Mateen Cleaves and Mat Ishbia were teammates during Michigan State's last national title in 2000 as the former was the star point guard and the latter was a walk-on who was just happy to be part of the team.

Now, the roles have reversed a little bit.

While Cleaves did spend some time bouncing around the NBA after getting drafted in 2000, he never really stuck and had to find a new career path. He's done a little of everything, and then he joined forces with Ishbia, working at United Wholesale Mortgage as a leadership development coach. He was promoted to leader of the leadership development team.

Just a couple of years after purchasing the Phoenix Suns, Ishbia decided to bring his former teammate with him to Arizona as a member of the organiztion.

This week, Mateen was officially hired by the Suns as a player development and leadership assistant.

It's cool to see Ishbia bring a great basketball mind like Mateen with him to Phoenix to try and push the Suns to an NBA title. It's not going to be an easy task as Kevin Durant is gone but Devin Booker is back after signing a new contract. The future of the Suns is uncertain, but Cleaves should be a great hire.

Honestly, it always felt like Cleaves had coaching in his future, and with his leadership role at UWM and now this player development assistant role, it feels like he's closer than ever to that.

Mateen and Ishbia won a national title together in 2000, and now they're looking to win an NBA title together 25 years later. Crazy.