The Phoenix Suns have been loud, busy and largely disappointing since Mat Ishbia purchased the team. When the boisterous owner voiced his disdain for the media and their predictions, ESPN blasted Ishbia for his out-of-touch stance and terrible track record.
It is no secret that the Suns have fallen short of expectations. After reaching the NBA Finals in 2020-21, the Suns won 64 games the following season with a starting lineup that fit together like a glove. The clock was ticking as Chris Paul reached the end of his prime, however, and the Suns decided to accelerate the decline.
Mat Ishbia purchased the team in December of 2022, took over as governor in February of 2023 and immediately made a blockbuster trade for Kevin Durant. The following summer, Chris Paul was jettisoned for Bradley Beal. And at every turn since taking over, Ishbia has made the Suns a worse team. They dropped from 64 wins to 45 during his first year, then making it to 49 and a first-round exit, and this past year winning just 36 games and missing the postseason altogether.
Has Ishbia perhaps found some humble pie? Is he willing to look in the mirror and ask himself why the team has hit hard times? Not at all -- instead, he is doubling down on his stance that the media are bafoons and don't know what they are talking about.
Mat Ishbia won't face reality
A year ago he was claiming that 26 other GMs around the league would want to swap places with the Suns. This offseason he said that when the experts thought that Phoenix would be really good they were instead bad, so if the experts think the Suns will be bad, they are definitely going to be good.
This week, Ishbia addressed the media, in part to announce a new deal to ensure local Phoenix fans can access games for their team. He and the franchise deserve a lot of credit for how they created a model out of thin air and made their local games available free over the airwaves. It was a savvy move that has blossomed into spectacular success.
Ishbia poked fun at himself by saying that while he got that, he got virtually everything else wrong since taking over as owner. And yet he clearly doesn't believe that, because he continues to trumpet that the experts have it wrong and that Phoenix is in a great spot.
The media continues to disagree with him, however, because in ESPN's annual offseason survey they voted the Suns second for which team had the worst offseason. A major reason for that was waiving and stretching the gargantuan contract of Bradley Beal.
ESPN's Tim Bontemps, who assembles the survey, then put Ishbia on blast. He declared that "the process on the Bradley Beal trade from start to finish was horrendous" and that the financial purgatory they put themselves in this summer was begun when they took on an overpaid player with a no-trade clause in the first place.
The Suns dug themselves in a massive hole. As much as Ishbia might like to leap out of it in a single bound, it will take time for Phoenix to recover. Bontemps was blunt but not incorrect. And at some point, Mat Ishbia needs to face the music and realize that his style of management thus far has not led to results.
And along the way, they will continue to get blasted for their mistakes. It's part of the business.