trade clause wasn’t an issue with Brad Beal. Brad Beal would have done whatever we needed to do. He’s he’s nothing but a good guy across the board. Problem is, nobody really wanted to trade for someone, you know, on a $53 million salary that wasn’t playing at that level, right? So, you can you can figure that out and understand those details. The truth of the matter is is we waved and stretched them. We created all these opportunities for We got out of the second apron, which unfreezes the future draft picks. We got out of the first apron, which means now we can aggregate salaries, taking in a mid-level exception, add to the team, and it’s not just for this year, it’s for the future as well. And so, we had to make that decision. And some people thought, well, if you do that, years four and five are going to be a problem because you have $19 million of of stressed money. Well, $19 million this year versus $19 million in five years when the it’s a huge difference. The cap is is 15% of the cap today would be 6% of the cap in five years or so. And so it’s a very minor amount and most teams have a 510 $15 million bad contract. Now we don’t want to have another one of those, right? So we’re going to have that on our books, but beyond that, it’s also six or 7% of the salary cap, not of the luxury tax, not of the first apron, and not and you guys know I’m willing to spend. And so for other teams, it might impact them, but we’re willing to go 20 or $30 million over the salary cap anyways. So therefore, we’re not putting ourselves in a tougher position. So, with all those parts of the decision and understand the flexibilities, the draft picks and and just all the pieces to it, we made that decision and we know it’s the right decision for our long-term and our short-term benefits. Yeah, I truly believe that, too. All right, clear this one up for me because there’s some national guys that are putting it out there that this July 15th date, the advanced payment date was why it was delayed. Why Brad didn’t he waited until July 15th so he could get his money? Did this advanced payment date of July 15th have anything to do with him delaying the signing with another team? No, not at all. It was already done. So, I don’t know how how people know about the the rules, but once July 1 come, the the advanced payment, some players have an advanced payment where you actually get a front-loaded amount of I think Brad’s bills was maybe 14 or 15 million. I don’t know exact number. They get it paid July 15th, but once July 1st hits and they’re on our our salary, it’s already locked in. And so if he would have bought out on July 8th, July 9th, we’re still paying him that amount. We we had to pay him 19 million this year. And so 15 of it’s already out or whatever the exact I don’t know the exact numbers to be off off the top of my head, but the July 15th, Brad didn’t people were trying to make Brad look bad like Brad was trying to take advantage of the Suns. Brad didn’t do that. That Brad Brad had to find the right team for him, him and his family. He went out and did it. He met with a bunch of teams. Um we we talked to him about this uh you know the beginning of July or end of June really. And so he had a couple weeks to find the right team for his family. He did that. We wish him nothing but the best, but he wasn’t stalling to try to get a payment. That’s just people don’t know what they’re talking about. Suns and Mercury owner Matt Ishbia is our guest here on the Burns and Gambo show. And again, we do appreciate him coming on. Matt, if I if I can, I’d like to go back for just a second on the decision with the wave and stretch because I know some in the fan base were kind of debating back and forth about whether the five-year versus the 2-year, which option was better, which way of doing this was better in terms of kind of getting it done and being over with in two years or stretching it out over five years. Was there ever any conversation about making this a 2-year plan and getting rid of him instead of the five-year plan? No, it it doesn’t work that way. First off, Brad gave back 13.8 million 13.9 million because he knew we were going to wave and stretch him. No other player that’s been asked to to be bought out has given money back. They usually only if the player wants to leave, they’ll give a little money back. So Brad did that. We did that with that understand we’re going to wave and stretch him. With that being said, people don’t understand two years, it’s not a two-year versus fiveyear problem. It’s it’s it’s a much longer problem if you don’t wave and stretch them. Because if I kept them on at 53 million this year and 57 million next year or even, you know, whatever that number would have been, well, we’d be in the second apron both years unless we just traded some players and had to give up assets to get rid of players. We got nothing back, which is almost impossible to do with the numbers we were at. And so it wouldn’t be that means our 2033, our 2034 draft picks would be frozen and our 2032 would go to the back of the draft. All these other things that people don’t understand. And then we couldn’t aggregate salaries. We couldn’t maneuver our team in the next two or three years all because you think we’re going to have more salary cap in three years. That’s it’s a ridiculous concept. People just don’t understand the details. Salary cap space in three years. It it’s not the difference between having, you know, it’s a $30 million difference or I just seen a $19 million difference in three years. It that’s not going to get you a superstar play. That’s going to be less than mid-level exception at that time. And so we we we know this is the right decision. We but we analyze it. We had I got a lot of smart people to analyze all these things and we debated it back and forth, but it was a unanimous 100% this is the right way to do it. It was described by some the the conversations with Brad in in moving on the word intense was used, the word I believe by his agent. Uh the word heated was used. What how what was the nature and the tone of those conversations when Brad when you were going through this with him? You know, I’m not going to speak to stuff about the agent. And I don’t, you know, know what they did and how they discussed it. But I’ll tell you, I spoke with Brad Bu him himself, me personally. And he’s nothing but a professional, nothing but appreciative of of his time here, disappointed that it didn’t work, disappointed that, you know, he can’t stay with the Phoenix Suns. Um, and he handled it like a gentleman and a professional that he is. And we’re moving forward. So, you know, we I look at that as a past now. We’re going to move forward. It’s no longer a part of our organization. It was a decision we made when we traded for Kevin Durant and Brad Beal. those decisions and putting that team together, it did not work. Now, I promise you, we’re going to take other swings in the future. And if you want a team that doesn’t try to win and doesn’t take swings and doesn’t get aggressive, don’t cheer for the Phoenix Suns because we are always going to try to win and we are going to be aggressive. But the difference is going forward is I’m going to personally be involved and people thought I was heavily involved. You can think what you want. I personally be involved making sure that the players we get are aligned with the vision and identity that I’m talking about. the grit, the toughness, the defensive minded, the offensive rebounding, the things that we believe in, which you’re going to see, the things such as just they’re going to be cheering your teammates on the bench. Like there’s I can go through a bunch of them. There’s going to be things we do differently in Phoenix. And I promise you, we’re not going to be trading for players that aren’t in line with that vision anymore. And so, we’re completely going forward with a different look, a different feel, and we’re going to get this thing right going forward, not for the short term, for the short term and the long term. I uh I do love what you guys were able to do this off seasonason. And I I think the fans are going to be very excited about the future. You make the Kevin Durant trade, you bring in two starting players in their 20s from the Rockets and Green and Brooks. Uh you get the first round pick which you use on Malawatch which nobody thought was going to be there. You use the five second rounders to move up and get Fleming and Brea. You’ve still got a first available, a second available. When you look at the direction the team is in, the infusion of of youth and and talent and size to the roster, how do you feel like you guys have done this off season? Yeah. Well, we’ll give kudos to Brian Gregory first. Everyone questions whether he knows what he’s doing. Like, everyone’s seen how great he’s done so far. He’s done a great job of help turning this team. Obviously, you know, we have people in there that were there before um Josh Bar, but we have Brian Gregory who’s the GM who’s making these decisions, making a lot of these calls, and obviously working closely with me on the vision, the alignment that we believe, and all the way through from owner to GM to new head coach Jordan, who BG did a great job of finding, and to our star player Devin Booker. And honestly, we had the vision and ideas of what we wanted to do. And this summer has turned out significantly better than we thought. We were able to turn the roster from an old roster over salary cap um with descending players as in players getting older, which means not not going to keep getting better to a young upand cominging, energetic, tough roster with young players. Um and the Kevin Durant turned up, I don’t want to be skeptical. We turn it was much better than we expected. We didn’t expect to get what we got. We got two starters from the number two team in the West. One is a tough, greedy guy, Dylan Brooks, a leader. Everything we believe in in Phoenix is what Dylan Brooks represents, right? And then we got the number the number one scorer, 23-year-old upand cominging, ultra talented, played all 82 games. I think he’s actually played 185 straight games in Jaylen Green and like a guy that shows up every night to play. Got both those guys along with an 18-year-old Kaman Malawatch who we were excited that he was there. um on top of it like you talked about Rashir Fleming who was we had a top 15 top 20 guy and he we got him at 31 along with the best shooter in the draft Kobe Brea. So we feel great about the outcome and how we were able to turn it so quick. And then also people don’t talk about but Mark Williams um is a huge huge addition. You know if we see Mark Williams healthy he’s one of the top centers in the league, top 10 centers. So how you want to fight I think he’s also 23 years old. He’s not 33 years old. And so Mark Williams is 23. Jaylen Green’s 23. Kaman Malaw is 18. Ryan Dunn 22 23 right you think of these guys and you got Booker and Brooks we got we got one of the younger teams in the league and also we had size issue last year we talked about we are now based on the data I think we are the longest as in the biggest biggest team in the NBA right now with Nick Richards Oso uh Malawatch Mark Williams but then also Rashir Fleming and then just you know we don’t have any little guys besides Colin Gillespie and he’s a great little guy by the way but most of our guys are 6’4 65 67 69 That was a huge problem for us last year. And if you watch the NBA, those are the teams that are winning. A lot of size, a lot of athletes. We didn’t have that. Matt be our guest here on the Burns and Gambo show. Um I I heard your interview on SiriusXM and you talked about, hey, if this takes a year, okay. If this takes two, okay. If this takes 10, okay. How comfortable are you with kind of a different timeline that you’re working now as the owner of the Phoenix Suns and knowing that this might not happen overnight for you guys anymore? Yeah. Well, I don’t think anything happens overnight. Anything worthwhile takes a while, right? And so, you know, when I like I said once again, when I bought the team, I tried to stay out of a lot of this stuff and say, let’s give like what do we need? They need to go over the salary cap, didn’t go over the luxury tax before. Let me give them the resources, which I was fine doing. But we didn’t build the identity and the vision and what we really believe in. We thought, hey, just like make the team a little bit better, follow the the the basketball minds on some of this stuff. And and by the way, to give credit, like I didn’t disagree with some of those decisions. And I don’t think any fan did when we traded for Kevin D. fans like, “Oh, bad bad decision. Oh, we traded for Brad. I mean, if you watch all the reactions, everyone thought it was the best.” Now, Monday morning quarterback, you can say that’s that stuff didn’t work. And we’re all we all agree it didn’t work. But we were the favorites to win the West when we traded for Grant. we’re the favorites to win uh you know compete for NBA championship the following year like people believed in it. Everybody thought it was going to work. It didn’t work. And now I see things differently which is we’re going to have a a type of team that’s and we’re not trying to win it tomorrow. We’re going to always try to win but we’re going to try to do it the right way which means build around Devin Booker because you have to have a franchise player and a superstar to win an NBA championship and we have that in Deon Booker and we saw with Tyresese Halburn and Shay but really you’ll talk about Indiana. He’s their star player and Deon Booker Tyres is a great player but Devin Booker is right there if not above those types of players. And it’s like how do we put Deon Booker with the right people around him? The toughness, the defensive minded, the size to protect around the rim, the lob threats, you know, some shooting. Like how do we put the right things around him to build a championship caliber team? And does it take one year or two years or 10? I don’t know. But I promise you, we’re going to go in that direction with that identity, with that vision. And uh Devin’s in for it. Brian Gregory’s in for it. Jordan’s in for it and I’m in for it and I the most important thing is I think the fans are going to love it when they see how our team plays. Yeah. As long as it’s a team that’s going to play hard every night, right? As long as the team get down by 10 or 15 and now it’s going to be down by 25. They’re going to come back and and fight. They’re going to die for loose balls. They’re going to do all the little things that make the fans get up and applaud. I mean, that’s the type of of that’s the type of team the fans want. Let I’ve had Gregory on the show. We’ve had Gregory and A on the show. I’ve been very impressed with both of those guys when they’ve had them on. I’ve been very impressed with them. I’d like to get Matine Cleaves on as well. You just added him. You’ve surrounded yourself with with people that you know, people that you trust. Talk to us about why that’s important to you to have people that have a similar vision in in how you want to take this and where you want to go with it. Yeah. Well, that’s like in any business, right? You know, so when you come into a business like, you know, I we handled a little differently, I believe, like we did in the Phoenix Mercury. Let’s just talk about them and I’ll talk about the Suns now as well. When I bought the Phoenix Mercury, we were the worst team in the league. We said, “Okay, let’s restructure this.” We hired a new GM, a new coach. We got alignment with everyone from there on that side. And we were the worst team in the league the first year. Then we got better last year. And now we’re the second best team in the league. And I think what we have is the coach of the year and Nate Tibbitz along with a lot of great players. And we’re going to keep building. That doesn’t mean we’re done. It doesn’t mean we’re going to win anything this year. We could have a bad second half of the year, but we are building in the right direction. And the fans love it. We’re going to do the same thing with the Suns. And so we have to have people that believe in the same things. And so people get wanted to say, “Oh, you hired a Michigan State guy.” Well, first off, I never met Jordan. That’s Jordan. You know, I look at Jordan. He’s an NBA guy. He’s been in the NBA for a long time. Brian Gregory was in the NBA for but he’s also a coach. And so, he’s been a coach for 30 years. So, he understands coaching. He can help Jordan help us build the right and also have a belief system that’s similar to what I think and what we’re trying to set here, which is toughness, grit, energy, positive attitude, caring about the game, like just stuff that maybe doesn’t happen to every NBA team. And so, we’re going to do it that way going forward. U Matine Cleaves is the ultimate winner. That’s that’s the we’re going to actually he was at my mortgage stand for years and he was the one the most valuable person out of 9,000 people. That’s how valuable he is in mortgages. He’s going to be great in basketball. I know that. But there’s but it’s not just those people. There’s a lot of people that you no one mentions that we that I never knew before, but they’re aligned with the vision. People like to always talk about people that maybe might have known some guy, but we already probably found other guys that I’ve never met before, but they have the same type of mentality and mindset. So, they’re on our they’re on our organization, too. We’re going to go out there and try to compete and like I said, the fans will enjoy watching this team compared to the last two years. Yeah, they definitely will. I believe that. I’m very excited about the future. I got to ask you about the Mercury. I mean, one of the best records in the WNBA. Massive changes to the roster. Nate Tibbitz might be the coach of the year. Um, why do you think the Mercury were able to turn it around so fast this year? Well, I think kind of what we just talked about. We set an identity. Jurine, the GM has done a phenomenal job, right? He’s worked extremely well with Nate Tibbitz and that coaching staff, but also the players. We also built a place I think actually just came out, I think it was on that the we were voted the the number one organization in the WNBA by the players that not our players couldn’t vote for us, but everyone else voted for us. Like that was in the athletic the other day. And then people realize that we’re building things. So players want to come here. Just like by the way, people like to think they don’t want it, but Phoenix Suns players want to come here. Players want to be part of our organization. free agents reach out. It happens more than people understand, but we’re going to make sure we set the identity. And what the the Nick and Nate did there, a great job is we know that people want to come here, but let’s make sure we get the right type of players that are bought into what we’re about. And they’ve done a great job building that roster. They play extremely hard every single night. If you watch those games, and they’re fun to watch. They’re competing. Who knows if we win the championship, but we are competing and we’re a fun team, and I think the fans are loving it. Matt, we do appreciate the time joining us on a Friday like this, answering all of our questions. Uh we wish you obviously the very best of luck. We look forward to future conversations as well. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for talking to us and we will catch up with you very soon. Okay. Yeah. Thanks for the support. We appreciate you guys and excited for all the fans. Thank you for everybody. Thank you, Matt. Got Matt HPF joining us here on the Burns and Gambo show. Thanks for watching Burns and Gambo. Click to see more from the guys and hit the button in the middle to subscribe so you never miss a video from Arizona Sports.

Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia joined Burns & Gambo to discuss what’s been a busy offseason for the team.

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