Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia spoke with the media on Wednesday not long after the Suns were swept by the Minnesota Timberwolves during the first round of the NBA Playoffs and remained bullish regarding his confidence in the Suns current roster.
The Suns big three of Devin Booker, Kevin Durant, and Bradley Beal only played half a season together due to injuries, but even when they were on the court they looks mismatched, raising concerns about how the Suns will wheel and deal this summer with limited resources.
“We’re going to evaluate everything,” Ishbia said, according to ESPN’s Baxter Holmes. “… Everything is on the table to evaluate. We have just not started it.”
Ishbia did not offer support for head coach Frank Vogel, who has been rumored to be on the hot seat following a terrible first season at the helm in Phoenix where he failed to connect with players and correct season-long issues.
“I thought Frank did a great job given the circumstances,” Suns general manager James Jones said. “I thought the staff did a great job. I thought the players did a really good job, just not good enough to reach our goals.”
Ishbia spent around 25 minutes speaking with sports journalists about the disappointment in the season as well as the future.
“I love that people are frustrated that we didn’t win an NBA championship, because, guess what? So are we,” Ishbia said.
“I’m happy where we’re at, from that perspective, that people are disappointed, because, guess what, there’s not someone in the organization that’s more disappointed than me, my GM, my CEO, my players, my coach. Everyone’s disappointed, just like the fans. Guess what? I’m going to own the team for 50 years, and probably 45, 46, 47 of those years, we’ll probably have the same conversation — like, hey, we didn’t win the championship, and we’re going to be disappointed then, too. That’s how it’s going to be, and I love it.”
“I feel like the narrative around [here is] the house is burning, it’s incorrect,” Ishbia said. “… Fans like to look in the future and say, ‘Hey, I really like that 2031 draft pick because maybe that seventh grader is going to be really good and we’re going to draft him and one day he’s going to be a player.'”
“Five in the next eight years, we have a first-round draft pick. I know that’s not a cool thing to say out there because people like to say their narratives that we have no draft picks, but we have five in the next eight years and we can trade two of ’em next month if we want. So it is not like people say we have no flexibility.”
Jones also supported the feeling that the Suns are equipped to make some moves to improve the roster this offseason. Phoenix enters this offseason with $209 million in salary, the biggest payroll of any NBA team, and face a projected luxury tax penalty of $116 million.
“Going into this offseason, we have everything we need to be able to add the players or the positions that will make us better” Jones said.
“It was never, ‘We’re going to win a championship this year or we got to blow it up,” Ishbia said. “… Championship or bust, this isn’t bust. We’re in a great position. We’re going to be in a great position next year.”
“We’re inches from where we need to be,” Ishbia said. “You look back at some of the trades that James and all of us were part of — we do those things a 100 out of a 100 times, not 99 out of a 100, a 100 out of a 100,” Ishbia said. “And we still do ’em again. And I think [the] other 29 GMs would all do the exact same thing. We feel great about the moves we’ve made on the court, off the court and we’re really proud of it.”
“Did I think it was going to be easy? No,” Ishbia said. “But do I think we have a great chance to win next year? Yes. And if I ever thought we didn’t, I’d say that — I’d say, ‘Hey listen, I don’t think we have a good enough team to win a championship.'”
“We’ll go through every channel, we’ll explore every scenario to add and build our team,” Jones said. “It’s important to remember that we’re starting with six, seven, eight really good players.”
