{"id":1859901,"date":"2026-04-01T18:44:50","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T15:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1859901"},"modified":"2026-04-01T18:44:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T15:44:50","slug":"tom-izzo-says-suns-offered-him-head-coach-job-last-year-a-hard-thing-to-turn-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1859901","title":{"rendered":"Tom Izzo says Suns offered him head coach job last year: \u2018A hard thing to turn down\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After the Phoenix Suns fired then-coach Mike Budenholzer<\/a> following last season, media and fans joked that owner Mat Ishbia, given his Michigan State history, might pursue longtime Spartans\u2019 coach Tom Izzo for the position.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, he did.<\/p>\n

And Izzo considered taking the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had more than a couple job offers in the NBA and looked at one last year in Phoenix (with) my former player Mat Ishbia,\u2019\u2019 Izzo said on \u201cThe Dan Patrick Show\u201d Wednesday<\/a>. \u201cThat was hard. That was a hard thing to turn down.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Izzo revealed this information while discussing Connecticut coach Dan Hurley, who had been a top candidate to coach the Los Angeles Lakers in 2024. Hurley recently revealed he had talked with Izzo about the move before choosing to stay at Connecticut.<\/p>\n

Izzo had been in a similar position at various points in his Hall of Fame career, having been pursued by the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Atlanta Hawks and now the Suns.<\/p>\n

Izzo said he told Hurley he needed to factor in the unstable state of college sports and where it might be headed. He also said those same considerations made the Suns\u2019 job attractive last summer when Ishbia spoke with him about replacing Budenholzer.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. 1, because I kind of wanted to go with (Ishbia). \u2026 And then, No. 2, I\u2019ve been pretty vocal about it: I don\u2019t like what\u2019s going on in college athletics,\u201d Izzo told Patrick. \u201cAnd by the way, neither do 99.8 percent of the football and basketball coaches in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ishbia was a walk-on at Michigan State from 1998 to 2002. At times during his college career, he sat close to Izzo on the bench to learn as much as possible. Suns general manager Brian Gregory was an assistant coach on those teams.<\/p>\n

In February, The Athletic<\/em>\u2019s\u00a0Sam Amick reported<\/a> that Ishbia asked Izzo if he had interest in coaching the Suns, but those conversations never advanced.<\/p>\n

The job went to Jordan Ott, a Cleveland Cavaliers assistant who once worked under Izzo as a graduate assistant and video coordinator. Finalists for the job included Miami Heat assistant Chris Quinn, Cleveland assistant Johnnie Bryant, Oklahoma City Thunder assistant Dave Bliss and former Dallas Mavericks assistant Sean Sweeney, who\u2019s now with the San Antonio Spurs.<\/p>\n

Phoenix\u2019s decision to hire Ott has worked well. Coming off perhaps the most disappointing season in franchise history, the Suns overhauled their roster, trading Kevin Durant and parting ways with Bradley Beal.<\/p>\n

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This season\u2019s team, built around star Devin Booker and sparkplug Dillon Brooks, has been one of the league\u2019s surprises. The Suns are 42-34 and in seventh place in the Western Conference standings, with Ott a candidate for NBA Coach of the Year.<\/p>\n

This was not the first time the Suns had flirted with hiring a high-profile college coach.<\/p>\n

In 1973, then-general manager Jerry Colangelo pursued Bob Knight, who had just finished his second season at Indiana. Colangelo competed against Knight in college \u2014 Colangelo at Illinois, Knight at Ohio State \u2014 and he admired the young coach\u2019s intensity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were contemporaries, we were competitors and I always felt he was going to be a great coach,\u201d Colangelo told The Athletic<\/em> in 2021.<\/a> \u201cI believed he could\u2019ve been a terrific (NBA) coach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colangelo offered Knight the job, but Knight stayed at Indiana. The Suns hired John MacLeod, who took Phoenix to the NBA Finals in his third season and stuck with the job for nearly 14 seasons.<\/p>\n

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Catch Up On The Story<\/div>\n
\n \"Monty<\/p>\n
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\n Monty Williams, John MacLeod and a Phoenix Suns connection come full circle\n <\/div>\n
\n Every time Williams walks onto the home court, he can look up and see MacLeod, his college coach at Notre Dame, in the Suns’ Ring of Honor.\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Izzo, 71, is the Big Ten\u2019s career leader in wins and just finished his 31st season as head coach at Michigan State. After the Spartans lost to Connecticut in the NCAA Tournament\u2019s Sweet 16, he said he had no intention to retire.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all talk about retirement,\u2019\u2019 he said at the time. \u201cWhy? What the hell am I going to do?\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he still has things to accomplish.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think something has to be done with the insanity we\u2019re going through,\u201d Izzo told Patrick. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think anybody else cares, so I\u2019ll just keep plucking along and see if I can get to the Final Four again.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the Phoenix Suns fired then-coach Mike Budenholzer following last season, media and fans joked that owner Mat Ishbia, given his Michigan State history, might pursue longtime Spartans\u2019 coach Tom Izzo for the position. As it turned out, he did. And Izzo considered taking the job. \u201cI\u2019ve had more than a couple job offers in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1859901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1859901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859901\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1859901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1859901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1859901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}