Phoenix Suns hoping Bob Myers will save them

Suns owner Mat Ishbia reportedly wants to add Bob Myers to his front office. Run, Bob! It’s a trap!

Last year, the Washington Commanders were a franchise in disarray. They hadn’t won a playoff game in 19 years, and they’d made the playoffs once in the previous nine seasons. Then, they hired former Golden State Warriors general manager Bob Myers, and subsequently improved by eight wins and made the NFC Championship Game.

Now, one of the most disappointing franchises in the NBA reportedly thinks that Myers can work the same magic for them.

According to the pride of Cal State Fullerton, Marc Stein (subscription required), Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia “is said to have maintained a longstanding interest in trying to convince Myers to return to the role in which he presided over four Warriors championships.”

That would likely mean the Suns current top executive James Jones would be departing when his contract expires in June, though he’s reportedly lost his real power in recent years to Ishbia and team CEO Josh Bartelstein. But the chance to add a four-time champion like Myers might convince Ishbia to take his hands off the reins slightly.

Why would Myers leave his job as an ESPN broadcaster and his side hustle as a Washington Commanders consultant? The two main reasons would be geography, since Myers lives in Los Angeles and Phoenix is a 90-minute flight, and money. Ishbia hasn’t flinched at paying record amounts of luxury tax, or paying Frank Vogel the balance of his five-year, $31M contract after he only worked one year, or paying Mike Budenholzer the balance of his five-year, $50M contract after he also only worked one year.

The other hook is that Myers used to work as an agent under Arn Tellem, who is now the vice chairman of the Detroit Pistons. His son Matty is now an assistant GM for the Suns. Maybe there’s some family loyalty?

The problem is that there are a lot of reasons for Myers not to take the job. Myers might not be making the kind of money Ishbia could offer to lead the Suns, but his job with the Commanders has been described as “lucrative,” and he’s not exactly working at ESPN for free. Is a high-stress job with the Suns worth ditching two lucrative part-time jobs?

The bigger problem is that the Phoenix Suns are a mess. They just went 36-46 with the NBA’s highest payroll and a luxury tax bill of more than $150M. The Suns have one of the worst contracts in the NBA with Bradley Beal, who is still owed over $110M for the next two seasons and has a full no-trade clause. The Suns don’t control a single one of their first-round picks for the next seven NBA drafts thanks to the trades for Beal and Kevin Durant, and a trade to dump Jusuf Nurkic.

To summarize the Suns’ complicated draft situation, the Houston Rockets get next year’s lottery pick while Phoenix gets Cleveland’s selection at No. 29. Houston also gets the Suns’ picks in 2027 and 2029. Utah gets their pick in 2031. None of these picks are protected! The 2026 first is gone, the 2028 pick is the worst first-rounder from either the Suns, the Brooklyn Nets, the Washington Wizards, and New York Knicks, and the 2030 pick is the worst from the Suns, Wizards, or Memphis Grizzlies. They have two second-round picks coming in seven years. That’s not great, Bob!

What are their trade assets? Devin Booker, maybe. Kevin Durant, probably, though he turns 37 before next season, makes $54.7M, and probably wants a contract extension from whoever trades for him. Also, does Bob Myers really want to take a new job so he can lose Durant a second time? Is there a vibrant trade market for Vasilije Micić or the partially-guaranteed contract of Cody Martin?

But the main impediment to Myers going to work for Mat Ishbia (why is his name spelled with only one “T”?) is Mat Ishbia himself. He has fired three coaches and he’s only owned the Suns for a little over two years. He’s inserted himself into front office decisions and overruled the basketball people who had been there for years. He took a team that nearly won the NBA title in 2021 and removed every player except Booker. Plus, he’s now hired two men who won an NBA championship in Vogel and Budenholzer and fired them within a year. Is Myers going to be different if he can’t somehow flip Grayson Allen for an All-Star within 12 months?

Myers has already worked for an owner who started to insert himself into front office decisions with some extremely questionable results. On the plus side, Ishbia’s children are too young to work in the front office. On the negative side, he does have a brother in the Suns ownership group.

The Suns might want to hire Bob Myers, and he might want to return to working in the NBA. Only, why now? Why this team? No matter how bad it might be to see Kendrick Perkins at work every day, Myers should be able to find a team with at least one of their own draft picks that isn’t in second apron luxury tax hell.

Unless he’s more brilliant than we realize, and Myers knows that all he has to do it take the job, inevitably get fired after a year, and let Ishbia pay out the rest of his contract while he chills for the rest of the decade. That’s an even better deal than trading D’Angelo Russell for Andrew Wiggins.