Suns Owner Wants to Establish New Identity

The key priority Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia pointed to in his end-of-season press conference after a disastrous 2024-25 season was setting an identity for the team moving forward.

"The biggest change that I want to talk about is, on me, I'm accountable to this one, which is I have to do a better job of setting the identity of the Phoenix Suns," Ishbia said Thursday.

Since Ishbia took over as owner in Feb. 2023, the Suns have made huge trades for Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, and also traded away former No. 1 overall pick Deandre Ayton and Toumani Camara--leading them to transform into a completely different team with very limited future assets that were all included in these trades,

These moves have not translated into any positive results.

In the first season of Ishbia's tenure, the Suns concluded the year with a loss in the second round of the playoffs to the eventual-champion Denver Nuggets.

Last year, Phoenix was swept in the first round of the playoffs by the Minnesota Timberwolves.

This season, the Suns put together the highest-paid roster in NBA history, but went 36-46 and were eliminated from play-in and playoff contention.

One common theme of all three years was that the Suns fired their head coach at the end of every season--first it was Monty Williams, then Frank Vogel and now Mike Budenholzer.

After finishing 10 games below .500 and missing the playoffs, Phoenix has reached a point now that it is going to have to make more changes than just firing coaches. Moves will likely be made up and down the organization from the front office to the players to fix some of the decisions that have been made during Ishbia’s tenure.

Because of this, it's unclear how the Suns will look next season, especially with Durant and Beal expected to be moved, but Ishbia wants players that fit his identity.

"I want to put a team out there on the court that everyone's proud of," Ishbia said. "'Proud of' has to have an identity, an identity that's similar to Phoenix with a little bit of grit, some determination, some work ethic, some grind, some joy.

"And so we just haven't had that. We did it a different way, and it didn't work. I will do a better job as the owner of setting the tone on the vision.

"There's other organizations you can talk about, the Pittsburgh Steelers, you kind of know what they mean when you talk about the Pittsburgh Steelers, or even my old team, Michigan State basketball, you kind of know what you're going to get when you talk about Michigan State basketball. What is Phoenix Suns basketball?

"That's on me. That's a change that's coming, and it will be undeniable. You will know the difference next year."

Ishbia would go on later to say that his biggest mistake as an owner so far was not setting an identity early.

How this identity translates to roster construction remains to be seen, but defense was an area the Suns placed among the bottom of the league in--they finished 27th in defensive rating.

Budenholzer did try to set some sort of an identity when he was hired, saying he had a "talk is cheap" mantra and his team would compete, but that did not translate onto the court.

"On the court, every game, we did not play better than a 36-win team," Ishbia said. "We did not compete hard enough. We did not make adjustments well enough. There's a lot of things we could've done differently, but from my view, it ties to we didn't play the way a lot of other teams are playing and what we believe in here, which is with a lot of grit, defense.

"... That's just not what we're going to be about. I think there's a lot of things and there's a disconnect from what we believe we should be playing like and what we actually saw on the floor, and that's why we made one change so far and we will make other changes to make sure that the Phoenix fans know what to expect and are proud of what we have out there."

There aren't much specifics on what the Suns organization will look like moving forward because of the unknowns of firings, hiring, trades and free agency, but one thing that's clear is they will be built around a shared identity.

You can read more about Ishbia's thoughts on this season's team by clicking here.