No NBA team in history has put themselves in the second-apron hell the Phoenix Suns are in right now.
Nobody has been required to exit it since the new CBA was applied.
There is no blueprint written for this summer, which makes it historic for the NBA. But in the Valley, the offseason has even more weight considering what we in Phoenix have seen in the past, from the NBA and beyond.
The Suns face a crucial offseason under a relatively new owner, who has fired three head coaches in three offseasons; a new general manager who has less than a year’s experience in the NBA altogether and; very likely a first-time head coach, according to Arizona Sports’ John Gambadoro.
This is the summation of change:
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— Owner Mat Ishbia hired a Michigan State connection as GM in Brian Gregory. He’s a long-time college coach who tutored his billionaire boss as an assistant at Michigan State and only a handful of pro basketball players at the college level as a head coach at Dayton and South Florida.
— In a war room behind-the-scenes of the 2024 NBA Draft, it was Ishbia, CEO Josh Bartelstein and now-former GM James Jones commanding the draft when the Suns selected Ryan Dunn and Oso Ighodaro. Presumably, Gregory will move from the back of the table to the head of it. According to Gambadoro, Gregory will report directly to Ishbia.
— Jones will take on a senior advisor role, a title usually used in these circumstances in place of “phased out.”
What questions do those facts lead to?
First, is Ishbia more hands-off, trusting his chosen general manager more than the inherited one?
Secondly, is Bartelstein’s time now focused on the business side of things over the basketball operations wing?
Those two together ask: Does Gregory have a larger voice as No. 1 decision-maker than any of Ishbia, Bartelstein or Jones did last year?
The Suns will likely need to correctly navigate a Kevin Durant trade, where the forward and his business partner Rich Kleiman have all the leverage. Durant will want a long-term extension waiting on a new team and winning situation, and that will limit which teams can offer the Suns something close to a helpful return. Phoenix will have to take what it can get or find three-way deals to churn more value out of a trade.
The draft seems likely to be looped into the complexity, where a running clock at the end of June could push a Durant trade to finality. Day 1 of the draft is a big enough task just in terms of selecting players who could help a “pivot and reload” around Devin Booker.
The Bradley Beal situation might be simpler since his trade value is so limited. Phoenix will pay up for him to leave.
What is new Suns GM Brian Gregory lacking in experience most?
Let’s get back to Jones’ experience as he entered the NBA as an executive to explain why Gregory’s resume could be a worry.
Jones was an inexperienced hire when former owner Robert Sarver made it in 2017. He was first hired as a second-in-command to then-GM Ryan McDonough.
At the time, it looked clear that Jones would ultimately replace the embattled McDonough, and it only took a year to happen. Phoenix fired McDonough about a week before the next season began, then gave Jones an interim tag until he was promoted to permanent status in 2019.
But despite the similar single year of NBA front office experience like Gregory, Jones understood the league from the perspective that the current Suns administration needs most. Straight from the story of former ESPN reporter Adrian Wojnarowski:
Sarver hired Jones to a front office that had struggled with its relationships and communication with its players. Jones was fresh off a 14-year NBA career that included three championships and a longtime partnership with LeBron James. Jones also served as an executive with the players’ association.
Sarver has earned a long-standing reputation for aggressively involving himself in basketball decisions, but it’s become harder for coaches and front-office staff to manage in the past two years after the Suns became Sarver’s primary business interest.
Now, Ishbia has not been charged with what Wojnarowski reported as “regular beratings and demands of strategy and lineup changes” that Sarver was accused of. And to be completely fair, who’s to say Ishbia leaning heavily on Gregory doesn’t turn out just fine if Gregory’s basketball life experience indeed can develop a winning culture?
Nobody is doubting that because, frankly, we don’t have much to work off of.
In the team’s press release announcing the news, the Suns promoted Gregory’s drafting and development of Dunn and Ighodaro as reasons to believe in him.
Well, both players have questions: Can Dunn shoot well enough to ever be a 35-minute per game super role player, and can Ighodaro make up for lack of size with improved rebounding, defense and any shooting chops outside of the paint?
Furthermore, can Gregory and Ishbia learn from flubbing relationships with Durant — who could have raised a bigger stink — Beal and Jusuf Nurkic last season?
Gregory has salary cap experts and support systems from guys who have been here. He might bring fresh perspective about culture and leadership. The resume doesn’t show obvious promising signs. Again, we’ll wait and see.
But can Gregory navigate all that and the relationship part of the NBA, where players with big egos, agents with big egos, parents with big egos and more can complicate contract negotiations, trades, playing time and more?
That’s a lot of asks for promoting someone who, by the way, had a small hand in shaping a team that won 36 games last year and shrank at any sign of a challenge.
The only thing Gregory — and Ishbia — can do to shake the worries is prove it. And because of the urgent circumstances, it might not be a full calendar year before we know if they’re going to sink.
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