EXPLAINER: Inside the proposed sale of the Suns and Mercury

Mat Ishbia’s career statistics at Michigan State went like this: He averaged 0.6 points, 0.3 rebounds and 0.3 assists per game.

Not exactly record-setting numbers.

But this is the number he’s about to be known by in the game — $4 billion. Ishbia’s offer to buy the majority stake of the Phoenix Suns and WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, valuing them at $4 billion, is the biggest such deal in NBA history. The agreement means that embattled owner Robert Sarver’s era leading those franchises is about to end, once the league signs off on the sale.

A look at the sale, and the process that awaits:

WHO IS MAT ISHBIA?

Ishbia, who turns 43 on Jan. 6, is a basketball junkie. At only 5-foot-10, he was a good high school player, the top scorer on his Birmingham (Michigan) Seaholm High team as a senior in 1997-98 with a flair for dramatics — like a 36-point game and making both ends of a 1-and-1 late in regulation to help his team get into overtime and beat a crosstown rival.

He walked onto the team at Michigan State, played the last few seconds of the Spartans’ 2000 national championship game win over Florida and became so important to coach Tom Izzo that by the end of his career Ishbia was seated next to Izzo on the bench — serving as a de facto assistant coach.

He’s bled Michigan State green ever since. Several of his former teammates — Mateen Cleaves among them — have worked for Ishbia at United Wholesale Mortgage, the company his father founded and Ishbia now runs. And his $32 million gift to the school in 2021 helped, among other things, fund football coach Mel Tucker’s $95 million contract.

Some will say that he was given the keys to a company his father built, which is true. It should also be noted that Ishbia came up through the ranks and wasn’t immediately ushered into the CEO suite. UWM had fewer than 20 employees when his father asked Ishbia to join the company, and he told the Detroit Free Press in a 2020 interview that his first salary was $18,000.

UWM now has about 8,000 employees; Ishbia’s salary package was just under $8 million last year and his wealth is estimated by Bloomberg to be $5.26 billion.

His company went public in January 2021 and is a rival to Quicken Loans — the company that has Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert as its founder and chairman. Gilbert, like Ishbia and Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores, is also a Michigan State alum.

“My business is not designed to make my competitors like me,” Ishbia told CNBC in 2021. “That’s not how I’m going to do things. I’m going to win for my shareholders and team members and brokers.”

WHY IS THE PHOENIX FRANCHISE WORTH $4 BILLION?

It probably is not, though Ishbia clearly believes otherwise. It’s an investment and likely a very smart one.

The most recent valuation of the Suns franchise was listed by Forbes at $2.7 billion. Sports franchise values are skyrocketing, and in the NBA, a new media rights…