Hard as it might be to remember, there was a time when the Phoenix Suns viewed owner Mat Ishbia as their savior. Robert Sarver's time in charge was not a good one, although they did make the NBA Finals in 2021 and achieved this by building a roster that had depth and the players on it compliment one another.
Ishbia on the other hand attempted the quick-fix trades of Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, with neither on the roster as they enter the 2025-26 season. Having to pay Beal for another five years just to suit up for the L.A. Clippers is painful - and Tyronn Lue is loving it - while the haul for Durant wasn't nearly as impressive as what the Suns gave up to get him in the first place.
Short-sighted Suns moves perfectly encapsulated in single sentence.
As training camps across the NBA inch closer, ESPN recently did a summer forecast and attempted to predict how each team is going to do next season. To the surprise of nobody, they were not high on the Suns. Although we believe they can win more than 31 games, ESPN doesn't think they'll go above 30. Looking at their roster and how everything fits together, that is a fair take to have.
Nestled in amongst that piece was this sentence by Zach Kram, and it perfectly sums up the Ishbia experience to this point. "No team has mortgaged more of its future for less in the present than Phoenix". The truth hurts - and as Kram has so succinctly laid out here - it is going to hurt in The Valley for years to come.
The moves that the organization made this offseason - they have three rookies coming to Phoenix and have attempted to solve their center issues by bringing in both Khaman Maluach and Mark Williams - were met with optimism, but recent front office issues again highlight the contention bubbling away behind the scenes.
Minority owners of the Phoenix Suns and Mercury have filed a lawsuit against controlling owner Mat Ishbia and the teams' holding company.
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) August 28, 2025
Kisco WC Sports II and Kent Circle Investments are demanding the teams open their books amid claims of mismanagement, deals with side… pic.twitter.com/MSaHJqFRWK
Ishbia is being sued by a pair of minority owners - the remaining two from when Sarver ran the show - and although there is a lot to it that we don't need to get into here, that is hardly the kind of news you want coming out at this stage of the offseason. It is yet another mark against Ishbia's time in charge too, which has been anything but smooth and has resulted in zero postseason success.
It says it all that the deepest run the Suns have had since he took over in early 2023 was with large parts of the roster Sarver oversaw still on the team. Guys like Mikal Bridges, Deandre Ayton, Cameron Johnson and Chris Paul, who all later made way for Durant, Beal and... gulp, Jusuf Nurkic. Short-sighted then, and it looks even worse now. This is the worst spot to be in right now in the entire NBA.