Let's face it, owner Mat Ishbia's time at the helm of the Phoenix Suns has been underwhelming to this point. Not because he has been afraid to make the moves necessary to win big, but rather because those moves haven't paid off the way the organization would have hoped.
Trading for Kevin Durant and even Bradley Beal sounded great in theory, but the reality has been very different. We have now reached a point where it is unclear how the Suns get themselves back into contention, with the Western Conference looking as difficult as ever if the current playoffs are any indication.
Suns being compared to Sacramento Kings is a disaster.
Sam Amick of The Athletic jumped on The Ringer NBA Show to talk all things league related recently - and given how important an offseason this is for the Suns - they naturally came up in conversation. But what Amick had to say was extremely worrying, especially when it came to the recent hiring of General Manager Brian Gregory, a longtime friend of Ishbia's.
"He (Gregory) would not be in the running for any other team. He has history with Mat Ishbia… long time college coach with Michigan State ties. It’s the same type of mentality (as the Sacramento Kings)."
Yikes. It has long been accepted in the league that the word "Kings" is shorthand for incompetence when it comes to running a successful franchise. That might seem harsh - but no sooner had the Kings stumbled into a winning formula in De'Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis that got them back to the playoffs - Fox was off to San Antonio.
That was partly because he wanted out, but any team that willingly goes out and adds both DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine is clearly watching a different sport to everybody else. In pairing those guys up together once more, they somehow made the same mistake as the Chicago Bulls before them, who still can't believe they managed to get away from that tandem.
Kings' owner Vivek Ranadive - who once seriously suggested this idea - isn't actively trying to not win games and generally stick around the middle to lower end of the NBA pack. But that's what his actions have led to, and for Amick to lump the Suns into the same category at this point in their offseason is not a good sign.
You can hardly blame him either, with Gregory having no previous experience at this level of an NBA's front office and the search for the next head coach of the team including somebody who has been in the building for years. With Durant's future very much up in the air and Beal seemingly liking living in Phoenix, the outlook right now is grim.
A lot can change over the course of one summer for a franchise - but if you are Devin Booker - it is hard not to look around and be concerned about the direction of the Suns. He's inching closer to 30 and this season wasn't even named an All-Star. It is clear he wants to win, but being compared to the Kings is not how you go about making that happen. A real concern.