Suns Owner Being Patient With New Culture Set for Team

The Phoenix Suns completely transformed the identity of their roster this offseason, and it's doing them no favors on how they are viewed around the league.

Phoenix no longer has the championship expectations it had the past couple seasons with Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, but now hopes it can just make the playoffs after trading away Durant and buying out Beal.

How Does Mat Ishbia Feel About the State of the Suns?

Suns owner Mat Ishbia has talked constantly this offseason about creating an identity and believes the Suns are on the right path to establishing the culture he wants with what they have done this summer.

"When you're building a culture and you're building a strategy and a vision, anything worthwhile takes a while," Ishbia told Arizona Sports' Burns and Gambo Show Thursday. "When I bought the Suns originally, I thought we were on third base, and it's like, 'Okay, let me give them a little of extra money, a little bit of a push. Stay out of the way and let them.'

"We made some great trades, I won't say I disagreed with them, but now I set a vision and said, 'Hey I know what kind of guys I want. We ain't trading for guys who ain't like this. We ain't doing it if it's not like this, coach is going to be like this, it's not going to be like that. It's going to be like this.' And we've defined that, and that's going to take time.

"Do I expect it to take a couple years to really get to the point where you're like, 'Wow, I really see the vision?' Yes ... I do expect to be patient with it, to build it the right way, but I am also optimistic that we'll be a lot better than people think."