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Mat Ishbia continues to go back to school to try and fix the Suns.
The Suns owner reportedly hired Cavaliers assistant Jordan Ott as head coach Wednesday.
Ott, like Ishbia and his team’s newly hired general manager, has Michigan State ties. The 40-year-old coach has been in the NBA since 2013 but got his start as a graduate assistant at Michigan State.
The announcement came a month after the team announced longtime college basketball coach Brian Gregory as its next general manager. Gregory served two stints as an assistant coach at Michigan State from 1990–96 and again from 1999–2003, during which Ishbia was a walk-on player.
Ishbia has spent the offseason hiring former Spartans to help fix the mess his team is in after spending $360 million between salaries and luxury taxes just to miss the playoffs. The team still owes Bradley Beal $110 million over the next two seasons, including a $57 million player option for the 2026–27 season. Beal’s contract ranks among the league’s most untradeable; a trade of Kevin Durant seems likely this summer.
Ott has been considered one of the league’s up-and-coming coaches for years after multiple stints with Kenny Atkinson in Brooklyn and Cleveland with a two-year Lakers stint in between.
Gregory was a more surprising hire, with 33 years in college basketball including head coaching stints at Dayton, Georgia Tech and South Florida before joining the Suns front office in June 2024 as the vice president of player programming. The Suns have the 29th and 52nd overall picks in the 2025 draft and don’t have any control over their first round picks for the remainder of the decade. Gregory is now tasked with leading a front office with barely any assets.
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