The Suns are hiring Cavaliers assistant Jordan Ott as their new head coach, ESPN’s Shams Charania reports. Ott has been an NBA assistant since 2013.
Ott becomes the team’s fourth head coach in four seasons. Suns owner Mat Ishbia fired Monty Williams after the 2022/23 season, shortly after taking control of the franchise. NBA veteran head coaches Frank Vogel and Mike Budenholzer only lasted one season apiece before they were dismissed.
Phoenix will now turn to a veteran assistant receiving his first crack as a head coach.
Ott emerged from a group of at least 15 candidates, according to Charania. He has agreed to a four-year contract, 98.7 FM Phoenix talk show host John Gambadoro tweets.
Ott has long-time ties to Ishbia, Jeff Goodman notes (Twitter link). Ott is a former Tom Izzo staffer at Michigan State, where Ishbia played as a walk-on.
He began his NBA coaching career as a video coordinator with the Hawks. He served as a Nets assistant from 2016-22, then moved on to the Lakers until this past season. He followed former Nets coach Kenny Atkinson to Cleveland after Atkinson got the top job with the Cavs.
Another Cavs assistant, Johnnie Bryant, was the other finalist for the Suns job. Heat assistant Chris Quinn and Dallas assistant Sean Sweeney were also confirmed to be under consideration during the final round of interviews, with Thunder assistant Dave Bliss and Suns assistant David Fizdale reported to be in the mix too.
Ott will be taking over a franchise in a state of flux. Ishbia’s plans to win a championship by building a super-team around Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal and Devin Booker failed miserably, with the Suns not even qualifying for the postseason in Budenholzer’s only season at the helm.
The Suns are expected to pursue trades involving Durant and Beal, though Beal would have to waive his no-trade clause. Booker was heavily involved in the search process during the final stages and gave Ott a stamp of approval as his top choice as well, Charania tweets.
As for Bryant, he’s rumored to be a candidate for the Knicks’ opening. Bryant was an assistant under Tom Thibodeau with the Knicks until this season.
Actually this is a stable job
Suns know they are not going to win anything
They have had 4 coaches in 4 years. It’s unstable considering they’ve fired more established coaches over that time and have an overinflated ego regarding their roster construction ability. Ott is “safer” due to his ties to Ishbia and Gregory which is a Michigan State connection. It’s hard to judge assistant coaches merits as fans other than what we hear. I hadn’t heard much about him before this year to be honest. He could be great, but I do know I don’t have any reason to trust Ishbia’s decisions whatsoever. I don’t care for the Suns, but it seems like he’s filling out his coaching and front office vacancies with possible yes men.
Not a bad hire, especially when you consider some of the other names that were floating around (like David Fizdale). Unfortunately for him, that roster even as currently constructed, is not a winner and they are probably going to soft-rebuild as well. Should be a full rebuild but you can’t really do that unless you convince Beal to waive his NTC.
It all depends on teh owner will he let teh new coach pick his players and stay out of the way. Suns owner is impatient in wanting to win now. Hopefully he lets the coach build a team over the next few years.
Work for a year, get paid for 4 years. Solid work if you can get it…
So now I hope the NY Knicks hire Jonnie Bryant.
Word of advice for Mr. Ott:
Don’t buy, just rent. You might not be there more than a year with this organization
Smart, not another retread
This sort of hire serves two masters for Phoenix.
1. Overreacting and overcorrecting issues through force clearly isn’t the path for Ishbia. This is more reasoned. But who knows, maybe he fires this guy in a year too.
2. He is trying to improve his team’s circumstance by catching lightning in a bottle with the next young coach. Problem is: who in the league now was the next young coach and is still on that team other than Spo? Atkinson, Nurse, Jenkins, Lue etc have all unceremoniously left their spots.
OKC coach is great but it’s only been a couple years.
*5 years
I would say Daigneult was safe, but I thought Atkinson was too then Durant came into town…
So the owner that went to Michigan State, just promoted the GM that has ties to Michigan state and has now hired a coach that coached at Michigan State. The Ishbia clown show continues, can’t decide between hiring his yes men buddies or past their prime former championship coaches.
Beat me to it. Ditto.
I’m going to play devils advocate here and say the Suns have no idea what they’re doing.., again.
Ott could be a great hire and a good coach and all the rest of it and no knock on him, but on the surface, I’m led to think this way on this hire…
Sun’s owner is a Michigan state guy so he hires a Michigan state guy…
Just based on that it shows he has no clue. He has no idea how to run a franchise.
It’s like bringing in a buddy to run his business rather than due diligence to sign up the best, smartest, most qualified guy.
You say they brought in 15 guys? I say that’s optics.
Besides, who brings in 15 guys lol. You have maybe five candidates generally and you’re narrow it down and pick one. The Suns bring in 15 guys !!!
Again, as I said, Ott “could be” the best smartest most qualified hire, but I’m playing devils advocate here with the obvious breakdown based on this owner‘s short history with the team.
I wish this young man good luck and I hope he gets another shot somewhere after he gets fired next summer.
Phoenix is now Michigan State south.
How many coaches is Ishbia paying now?
Of course, maybe Ishbia will do something different next year, like fire the GM instead of the coach
@EM41
That essentially already happened a month ago, Suns GM James Jones was “transitioned” to a “Senior Advisor” position, and the new GM is Brian Gregory.
link to nba.com
I’d love a four-year contract to coach the Suns for one year (max) and get out of the frozen North for a bit. :)
It was a show, charade ……. good old boys club, there was probably a secret handshake somewhere during the non-interview.
Good luck SUNS fans.
dookie hire