Mat Ishbia speaks for Kevin Durant

There are no memorabilia honouring Mat Ishbia’s basketball career inside his corner office at Footprint Center. Not yet, at least. No framed jersey and no hand-signed ball. Ishbia has been out of the game at Michigan State for 21 years, and he has known that his playing days are over for much longer. He worked with Tom Izzo for a year as a student assistant before going into the mortgage industry and assisting in the growth of United Wholesale Mortgage into a multibillion dollar firm. Izzo is credited for guiding Ishbia into business.

The deadline for NBA trades has passed. Wherever you go, Durant shirts bearing his iconic number 35 are on sale. On the day of Durant’s formal introduction to Suns supporters, downtown Phoenix even put his image on a billboard. Losing important players like Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson would undoubtedly hurt, but Ishbia claims that the decision to sign Durant was made unanimously by the front management in an interview with Sports Illustrated’s Chris Mannix.

Some key highlights of interview

The agreement took days and hours to pull together. I’m obviously a distinct variable, so it goes without saying that I had to comprehend what the luxury tax was. The dialogue ended there after about four or five seconds since it wasn’t a topic. We were prepared to go to any length to achieve achievement and victory. Also, I think that in business, achievement comes first and money comes later.

The financial aspect wasn’t a problem. So we immediately removed that from consideration. What is best for our team was the next question. Can Kevin improve our team dynamic? Will Kevin now assist us in trying to win a championship? What’s the deal for Kevin Durant?

That was an easy choice. We didn’t want to abandon them because they were successful. The proper choice, though, was ultimately what we should do to optimise our team for the present and the following three to four years.

There is none, in my opinion. I don’t consider it to be at all risky. I consider it to be a vision and a choice. And you follow through on your choices by acting accordingly. That doesn’t guarantee that everything will turn out well or that we will win many titles before realising our decision was the right one.

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