Mat Ishbia doesn't sound very bright

[HadAnEffectHere]

I think he’s making the point that fans overrate the value of draft picks, to which he’s right

He's also correctly pointing out that Stepien rule means they do have picks a majority of the next 6 years.

I don't want to defend him cuz douche, but realgm in general does exaggerate the consequences of aggressive moves. There's so much 'they're screwing their future!' talk every time a team makes a star trade or at least when it start to go a little badly. Feels like it's not enough to accurately lay out the risks of trades involving 2-3 picks and like people have to embellish and seem to want teams to suffer badly for making those moves. Ishbia to some extent is responding to that kind of talk and just saying 'trading picks for 3 of the next 7 years means we still have 4 picks, it's not the end of the world.'

Also it's not like the Suns would auction everything off and rebuild right away if they did own all their picks. That inability to tear down is not the hard part of their current situation, it's that the big 3 they put together couldn't get out of the 1st round and doesn't just need some tweaks and role player adjustments to be a legit contender. Having fewer picks to trade makes that more challenging but it's not the problem per se, and having those picks back wouldn't fix it either.

Except that they swapped their swaps over and over and over again so those swapped picks are now guaranteed to be late firsts.

They created a new way to screw themselves.

[Bornstellar]

They have draft picks but they'll probably lose them in 2 years considering their horrible cap situation so they'll be worth a 2nd round pick. And that's not even the worst quote from that article. He thinks they're in a great position. The delusion is off the charts.

"Let's be real -- ask the other 29 GMs [in the NBA], 26 of them would trade their whole team for our whole team and our draft picks as is," Ishbia said. "The house is not on fire. We're in a great position. It's not hard to fix. We have enough talent to win a championship."

This dude is out of his mind it's also funny that he thinks draft picks are his only problem and not the worst contract in the NBA being on his roster

I don't think many teams would trade their whole team for the Suns and their draft picks. Maybe Detroit and Washington? That's basically it

[Stix]

Assessment is valid.

[SFour]

why is the owner acting like the GM

[CDM_Stats]

They have draft picks but they'll probably lose them in 2 years considering their horrible cap situation so they'll be worth a 2nd round pick. And that's not even the worst quote from that article. He thinks they're in a great position. The delusion is off the charts.

I'm not sure 15 teams would trade situations. Let alone 26.

I'm not sure 5 would.

I might go lower.. the only saving grace for them is that the pick swaps with WSH are.. with WSH. And I don’t think WSH would want to swap places with them either

They’re in a spot where the path to a title looks impossible and they have minimal future assets. Even consistently bad teams have hope that a top 3-5 pick next year could start turning things around. They might actually be 30th out of 30 at this stage

If it’s any consolation, the Warriors might go the same route. Hell they might even help the Suns out of the hole if they offer a lot for KD but if it were me, first thing I’m doing is shopping Booker and looking for a haul from someone like NYK or ORL

[_jin]

They have draft picks but they'll probably lose them in 2 years considering their horrible cap situation so they'll be worth a 2nd round pick. And that's not even the worst quote from that article. He thinks they're in a great position. The delusion is off the charts.

"Let's be real -- ask the other 29 GMs [in the NBA], 26 of them would trade their whole team for our whole team and our draft picks as is," Ishbia said. "The house is not on fire. We're in a great position. It's not hard to fix. We have enough talent to win a championship."

This dude is out of his mind it's also funny that he thinks draft picks are his only problem and not the worst contract in the NBA being on his roster

I don't think many teams would trade their whole team for the Suns and their draft picks. Maybe Detroit and Washington? That's basically it

Pistons and Wiz are probably in a better position than the Suns to win a chip in the next decade. Suns are pretty much stuck being first round fodders for the next 3 years when they'll start getting hit by the CBA which will hinder their ability to rebuild or reinforce the team. Ishbia clearly said he was willing to sacrifice their mid and long term future to win now, but nobody in their right mind think they can win in the next couple years without a major overhaul of the roster, which they can't do because of Beal's NTC.

He also said he and James Jones agreed that they dont need a PG because they want the ball in the hand of their 3 stars as much as possible. That first round sweep and most of the big regular season games werent enough to convince them that their 3 stars taking turns ISOing wasnt a good strategy. It's mindblowing how clueless he is.

[jokeboy86]

Whats worse about Ishbia is he’s an ex-player(played for Izzo at MSU) and is friends with plenty of ex-players(Mateen Cleaves, Isaiah Thomas) so you know he probably really feels like he knows basketball compared to some of the other owners. Those are the type of owners you really dont want to work for as a GM

[BDM22]

Only way out is to move on from KD and try to get some more complimentary players in return. They're stuck with Beal so they might as well maximize him and Booker, which they can't really do with 3 score-first guys taking turns.

They sure could use some complimentary guys like Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson now

[HotelVitale]

I think he’s making the point that fans overrate the value of draft picks, to which he’s right

He's also correctly pointing out that Stepien rule means they do have picks a majority of the next 6 years.

I don't want to defend him cuz douche, but realgm in general does exaggerate the consequences of aggressive moves. There's so much 'they're screwing their future!' talk every time a team makes a star trade or at least when it start to go a little badly. Feels like it's not enough to accurately lay out the risks of trades involving 2-3 picks and like people have to embellish and seem to want teams to suffer badly for making those moves. Ishbia to some extent is responding to that kind of talk and just saying 'trading picks for 3 of the next 7 years means we still have 4 picks, it's not the end of the world.'

Also it's not like the Suns would auction everything off and rebuild right away if they did own all their picks. That inability to tear down is not the hard part of their current situation, it's that the big 3 they put together couldn't get out of the 1st round and doesn't just need some tweaks and role player adjustments to be a legit contender. Having fewer picks to trade makes that more challenging but it's not the problem per se, and having those picks back wouldn't fix it either.

Except that they swapped their swaps over and over and over again so those swapped picks are now guaranteed to be late firsts.

They created a new way to screw themselves.

Thanks for being right on cue. They'll still have Booker/KD/Beal for the next 1st and swap, that was gonna be relatively late 1st no matter what. So that's irrelevant. Then there's 2028 and 2030 swaps, which are 4 years away from now so who knows what'll happen. Could be rough or could be nothing at all.

Either way Ishbia's right that the sky isn't falling even though this PO sucked, or at least that the fact that they owe swaps down the line isn't really the problem. They were always gonna keep trying to win/contend with these 3 guys for the next like 3 years no matter what, and only having 1sts every other year is a blow for trade purposes but not that dire. They're not like the Nets now who have no direction and are actually a bad NBA team, they're good but just not as good as they hoped. They'll keep running it back with some tweaks/variations and by the time that's over they'll only owe a couple more picks. And sure it'll maybe suck then but it's in the distant future and doens't change too much now.

[bisme37]

OP left out the part where he says "guess what" 500 times haha

I love that people are frustrated that we didn't win an NBA championship, because, guess what? So are we," he 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."

[Dirk]

[UcanUwill]

They have draft picks but they'll probably lose them in 2 years considering their horrible cap situation so they'll be worth a 2nd round pick. And that's not even the worst quote from that article. He thinks they're in a great position. The delusion is off the charts.

"Let's be real -- ask the other 29 GMs [in the NBA], 26 of them would trade their whole team for our whole team and our draft picks as is," Ishbia said. "The house is not on fire. We're in a great position. It's not hard to fix. We have enough talent to win a championship."

I'm not sure 15 teams would trade situations. Let alone 26.

Suns is in terrible situation. They wouldn't be last, cause they have very good asset in Booker, but with no picks, aging leaders and Beal contract, we can count worse NBA situations on one hand.

[HadAnEffectHere]

He's also correctly pointing out that Stepien rule means they do have picks a majority of the next 6 years.

I don't want to defend him cuz douche, but realgm in general does exaggerate the consequences of aggressive moves. There's so much 'they're screwing their future!' talk every time a team makes a star trade or at least when it start to go a little badly. Feels like it's not enough to accurately lay out the risks of trades involving 2-3 picks and like people have to embellish and seem to want teams to suffer badly for making those moves. Ishbia to some extent is responding to that kind of talk and just saying 'trading picks for 3 of the next 7 years means we still have 4 picks, it's not the end of the world.'

Also it's not like the Suns would auction everything off and rebuild right away if they did own all their picks. That inability to tear down is not the hard part of their current situation, it's that the big 3 they put together couldn't get out of the 1st round and doesn't just need some tweaks and role player adjustments to be a legit contender. Having fewer picks to trade makes that more challenging but it's not the problem per se, and having those picks back wouldn't fix it either.

Except that they swapped their swaps over and over and over again so those swapped picks are now guaranteed to be late firsts.

They created a new way to screw themselves.

Thanks for being right on cue. They'll still have Booker/KD/Beal for the next 1st and swap, that was gonna be relatively late 1st no matter what. So that's irrelevant. Then there's 2028 and 2030 swaps, which are 4 years away from now so who knows what'll happen. Could be rough or could be nothing at all.

Either way Ishbia's right that the sky isn't falling even though this PO sucked, or at least that the fact that they owe swaps down the line isn't really the problem. They were always gonna keep trying to win/contend with these 3 guys for the next like 3 years no matter what, and only having 1sts every other year is a blow for trade purposes but not that dire. They're not like the Nets now who have no direction and are actually a bad NBA team, they're good but just not as good as they hoped. They'll keep running it back with some tweaks/variations and by the time that's over they'll only owe a couple more picks. And sure it'll maybe suck then but it's in the distant future and doens't change to much now.

It's not at all clear the Suns will be good in 2026, Durant declined from a +7 BPM player to a +4 BPM without injury... Another injury and he may not be a top 50 guy in the league anymore.

[zshawn10]

"Let's be real -- ask the other 29 GMs [in the NBA], 26 of them would trade their whole team for our whole team and our draft picks as is. The house is not on fire. We're in a great position. It's not hard to fix. We have enough talent to win a championship." - Mat Ishbia

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/40066112/mat-ishbia-says-phoenix-suns-great-position-declines-address-frank-vogel-status

[UcanUwill]

Whats worse about Ishbia is he’s an ex-player(played for Izzo at MSU) and is friends with plenty of ex-players(Mateen Cleaves, Isaiah Thomas) so you know he probably really feels like he knows basketball compared to some of the other owners. Those are the type of owners you really dont want to work for as a GM

He obviously bought the team to play myGM billionaires edition. And I have no doubt he knows the league and basketball, but that doesn't mean he will be good "GM". Even worst NBA GMs knew Basketball very well, no one has ever signed a guy from the street. Isbia now competes with 29 actual NBA franchises, knowing league and sport is not enough, you need to ve visionary and lucky to boot to beat those other people.

I mean Suns fans might hate him, but I respect the man. This is exactly what I, and I bet most here would do. I bought a team fod 4 billion, you bet I will play myGM mode with it, what is even the point otherwise, investment? F that lol.

[HotelVitale]

Except that they swapped their swaps over and over and over again so those swapped picks are now guaranteed to be late firsts.

They created a new way to screw themselves.

Thanks for being right on cue. They'll still have Booker/KD/Beal for the next 1st and swap, that was gonna be relatively late 1st no matter what. So that's irrelevant. Then there's 2028 and 2030 swaps, which are 4 years away from now so who knows what'll happen. Could be rough or could be nothing at all.

Either way Ishbia's right that the sky isn't falling even though this PO sucked, or at least that the fact that they owe swaps down the line isn't really the problem. They were always gonna keep trying to win/contend with these 3 guys for the next like 3 years no matter what, and only having 1sts every other year is a blow for trade purposes but not that dire. They're not like the Nets now who have no direction and are actually a bad NBA team, they're good but just not as good as they hoped. They'll keep running it back with some tweaks/variations and by the time that's over they'll only owe a couple more picks. And sure it'll maybe suck then but it's in the distant future and doens't change to much now.

It's not at all clear the Suns will be good in 2026, Durant declined from a +7 BPM player to a +4 BPM without injury... Another injury and he may not be a top 50 guy in the league anymore.

Cool but again perspective here. You're arguing that they're totally 'screwed' and boned because in 2026 there's a chance they might only win like 40 games and then have to draft like #25 instead of #15 after a swap with MEM or ORL.

Again they're not in a good spot now because their big 3 didn't work this year, but the fact that they also owe some swaps down the line doesn't matter that much. It will make it harder for them to rebuild totally in say 2027 but they can worry about that in say 2027.

[Sealab2024]

If I'm James Jones I'm handing in my resignation as of today. There's no chance Jones has any autonomy to make decisions and that in fact, ishbia is the one making bad decisions that then go on James' resume. I'm not having some fan with billions ruin my post player career.

[BobbyPortisEyes]

I can't listen to 25 minutes of this...but he's hardly dumb. He's doing the classic things are fine speech and trying to highlight where he sees strengths beyond what other see. And he did fine with that.

Maybe it's a cultural difference but to me it sounds like an average intelligence guy on cocaine.

[phanman]

If I'm James Jones I'm handing in my resignation as of today. There's no chance Jones has any autonomy to make decisions and that in fact, ishbia is the one making bad decisions that then go on James' resume. I'm not having some fan with billions ruin my post player career.

1) Your not walking way from your guranteed contract
2) If you just bail on this franchise after getting swept, nobody is going to lining up to hire you
3) At the end of the day he is still the GM, so to openly admit that you had no control any of these trades would just make you come off as incompetent

[NyKnicks1714]

I can't wait to see what they do in the offseason. They're in an interesting spot.