PHOENIX — Well, you have to respect new Phoenix Suns general manager Brian Gregory for coming out and saying it.
“Mat and I are a team,” Gregory said at his introductory press conference on Tuesday. “We are completely aligned. … I report to Mat Ishbia. Mat is an owner that is involved and I like that. But he has also empowered me to build this team and to build the identity and build the alignment that is so important. But Mat and I are aligned.
“And the one thing I will say is this — I’m never gonna shy away from the fact that one of the reasons I’m sitting up here is because of my relationship with Mat Ishbia.”
The new GM’s overwhelming lack of experience for his new position shines a spotlight you could see from the moon on his 25-year relationship with Ishbia that dates back to when Gregory coached Ishbia at Michigan State. This comes off the heels of Ishbia himself promising major change, and instead with the front office, invoking it via an internal hire that he is very tight with. It is inspiring worry and dread from large portions of the fanbase, understandably so.
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To start, let’s share our hope and optimism together that this works out for Gregory. It’s sincerely here. The outcome that he proves all of the following criticism dead wrong. Suns fans have been through more than enough and don’t deserve to be right back in the gutter after getting a brief taste of the sweet life. Your definition of that could be an NBA Finals appearance, 64 wins and attracting star talent to the Valley. I’d settle for just being able to go back to covering a team that is taken seriously and not retaking hold of laughing stock status.
Gregory did not do himself any favors on Tuesday by consistently returning to the talking point of “alignment,” which already sprouted a few jokes that will continue over time. With that said, opening press conferences and cringey moments like that are not always clairvoyant. Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni was a mess when introduced and since then has been to two Super Bowls and won one. So for any angst over the quality of the presentation, it’s best not to go there.
But there wasn’t much calming done in regards to the resume.
There are bountiful red flags here. This is not just about the relationship between Gregory and Ishbia, or how the other two front office additions are also guys with roots from Michigan. Even if Gregory’s background included multiple NBA Executive of the Year awards, there would still be concern over how much influence and decision-making power he would have. That concern would be there regardless.
The core issue at hand is that Gregory is severely under-qualified for the job. For all we know, he is a brilliant basketball mind. At the very least, he certainly knows more about the game than you or I. Being around it as long as he has comes with the territory, and also cultivating relationships. He cited how he’s known Devin Booker since he scouted Booker in high school, how Kevin Durant greeted him when hearing he got the job and how he had dinner with Bradley Beal the night before his press conference.
But that just isn’t enough.
Gregory’s two decades of head-coaching experience at the collegiate level with Dayton, Georgia Tech and South Florida have almost nothing to them that suggest they would aid Gregory in knowing how to go about certain key aspects of running a front office and evaluating marquee talent. Across the 20 years, Gregory coached five players that would go on to make the NBA. None of them lasted more than five years in the league.
Take team success out of the equation. It doesn’t really matter that the Dayton stint was successful, nor that the latter two stops were not. If Gregory had lots of experience dealing with NBA-level talent, that would be a large banner to wave as a scout-first hire. But that is not the case.
And it would help if Gregory would have shown the capability to build up any of these programs, form that alignment and identity, along with several other characteristics he noted wanting the Suns to possess.
Even at the collegiate mid-major level, establishing a foundation and culture for long-term stability would have once more been something worth headlining his validity. But he inherited a Dayton program that Oliver Purnell built up in the late 1990s to early 2000s before departing for Clemson. On top of that, Gregory’s successor at Dayton (Archie Miller) led the program to a school record four straight NCAA Tournament appearances and its first Elite Eight in 30 years.
This is not a resume to run an NBA team, which inspires the question of what he does to make the Suns believe he would be good at this.
It was not a good sign that his answer directly went to the talking points and what Ishbia spoke on.
“The knowledge and experience I think puts me in a good position to be successful in this role but I think the thing that’s gonna separate me and give me the opportunity to be very successful and make a positive impact is my focus on building that identity and creating that alignment that Mat talked about a couple weeks ago,” he said.
What’s more dumbfounding is what Gregory did to earn this promotion. Let’s really lock in here on that word. Promotion. That’s what this is. Only a few hundred people on this floating orb even knew he was in the Suns’ front office before this news hit, so let’s take that in.
Gregory was hired on June 10 of last year to become the vice president of player programming. He later confirmed that he spent the 2023-24 season onboard as a consultant.
“What I did in that was spend a lot of time with the players, spend a lot of time with the coaches — I did travel with the team,” Gregory said. “Did a lot of different writeups for front office personnel in terms of evaluating the players and different things like that. I was also given the opportunity to work with our amateur evaluation group, which was a tremendous group and I grew immeasurably during that time in terms of the ability to evaluate and gather intelligence on players.”
Gregory then said his front office role this past year was overseeing that evaluation group, meaning he is the guy responsible for the scouting efforts ahead of June’s NBA Draft. He also did a lot of player development work.
In the fair assumption that former GM James Jones, president Josh Bartelstein, assistant general manager Matt Tellem and former head coach Mike Budenholzer held more say than Gregory over the last season, that puts him at best fifth in charge. He just got bumped up four spots!
What qualities did he show to earn such a massive rise? What were his accomplishments? It certainly wasn’t anything to do with the product on the floor.
One that got cited in the aftermath of his hiring via sourced reporting was playing a part in the drafting of Ryan Dunn and Oso Ighodaro in the 2024 NBA Draft.
That draft took place 16 days after Gregory officially got hired. So did a recently-elevated consultant just lead the direction of the draft? That’s what that means, right? Am I insane? Did I inhale too many lingering goat feces fumes roaming the halls of PHX Arena long enough for the after effects to be hitting me a decade later? Or is he receiving credit for scouting and drafting two guys he did not evaluate in an official front office role until less than three weeks before the draft?
And Dunn and Ighodaro were not home-run selections. They were fine. If Gregory were in Memphis and he was the guy that snagged Rookie of the Year finalist Jaylen Wells in the second round, sure, that’s something to work off of.
So, inevitably, all roads lead to Ishbia just hiring one of his guys. Someone he trusts and has a prior working relationship with. And also, you know, a guy who should feel incredibly indebted to Ishbia. A guy who will not struggle to find his common ground.
To return to where we started, the hesitancy was already there with ownership in this regard before this hire. It was not heightened by it. But strengthened? Absolutely.
In an interesting wrinkle, Gregory was vocal on how important the draft is. With Gregory stressing how critical it is, Ishbia has instead been critical on multiple fronts of what he feels is an unnecessary fascination with future draft picks. That has been reflected with all of the Suns’ trades with those picks the last two-plus years.
Gregory will need selections holding more weight than the ones Phoenix currently owns in order to see out his vision and put to use his biggest strengths that he built up in his small time working in the NBA. We’ll see if that’s the case, such as how much of the impending Durant trade revolves around either draft assets and developmental players or instead win-now pieces.
Inside of this proof we will need to see is also someone in Gregory who should want to prove he is not a puppet. Here’s what he said in regards to overcoming this easy-to-assign label.
“Like I said, I think the relationship with Mat is a key factor but I think my body of work over my 30-something years of basketball has put me in a position where (with) the leadership aspects of this job, as I said, I’m excited about that.
“[I’m] not necessarily driven by the ‘prove people wrong’ or anything like that. But I will say this. I understand that to the fans and to you guys I am going to be held accountable to executing this vision. I’m going to be held accountable to the success of this team. I completely understand that. I don’t shy away from that either, that actually excites me.”
The hope surrounding the Suns is that Gregory is worthy of that accountability, that he is looked at as his own individual and someone who can be evaluated for the big decisions. Time will tell.
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