This past offseason, the Suns hit the reset button. Durant was traded, Beal was waived and Booker had a new cast of supporting players around him. <\/p>\n
What did Ishbia learn? <\/p>\n
Mat Ishbia Gets Honest on Failed Star Experiment ![\"Mat](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/01kccp45xbgsbrfnczhb.jpg\" "\\"Mat")
<\/p>\n
Feb 27, 2025; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia watches a game against the New Orleans Pelicans in the second quarter at Footprint Center. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-Imagn Images | Brett Davis-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
Ishbia, appearing on the Ryen Russillo Show<\/a>, offered this: <\/p>\n “Well, those are definitely great thoughts \u2014 and it\u2019s important to think about philosophy and how the CBA changes things. But here\u2019s what I\u2019d say about those moves \u2014 and look, Kevin and Brad are great guys. Nothing about them specifically. But I\u2019ll say this: We didn\u2019t do \u2014 and I didn\u2019t do \u2014 a good enough job defining what kind of guys and what kind of team we were going to be,” he said (h\/t HoopsHype)<\/a>. <\/p>\n “So therefore, before I go after a big acquisition \u2014 a top-10, top-15 player \u2014 it better fit our culture and our organization, and how we\u2019re going to do things. Now I have that DNA. I\u2019ve defined it. We didn\u2019t define it before. Back then, the thinking was: grab a bunch of talented players, throw them together, get a past championship coach, don\u2019t worry about the luxury tax, and just go try to compete. That didn\u2019t work. So it\u2019s been a great learning experience for me.”<\/p>\n The Suns certainly appear to be playing better, as their 14-11 start to the 2025-26 season has been a pleasant surprise. <\/p>\n In the Durant trade to Houston, the Suns got the No. 10 overall pick — which was used on top prospect Khaman Maluach. Phoenix also collected Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks, two pieces who hold strong promise to help the Suns in a potential surprise playoff push. <\/p>\n The Suns don’t quite have the star power they did in previous seasons, though the overall chemistry and culture of the locker room hasn’t been stronger under Ishbia’s tenure. <\/p>\n Latest Phoenix Suns News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX — The Phoenix Suns’ big three era was perhaps the most exciting injection of talent in recent…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":445183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,1589,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-445182","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-phoenix","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115714555454488411","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}