Mat Ishbia is doing everything quickly. This includes the fall in grace.
Have the perception and popularity of a sport owner already dropped so quickly?
It is not only the shocking transformation of our beloved NBA franchise into Phoenix SPARTTSUNS, where he made a managing director of a state boyfriend from Michigan without experience in a role as a front office; And then hired a recruited head coach caused in the video room of Michigan State.
It was the internal memo he sent to basketball operations on Wednesday which was so absurd that he was quickly disclosed to local media.
Ishbia tells its staff that Suns “will do very differently from most other NBA franchises”. He says he will be “extremely active in the decisions and the management of this organization, on and off the ground”. He says that he is “not the conventional owner of the NBA and that I do not want to be”. And for the kicker, he said that he “had tried to manage the typical game book of the owner of the NBA – to hire experts, to sign the checks and to move away – and none of us was satisfied with the results.”
In professional sports, it is a very bad idea to act as you know more than everyone. Especially if you are new in the industry. The most efficient and the best teams are very proud of their profession and their attention to the details and the steep ladder that they have climbed. They will offer themselves a lot to such a reckless bravado.
In a kingdom where athletes and coaches are always looking for fuel and edge material and whiteboard, this attempt to buffer a university philosophy in a NBA team has just put a giant target on the collective back of the Suns. Like Ray Anderson and Herm Edwards did with the installation of a professional model in Arizona State.
There is also a civic confidence that has been raped. When Ishbia bought the Suns from Robert Sarver, there was a giant sigh of relief on Planet Orange. I said it was perhaps the largest suspended that a sports city has ever received. And when Ishbia started throwing money, acquiring Kevin during a successful business, reducing concession prices and putting the Suns on free television, his honeymoon has reached a summit that most owners dream. He was the anti-Marin and the Savior of Arizona.
Now, many fans of Suns are livid. They believe that the new head coach Jordan Ott was the choice of aside, that the in-depth research of head coach was a performative nonsense. They do not believe in Ishbia when he claims that he was not too involved in the past, that he signed checks and moved away. We all know that James Jones did not want to exchange the farm for over. We all know that he would never be enchanted against Bradley Beal and his poison pill clause. This attempt to distinguish itself from the failure of the two previous seasons by festering more deep into history is disturbing. The same goes for gas lighting.
Questions remains. Was OTT really their first choice? Or did the current state of the Suns frighten the best candidates? And if Johnnie Bryant becomes the next Knicks head coach – a candidate with a much higher curriculum vitae – a deeper conversation will be necessary.
All this is very unfair for OTT, who has many more references as a chief coach than Brian Gregory as managing director. It is not a blow in darkness or a wild swing for fences. He made his way on the ground floor, as Frank Vogel did. The Suns are not the first team at Interviewer OTT for a job as a head coach, and it seems well respected in the circles of the League. But he is a Spartan.
For Ishbia, it is a badge of honor, the key to unlocking the code. For the rest of us, it has become a stigma and a source of mockery. Pray that he is right and we are wrong.
Reach bickley at dbickley@arizonasports.com. Listen to Bickley & Marotta during the week from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. at the Arizona Sports Station 98.7 FM.
