It’s been described by multiple observers that the Phoenix Suns under owner Mat Ishbia function with a ready-fire-aim approach.
The Suns have now removed three head coaches in the past three offseasons and exited the 2024-25 regular season seemingly with a plan: Finding an identity and a new coach are obvious priorities that Ishbia spoke about alongside CEO Josh Bartelstein and president of basketball operations and general manager James Jones on Thursday.
But here’s the thing: Ishbia also is expected to make bigger changes before we get into that and before we get into this offseason’s potentially biggest roster move, trading Kevin Durant.
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The Athletic reported when head coach Mike Budenholzer was fired this week that Jones’ contract is set to end in June, which ESPN’s Brian Windhorst confirmed. Both publications and our John Gambadoro suggested there was high potential that a shakeup in the front office is coming.
The Suns fairly spent most of the season trying to make this work. But at the highest leadership levels, they’ve had since the February trade deadline to reset their focus. Meanwhile, Jimmy Butler is working out just fine for the Golden State Warriors, and Durant predictably got side-swiped by his involvement in trade talks but held up his end of the bargain for the rest of the year.
The roster was set beyond deciding on Collin Gillespie’s two-way status if the playoffs were on the table, and that should have meant the past two months were about Ishbia lining up who is in charge of a pivotal offseason.
It’s a crucial year for Phoenix to hit on whatever picks are in its hands.
But we don’t know who is commanding this ship beyond Ishbia. And that, we should point out, has been the case since he took over as owner.
Former Suns owner Jerry Colangelo said it honestly: Ishbia is learning that his way in the business world does not work in the NBA, even if he’s hooped himself.
“I came from a different perspective. I had played, I had scouted, I had coached, I had managed. It was in my blood,” Colangelo said when he joined Arizona Sports’ Bickley & Marotta months ago. “I wasn’t a fan. If you come from a fan perspective — and I’m just generalizing — it’s different. So I think you need to have an organization of people you believe in and trust in and I think what they’re going through, I think what Mat’s going through, is a learning process.”
Spending can improve the human aspect of this, making the Suns and Mercury the most appealing teams for both players and consumers.
Star players can bring ratings, but hate-watching when it went south the last two years isn’t what the Suns were aiming for.
Neither stars nor cash can secure a basketball identity nor a culture.
Will the Phoenix Suns’ front-office changes matter if Mat Ishbia sees himself as in charge of basketball tone-setting?
Ishbia said Thursday that it is on him to find an identity as the team owner, and while that is a nice bit of accountability, the basketball product and personnel can be completely detached from the business operations of an NBA franchise. Arguably, it should be.
Sarver’s final years showed that. As the business side got hit with workplace accusations, Jones and coach Monty Williams built a basketball team with a very clear identity in 2019-20. They quickly flipped that into an NBA Finals squad the next year.
Moving into 2025-26, Jones’ part in all this remains most interesting.
He has gone from a “I am focused on the 15 players on the NBA roster” general manager when Sarver sold the G League team to having an owner willing to spend deep into tax territory. His “type” of draft pick has become pretty clear and successful, but it’ll be interesting to see if he becomes another scapegoat in all of this.
It’s also hard to say how much the weight of his voice changed in the drafting Ryan Dunn scenario versus the trading for Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal scenarios.
Should his role increase (“Boo!” I hear you say)? Should it decrease? Will he be around at all? Why’d he speak Thursday if he’s gone?
Bartelstein is unique among basketball executives. While he takes accountability like his boss in basketball personnel decisions, his title and job description upon his hiring put him in charge of the business side of the Suns as well as the same role with the Phoenix Mercury and the teams’ shared arena.
But by appearances, he has been deeply involved, like Ishbia, with the basketball operations side of things for both the Suns and Mercury, who have curiously operated in similar ways to the NBA team: From trading draft picks for stars and then surprising those stars when they end up in trade rumors or executed deals.
Does Bartelstein’s umbrella span too much across two franchises?
It’s on Ishbia to determine his top lieutenants’ roles and who they are. But he must be considering his part so far in all this has been more than most owners.
The good news is it’s still early, and even his predecessor, Sarver, found ways to evolve — from a basketball standpoint at least.
Does Ishbia find an established NBA executive from the outside to fix this thing?
As my podcast co-host Kellan Olson wrote, Ishbia pushed back on the idea that he is a micromanager, but he did not downright explain his exact decision-making role.
To reiterate the concerns: He called for an identity change and fired a third coach in the third straight offseason. The Suns need to kill it in the draft this year and potentially trade Durant. This all happened before Ishbia clarified if Jones or Bartelstein or someone else will be the de facto decision-maker.
The words Thursday didn’t match up with the order of operations here.
That does not mean this is time to panic if you’re a Suns fan. If Phoenix can impressively exit this salary cap hell, a pivot and reload could be fascinating and, with Devin Booker still here, pretty exciting.
But mess up the front office and the coaching hires again, and the hell it’ll look like will just be a bit more Sisyphean. That’s about the dude from Greek mythology, punished in the underworld by the gods, who made him roll a rock up a hill again and again only for it to roll back down it for eternity.
And that’s what the last three years have felt like to Suns fans.
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