The Phoenix Suns brought a step closer to competitive basketball and returned to the Valley on Tuesday, with their 2025-26 Mediadag that took place in Footprint Center. The first person who went to the stage to speak with the collected journalists and bloggers was the owner Mat Ishbia, and he had a lot to say about the state of the franchise.
Before he dives, he also gave a nice nod to the Phoenix Mercury, the WNBA team that he also owns and made the last four of the late season. Back to things for the Suns and it was clear that Ishbia had accepted that this will be another in Phoenix coming season, whereby the selection was no longer assessed on how many competitions they win.
Ishbia accepts that they have become a lot wrong in trying to build the winner with Suns.
As part of his opening monologue, Ishbia stated rightly how the Mercury could have built the right culture and foundations from the moment he took over. What he means here is that the Mercury was not immediately improved dramatically, and only takes the arrivals from Alyssa Thomas and Satou Sabally they came closer to the fight.
Suns team -owner Mat Ishbia opening statement on Suns Media Day. #Suns pic.twitter.com/4ax6vbusvu
– Duane Rankin (@duananterkin) September 24, 2025
This is in contrast with the Suns, which have skipped a lot of team building steps to swing for Kevin Durant and then increase that decision by acting for Bradley Beal. Moreover, adding Jusuf Camara – and unfortunately Toumani Camara – and unfortunately Toumani Camara – was perhaps the biggest disaster of all.
Ishbia has now learned his lesson with the Suns, and he will now have to build a selection from the ground around Devin Booker. This is what he inherited when he bought the organization – a team that grew up together and brought all the way to the NBA final in 2021 – but he clearly did not see the importance of that. It is clear that he will get it now.
That is why it was refreshing to take ownership of the mistakes – which he also did in the past – on the way to explain that more patience will be required this time. This is exactly what head coach Jordan Ott wanted to hear from the first year, although the addition of a franchisel legend could complicate that.
So although the Suns will be lucky to win 35 games and although the fit between Booker and Jalen Green looks awkward, the team finally has a clear direction that they are going. There are 11 new players in the city, all younger than Durant was the day he left for the Houston Rockets. The future will be clearer, it will just take some time to come.
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