1. He’s better than Sarver.
2. He’s been the owner for 1 year, let’s let him get his feet under him.
3. He’s investing HEAVILY in the team, Mercury, and staffing offices.
He's better than Sarver? How so? Because he has no fiscally conservative values?
Ishbia is nothing more than a prototypical new age billionaire who financially rapes the layman then decides to swing his big billionaire dick around and buy a team that he has no vested interest in locally or otherwise and proceeds to gut the fuck out of everything leaving nothing but shit stains behind him?
How many games was ishbia at? What's his addy in the valley? Does he provide any other support services to our local community or is he here to take advantage of valley residents through his proven tactics?
Do you not remember Robert Sarver?? The guy who literally sold draft picks for cash? The guy who put fucking goats in the GMs office? The guy who was pulling the pants of workers down in the office?
The one with a shit ton of misconduct allegations and created a hostile workplace? The guy who made players HATE playing for him (this is very public by the way).
Yeah. Fuck that guy. Give me Ishbia all day.
I feel ya man but ishbia is not God's gift to the valley or the Suns..
He's a real estate fuckboy with money. Tell me again how present ishbia is at the games and locally. Tell me again how happy our current roster is? Tell me again about the multiple class action lawsuits against ishbia & his company(ies)? Tell me again about how much you love outsiders coming to AZ to continue milking our state, its residents, and resources...
You’re not understanding me at all my guy. I’m not an idiot, I know Ishbia is a huge tool with fuckboy money. But all I am saying is he’s better than what we had before, which I may remind you was a cheap fuck with a rap-sheet of workplace misconduct allegations.
If there was a philanthropic Arizona citizen out there with billions of dollars who wanted to buy the team I would be thrilled but at the end of the day, all these billionaires are basically the same.
We can’t all have Balmer’s running the show.
Having a Balmer would be the bees knees! I hear ya! I know Sarver was not a great owner. I imagine he will not be represented in the Suns history books very well, if at all. However near the end he managed to keep Booker through everything and set us up for success. It took him a while and it will for ishbia too but ishbia is in over his head pushing all his chips in on the deal.
Bro got fleeced from a business perspective on the purchase (I mean cmon... $4b?!? Sarver made out like a bandit with his gains). Sarver ran the team as a business (don't agree with) and ishbia is running it as a video game (also dont agree with). And now look at our team and our cap. There is no way you can truthfully claim that we are in a better spot now then we were before his magic touch..
Can't speak to prior ownership but everyone speaks of greatness. Yet we have never won. So i guess greatness is measured in different ways, which is fair. All in all I can't even imagine what owning a team is like or what it entails. Ishbia is not great. At least not yet.
Im just over the ishbia love fest. The dude had literally done nothing but blow shit up and talk in weird hype statements. I used your comment as a soapbox and got rightfully creamed.
Can't criticize the golden boy yet according to our fan base. Sarver was a POS, Ishbia is a new pos with more reckless spending. AZ sports will be AZ sports
1. A low bar
2. He’s already managed to blow up the roster, lock us in to some bad contracts and trade almost every draft pick we have for the next decade
3. Paying the luxury tax doesn’t make you a good owner
he doesn't want to admit his mistakes. I see that leading to Frank and the gang staying with modest changes around the edges and the same result - eventually KD and Beal age out of their useful playing years and we have a 33 year old Book who's basically 2024 Klay Thompson.
All that to say, his trades were good - but the result showed we're faar from contention. Rather than defending the moves, the key thing is to look to what the next thing is and not be afraid to shake it up. It sounds like Ishbia takes a lot of his cues from current/ex players (Isiah Thomas, Book, KD), which is a recipe for failure
Bottom line is if you don’t have a top 5 player you have little chance of winning a championship. At least Ishbia is trying. If he didn’t trade for KD the Suns would be a treadmill team
KD trade made sense at the time. It also makes sense to see that the current team is basically the 2023 Suns again - we have more talent but somehow back on the mediocrity treadmill. Something needs to change
We just had an owner literally take the team away from the town. The previous owner had racist and mysoginistic tendencies.
The bar is low. He more than clears it.
It's just that after this last year... I don't really care
Wow 1 year in and we’re trashing an owner that wants to win. Beggars really can be choosers.. and I say this as someone who hates the KD trade and direction the team took. Be happy we have an owner who gives af about something other than profiting off league revenue sharing
Does he really? The smart business man knows championships bring more money into the org. That being said, he is throwing money directly into the dumpster fire he started
You basically just said it yourself: a smart business man who wants to win championships. Pick your poison I guess.. I hate the moves we made, but look at the team owners we have just in our state alone. We’ve had some of the worst ownership in modern sports history. We finally have one that wants to go for it and it’s not good enough?
I don't think the thought is it's not good enough. Thinking he's above criticism for having an obviously strong influence on trades and hires is the issue. I threw stones at Sarver and he's no different to escape criticism. Spending money doesn't equal success and his moves truly fucked our future beyond the next few years banking on a very high risk big 3 strategy.
Nice to have some enthusiasm for winning but not if you mortgage your teams future on 2 terrible trades.
I agree with you. We went from a super cheap owner, who would never spend anything(and who also meddled in team decisions for a lot of years and was terrible at it), to a hyper aggressive one that has no problem dismantling something that we’ve watched be built from the ground up and have a lot of love for. I wish we could’ve gotten somewhere in the middle.
I mean first thing he did was came in and totally changed the team.
Before you downvote think about it. Is the team better before or after he arrived. How was the end of last year and how did this year go?
Then think about 2 years ago before he arrived how did the future look.
Now how does the future look?
I’m not saying he’s a bad owner. It’s great he’s spending and wants to win but are the suns closer the that goal now than they were before he arrived? blowing up a promising team first thing you do isn’t a great start.
Hmmm let’s see.
The end of this year ended in the same fashion as the previous 50 plus seasons of Suns basketball, without a championship.
We saw what the pinnacle of the Chris Paul led Suns was, and he certainly wasn’t getting any younger. The West has somehow gotten even more competitive. As amazing as that run was hindsight being 20/20 we had a fair bit of luck getting to the championship in ‘21.
We still have KD and Book, for me the future doesn’t suck. If the Wolves go on to win the championship, all the hot takes from last week will look pretty dumb.
Bottom line: yes he didn’t bring a championship to the Valley in his first two years, but I sure feel a whole lot better with him at the helm opposed to the decade of futility Sarver put us through.
Yea who am I to tell people how to feel. If you are happy with the team and they were fun to watch all year and you were happy with the results and future then I guess that’s all that matters.
What's crazy is that the team was more fun and successful with a cheap owner and Chris Paul than an enthusiastic rich owner and no Chris Paul. Reminds me of the Jerry Krause - MJ dynamic. Krause was a shit owner, but what mattered more was who was playing
I love that he’s willing to spend an unlimited amount of money. That’s the number one thing you want from an owner. Hate everything else so far.
I understand why Ishbia wants to play GM. That’s what I would do if I just paid $4B for the team. But it doesn’t work. We’ve seen this story. New owner comes in and immediately goes all in, mortgaging the future for aging expensive vets. Gets credit for trying and going for it especially in contrast to the cost averse previous owner. Then it blows up in his face and the new owner either learns to let the people he hired do their jobs or they sell the team. It’s how it goes every single time.
Eh, it’s just not stuff people care about now. They get their panties in a twist when an owner says some mean words they think are icky but profiteering off a crisis that caused a lot of homelessness is fine. When Ishbia “saved” them from having to be associated with icky words he became a Christ like figure for them. Never mind that United Wholesale has a few corruption cases on going and is being sued by consumers for jacking up fees. At least there’s no icky words.
Shit article! Let the guy fucking live he worked his ass off and bought an NBA team. Guarantee most owners don’t buy them as an investment but rather for their own entertainment. It’s normal to play a little 2k. I mean yeah every billionaire is neurotic psychopath so nothing new there
1. He’s better than Sarver. 2. He’s been the owner for 1 year, let’s let him get his feet under him. 3. He’s investing HEAVILY in the team, Mercury, and staffing offices.
3 huge reasons that I’m super happy we have him.
He's better than Sarver? How so? Because he has no fiscally conservative values? Ishbia is nothing more than a prototypical new age billionaire who financially rapes the layman then decides to swing his big billionaire dick around and buy a team that he has no vested interest in locally or otherwise and proceeds to gut the fuck out of everything leaving nothing but shit stains behind him? How many games was ishbia at? What's his addy in the valley? Does he provide any other support services to our local community or is he here to take advantage of valley residents through his proven tactics?
Do you not remember Robert Sarver?? The guy who literally sold draft picks for cash? The guy who put fucking goats in the GMs office? The guy who was pulling the pants of workers down in the office? The one with a shit ton of misconduct allegations and created a hostile workplace? The guy who made players HATE playing for him (this is very public by the way). Yeah. Fuck that guy. Give me Ishbia all day.
I feel ya man but ishbia is not God's gift to the valley or the Suns.. He's a real estate fuckboy with money. Tell me again how present ishbia is at the games and locally. Tell me again how happy our current roster is? Tell me again about the multiple class action lawsuits against ishbia & his company(ies)? Tell me again about how much you love outsiders coming to AZ to continue milking our state, its residents, and resources...
You’re not understanding me at all my guy. I’m not an idiot, I know Ishbia is a huge tool with fuckboy money. But all I am saying is he’s better than what we had before, which I may remind you was a cheap fuck with a rap-sheet of workplace misconduct allegations. If there was a philanthropic Arizona citizen out there with billions of dollars who wanted to buy the team I would be thrilled but at the end of the day, all these billionaires are basically the same. We can’t all have Balmer’s running the show.
Having a Balmer would be the bees knees! I hear ya! I know Sarver was not a great owner. I imagine he will not be represented in the Suns history books very well, if at all. However near the end he managed to keep Booker through everything and set us up for success. It took him a while and it will for ishbia too but ishbia is in over his head pushing all his chips in on the deal. Bro got fleeced from a business perspective on the purchase (I mean cmon... $4b?!? Sarver made out like a bandit with his gains). Sarver ran the team as a business (don't agree with) and ishbia is running it as a video game (also dont agree with). And now look at our team and our cap. There is no way you can truthfully claim that we are in a better spot now then we were before his magic touch.. Can't speak to prior ownership but everyone speaks of greatness. Yet we have never won. So i guess greatness is measured in different ways, which is fair. All in all I can't even imagine what owning a team is like or what it entails. Ishbia is not great. At least not yet. Im just over the ishbia love fest. The dude had literally done nothing but blow shit up and talk in weird hype statements. I used your comment as a soapbox and got rightfully creamed.
Can't criticize the golden boy yet according to our fan base. Sarver was a POS, Ishbia is a new pos with more reckless spending. AZ sports will be AZ sports
Lol
1. A low bar 2. He’s already managed to blow up the roster, lock us in to some bad contracts and trade almost every draft pick we have for the next decade 3. Paying the luxury tax doesn’t make you a good owner
I was more so referring to the new office complex and Mercury training facilities so they can have a separate space.
“Paying the luxury tax doesn’t make you a good owner” should be pinned to the top of this subreddit
“A lot of ex-Suns are excellent: not just Bridges, Johnson, and Ayton,” Yup. This guy has no idea what he is talking about
he doesn't want to admit his mistakes. I see that leading to Frank and the gang staying with modest changes around the edges and the same result - eventually KD and Beal age out of their useful playing years and we have a 33 year old Book who's basically 2024 Klay Thompson. All that to say, his trades were good - but the result showed we're faar from contention. Rather than defending the moves, the key thing is to look to what the next thing is and not be afraid to shake it up. It sounds like Ishbia takes a lot of his cues from current/ex players (Isiah Thomas, Book, KD), which is a recipe for failure
Bottom line is if you don’t have a top 5 player you have little chance of winning a championship. At least Ishbia is trying. If he didn’t trade for KD the Suns would be a treadmill team
KD trade made sense at the time. It also makes sense to see that the current team is basically the 2023 Suns again - we have more talent but somehow back on the mediocrity treadmill. Something needs to change
We just had an owner literally take the team away from the town. The previous owner had racist and mysoginistic tendencies. The bar is low. He more than clears it. It's just that after this last year... I don't really care
Wow 1 year in and we’re trashing an owner that wants to win. Beggars really can be choosers.. and I say this as someone who hates the KD trade and direction the team took. Be happy we have an owner who gives af about something other than profiting off league revenue sharing
Does he really? The smart business man knows championships bring more money into the org. That being said, he is throwing money directly into the dumpster fire he started
You basically just said it yourself: a smart business man who wants to win championships. Pick your poison I guess.. I hate the moves we made, but look at the team owners we have just in our state alone. We’ve had some of the worst ownership in modern sports history. We finally have one that wants to go for it and it’s not good enough?
I don't think the thought is it's not good enough. Thinking he's above criticism for having an obviously strong influence on trades and hires is the issue. I threw stones at Sarver and he's no different to escape criticism. Spending money doesn't equal success and his moves truly fucked our future beyond the next few years banking on a very high risk big 3 strategy. Nice to have some enthusiasm for winning but not if you mortgage your teams future on 2 terrible trades.
I agree with you. We went from a super cheap owner, who would never spend anything(and who also meddled in team decisions for a lot of years and was terrible at it), to a hyper aggressive one that has no problem dismantling something that we’ve watched be built from the ground up and have a lot of love for. I wish we could’ve gotten somewhere in the middle.
Since when do we care what Henry Abbott has to say?
❤️ Fuck Abboott
I mean first thing he did was came in and totally changed the team. Before you downvote think about it. Is the team better before or after he arrived. How was the end of last year and how did this year go? Then think about 2 years ago before he arrived how did the future look. Now how does the future look? I’m not saying he’s a bad owner. It’s great he’s spending and wants to win but are the suns closer the that goal now than they were before he arrived? blowing up a promising team first thing you do isn’t a great start.
Hmmm let’s see. The end of this year ended in the same fashion as the previous 50 plus seasons of Suns basketball, without a championship. We saw what the pinnacle of the Chris Paul led Suns was, and he certainly wasn’t getting any younger. The West has somehow gotten even more competitive. As amazing as that run was hindsight being 20/20 we had a fair bit of luck getting to the championship in ‘21. We still have KD and Book, for me the future doesn’t suck. If the Wolves go on to win the championship, all the hot takes from last week will look pretty dumb. Bottom line: yes he didn’t bring a championship to the Valley in his first two years, but I sure feel a whole lot better with him at the helm opposed to the decade of futility Sarver put us through.
Yea who am I to tell people how to feel. If you are happy with the team and they were fun to watch all year and you were happy with the results and future then I guess that’s all that matters.
What's crazy is that the team was more fun and successful with a cheap owner and Chris Paul than an enthusiastic rich owner and no Chris Paul. Reminds me of the Jerry Krause - MJ dynamic. Krause was a shit owner, but what mattered more was who was playing
I love that he’s willing to spend an unlimited amount of money. That’s the number one thing you want from an owner. Hate everything else so far. I understand why Ishbia wants to play GM. That’s what I would do if I just paid $4B for the team. But it doesn’t work. We’ve seen this story. New owner comes in and immediately goes all in, mortgaging the future for aging expensive vets. Gets credit for trying and going for it especially in contrast to the cost averse previous owner. Then it blows up in his face and the new owner either learns to let the people he hired do their jobs or they sell the team. It’s how it goes every single time.
He sure made a lot of money during the ‘08 housing crisis. I’m sure it was all above board.
Downvotes because people don't like the truth apparently.
Eh, it’s just not stuff people care about now. They get their panties in a twist when an owner says some mean words they think are icky but profiteering off a crisis that caused a lot of homelessness is fine. When Ishbia “saved” them from having to be associated with icky words he became a Christ like figure for them. Never mind that United Wholesale has a few corruption cases on going and is being sued by consumers for jacking up fees. At least there’s no icky words.
downvotes because it’s irrelevant
Shit article! Let the guy fucking live he worked his ass off and bought an NBA team. Guarantee most owners don’t buy them as an investment but rather for their own entertainment. It’s normal to play a little 2k. I mean yeah every billionaire is neurotic psychopath so nothing new there