New Suns owner Real Sports profile, ASU v Arizona hoops, price of golf…

Last month HBO Real Sports did a deep dive into Matt Ishbia. A piece on a former Tom Izzo walk-on at Michigan State, who is now worth billions of dollars. The Real Sports piece should make some who are presently employed by the Phoenix Suns, immediately update their resumes and pick up some moving boxes. It was reported on Tuesday that Ishbia is the new owner of our most beloved sports franchise in the Valley. Price tag-Four billion dollars.

In April 2004 when Jerry Colangelo sold the Suns to Robert Sarver for $401 million dollars, there were gasps around town about the price. Eighteen years later, I’d say the oxygen has entirely left the room over the reported price tag on this transaction. Ishibia comes across as a laser-focused former athlete. Nothing wrong with that, but I’ve seen plenty of fresh-faced owners come into professional sports wanting to make a change and put their stamp on things. The mess that Ishbia is buying on the business side can’t get cleaned up soon enough. I’m more interested to see what happens to the product on the court. It’s in a solid space right now. 

In the Real Sports piece, Ishbia hired three of his former Michigan State teammates from Final Four teams to be part of his mortgage company. Fierce loyalty is an admired trait to me. Perhaps not to others who want to see things kept within the Suns family. It will be interesting to see how big the broom will go once Ishbia is allowed to take over. The Real Sports piece is worth your time to watch…

Wednesday is Letter of Intent Day in college football. If I had told you a couple of months ago that Arizona State and Arizona were getting transfer portal players from Georgia, Notre Dame, and Alabama, would you have believed me? Crazy…

The thing about it is we’re not going to know what rosters will really look like until we get through the second transfer portal window in May. That’s right. There’s now a second period where players can come and go. Imagine if in spring ball a coach gets on a plate too hard. Kid calls his mom or youth coach(street agent), and suddenly the kid goes back into the portal, looking for $reener pastures(not a typo). Building and rebuilding rosters is now a year-round deal…

No problem with the Masters inviting LIV golfers to Augusta…

LOVED the Fabelmans! Spielberg delivers once again. 

My daughter and son both checked out Avatar. THREE HOURS!!!!!  Dad isn’t going…

I heard tee times during WM Open/Super Bowl week are going for a $700 a pop at some courses. $700 x 4 per group = $2,800 per foursome. A foursome tees off every nine minutes, so that’s $2,800 x 6 per hour, 9-10 hours a day. Yep, I’m getting dizzy on the numbers. Needless to say, it’s a money-making proposition…

Sunday was a bad day for those who don’t like soccer. A VERY bad day. 16.8 million viewers on FOX, making Argentina vs France the most-watched men’s World Cup telecast in English-language TV history. That’s not even counting streaming or Telemundo viewers…

Arizona vs Arizona State on the basketball court. Sell-out on New Year’s Eve day, right? Not yet…

Do you feel as though the bullpen has been strengthened enough by the Diamondbacks’ front office? Me either…

There has to be a significant deal or two coming before spring training. Still a logjam in the outfield and not enough arms the rotation or late in games…

If you say you’re a basketball fan, drop in on a Perry high school game. Watching Cody Williams(5-Star, Colorado commit) and Koa Peat(sophomore manchild), you’ll be able to tell your family friends one day, “I watched them before they went pro”. Great event, per usual…

I ran into Duce Robinson, the National Football Foundation player of the year in football, at VisitMesa. He’s not playing basketball yet for Pinnacle but will be on the court by early January. I think he called me “sir” 10 times during our brief courtside conversation…

Some of you have pointed out that I haven’t had much to say about the pro football team in town in recent Three Dot Thought columns. You would be correct. That isn’t going to change today. Nothing worth thinking about…