thelesterlee
In February 2023, Mat Ishbia’s purchase of the Phoenix Suns was finalized. Ishbia bought the team following the NBA’s removal of previous owner, Robert Sarver, who simply could not stop himself from saying the n-word at work. It was his favorite thing in the world.
Ishbia is a former college basketball player so naturally, he has a lot to say about the Suns on-court product—having averaged 0.6 at Michigan State. My man was on the same team as Zach Randolph. I don’t know if he learned anything basketball-related from Randolph but he certainly learned how to scrape the serial number off the burner.
Ishbia isn’t the only new owner in sports who wants to get his hands dirty with the day-to-day team operations.
David Tepper recently purchased the Carolina Panthers, in a similar circumstance to Ishbia’s purchase with the former Panthers owner, Jerry Richardson, facing a ton of lawsuits for being a creep—like on mandatory ‘Jeans Day’ when female employees knew they had to wear jeans every Friday to let Jerry comment on their asses.
Can’t have jeans day at the office.
Tepper immediately made his impact on the Panthers by stepping in and making sure they drafted Bryce Young with the No. 1 overall pick last year instead of CJ Stroud.
Stroud led the Texans to the playoffs and won the Rookie of the Year.
Bryce Young led the Panthers to 2 wins.
Mat Ishbia wants to avoid the mistakes of Tepper—so he’s gathered a group of basketball geniuses to help get the Suns to the promised land.
Last year, it was rumored NBA Hall of Famer, Isiah Thomas, was an ‘informal’ advisor to Mat. Thomas was influential in Phoenix trading Chris Paul—one of the greatest point guards of all time, who helped lead the Suns to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1993—for Bradley Beal—one of the highest-paid players in the league, who made an All-NBA third team once and never requested a trade out of Washington despite the team consistently bottom feeding.
Another phenomenal front office decision by Isiah Thomas. Who can forget all of the savvy moves Isiah made when he was running the Knicks?
He traded a 20-year-old Trevor Ariza, along with his cheap 2nd round salary for Steve Francis to team with Stephon Marbury—two mentally and emotionally strong men who had no character flaws or off-the-court issues. The mid-2000s Splash Brothers but instead of hitting a ton of 3’s, they were chugging 3 handles of liquor every night.
Thomas drafted David Lee and Channing Frye—two guys who play the same exact position. He then solved the playing time problem by trading Frye (along with Steve Francis) for Zach Randolph1 thus removing any playing time concerns for Frye and Lee.
Who can forget the Galaxy brain decision to trade multiple first-round draft picks for Eddy Curry?
Mat Ishbia let Isiah Thomas shape this roster and he needs to balance out IT’s wonderful moves with another brilliant basketball savant.
Enter David Fizdale
Now I’m seeing reports about Ishbia’s interest in hiring David Fizdale for a front office role.
Fizdale, a man who is historically anti-data is the exact type of person you want making decisions for you. No nerds with spreadsheets or facts. Nope. The Phoenix Suns want to shoot from the hip. They want to trade all of their future first-round draft picks for an elderly Kevin Durant who doesn’t give a singular shit about wins and losses and essentially hasn’t cared about the final score of a game since Golden State.
David Fizdale has never made it through the second season as a team’s head coach. In both Memphis and New York, Fizdale was fired in year two. In Memphis, Fizdale got into a war with one of the most beloved players in franchise history, Marc Gasol. In New York, he was tasked with developing young talent into perrenial winners, a problem for a guy who never actually learned how to win NBA games.
If anyone has Mat Ishbia’s personal contact info, I, too, would like to join this All-Star cast of guys who blew all of their chances to gain real power in the NBA who are now using Ishbia for a paycheck and a chance to attach their names on the end of a group project where they did none of the work and muted the group chat the moment they were included.
Is Mat Ishbia a big dumb idiot? Leave a comment below. Respond on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Or shoot me an email at Deadseriousmailbag@gmail.com. Let’s chat, bay-beeeee. Let me know if you think Isiah Thomas and David Fizdale can turn the Suns around because that means you’re Mat Ishbia and we need to talk.
