Empire of the Suns: Who could Phoenix pick in the NBA draft?

Empire of the Suns: Who could Phoenix pick in the NBA draft?

suns fans you know what time it is in the PHX empire of the Suns phoenix Suns empire of the Suns empire of the Suns hello there and welcome to the Empire of the Suns podcast my name is Ken Olson joined as always by Kevin Zimmerman what’s up man when was the last time we talked about a lottery pick on this show regarding the Phoenix Suns i actually don’t know i’m just Is it 2020 it’s got to be 2020 jaylen Smith I think it is indeed 2020 tyrese Hallebertton the Tyrese Hallebertton pod that was a while ago oh man I’m still I’m still messed up about that i know i can’t stand that that happened especially the way he started the game he was awesome okay so if you’re here looking for draft coverage I think what happened is Kevin got traded and a lot of people were like “Ooh the draft oo the draft.” And also it’s draft week so oo the draft oo the draft if you want some more in-depth stuff on pig number 29 you can go back two episodes not the Kevin one but the one before that and we went pretty deep on some of the options around there we’ll bring them up again here on the end of the episode you and I will mention random guys in the 50s 60s and 70s that we love but obviously the majority of our focus today is going to be on the number 10 pick full transparency I’m moderately prepared for this but obviously with the dynamic of the uh process and how late we had to wait until I would have liked a couple more weeks to really dive into all these guys so I’m going to I’m going to set that brief aside not as like an indicate uh as an asterisk if like we get these uh observations wrong or we like look back and like we were dead wrong about i’m not saying it in that kind of way saying that if like our if we’re not quite on the right same page as we should be with some of these guys that some of our listeners might know better than us feel free to let us know admittedly crammed lots of yesterday crammed for sure we’ve crammed before in the past but this is a different kind of cra where it’s not just like some random pick it’s it’s the number 10 pick and it’s Yeah that’s where we can start it’s something that we’ve hit on a ton over the last couple of months but the idea of trading Kevin for a lottery pick in this year’s draft and how if you’re not familiar with their first round picks they have a lot in the next couple of years but there is a 5% chance that one of them does not land in the in in the top 20 that one of them is inside the top 20 the majority of them are going to be I would guess all of them are going to be in the 20s because of how they’re protected and how they’re swapped and all that kind of stuff so that obviously hinders your ability to get another star like it could be Devin Booker and a bunch of guys but even if you want to do Indiana and look at them and be like they’ve got no quote unquote superstar i mean Pascal Seakum is very very very very good at basketball hallebertton is very very good at basketball and they’ve got like five six seven really really good players so I I want to say that the main goal I think with number 10 should be hitting on a ceiling as high as possible and I think something you and I are going to talk about as a philosophy when we go through some of these players is how much is risk worth it and how much is fit worth it because you could take Jagor Deon out of BYU and he could be out of the league within four to five years just like there’s some poku similarities there for sure pushesky from Oklahoma City a couple of years ago you could take him and he could be out of the league or he could be an allNBA guy like I really feel like the gap between his floor and his ceiling is that big and we can talk about sort of the benefits to having that approach and also can they afford it can be flipped where like can they afford even whiff on this pick should they just go the safe route should they take someone with a pretty high floor like Carter Bryant or uh I guess Cedric Howard at this spot colin Murray Boils is someone who has a relatively high floor I would say for what he does on the floor but all of that is dependent on how you use him we’ll get into that a little bit later but where are you at with how they need to use this pick because you’ve been reading my stuff you’ve been listening to me talk about this for a while i think they just need to swing big and go for upside yeah I I think there’s a lot of validity to that and it is kind of like you’re measuring that’s the hard part i can’t answer it very well because you are measuring the floor like there are some guys we will talk about in a sec that have so low of floors that I’m just like frightened out of my head they’re going to do it and they also have the highest ceilings um I will talk about Derek Queen in that respect up here in a sec um and also I think we again limited how much I’ve watched some of these guys but I think we will disagree on some of the guys who have really high ceilings how high their floors are and and do we think they’re stars or do we think hey that’s a safe pick that’s fine but I don’t know if you’re going to get an all-star caliber player out of that so I think that’s the most interesting part of this is the risk factor when you need to hit when you also cannot fail either like you need a rotation player out of this um at the end of the day and yeah if they’re not you know even if they’re a sixth man for the rest of their career on a good team that’s fine I think but is it fine in the context of this team right now it doesn’t look like it but you never know a couple years down the road they’re just you know number four number five best player on a team so the 2023 draft I think is a good one to pull from and I’ll pull up one or two more here but again thinking about who the players were before the draft and maybe you can think about who they are after the draft as well but you look at what we’re typically used to so Taylor Hendricks goes nine Swiss Army knife 3 and Dish kind of fourman kase Wallace who has shown his potential but would you say he’s got All-Star games in his future not really jet Howard was more of like that blind potential swing for sure derek Lively was the raw typical center that we see there are two or three in this range as well that we’ll talk about grady Dick the skill set we’re used to seeing in this range jordan Hawkins like Kobe Buffkin Keonte George Jaylen Hood Shafino Jame Hawz Jr Brandon Pajki like we kind of knew already the players that those guys were and like the limits to the players that they were and I just don’t think those limits exist as much for most of the guys in this range i’ve made the claim before and I’ll say it again i think there’s one a non-zero chance that the best player in the draft is picked 9 through 18 and I think that there is like a 75% chance that one of the three best players in this draft is picked like 9 through 18 9 through 20 amongst this group of like dozen guys we’re talking about wait what did you say again not counting Cooper not counting now counting Cooper so I would say like if Cooper is a is one of the top three players in this class then I think there will be one more somewhere else or they’ll both be in this range but I think that there’s a very good chance that one of these guys is going to defy the expectation of where they’re slotted just because it’s too many high upside guys for one guy not to hit yeah but I think the 23 draft is a good one because like all those guys you mentioned were in this range and still questions about what they’re going to do like a lot of those guys aren’t contributing much or aren’t contributing on winning teams so yeah you want to get get into it oh trade as we go here the New Orleans Pelicans are trading CJ McCollum Kelly Olen in a future second round pick to the Washington Wizards for Jordan Pool sadiq Bay oh it’s um Olen in a future second from the Pelicans going to the Wizards for Jordan Pool Sadi Bay and number 40 i am guessing there goes your dreamers who thought Bradley Beiel was going back there okay based on the dynamic of this trade I would guess that that’s a cost cutting move for New Orleans i tweeted this um by the way like the Celtics getting praised for the Simons deal when they were cutting money i understand that Holiday wasn’t his best last year but they made that trade just to save money and they were the ones getting praised for it which is always weird um every trade just about every trade that we’re going to see some form of motivation behind it is going to be money whether it is a little bit like I think Houston one of the benefits they saw was freeing up the money that Green and Brooks were making that they probably didn’t want to pay them anymore and pay them in the future even if Brooks only has two years left Green has three years left to the point where the Celtics three years left on Drew’s deal they’re fully moving him simon’s on expiring we’ll get him in our system and hey if the year’s not going super great we can flip him at the deadline if he turns out great whatever i’m sure that’s the thinking there with that with him i mean he’s not even like a fit for them at all because they just have all two-way players and he is a one-way player you get some scoring punch I guess for this year if you do keep him i mean people are speculating he could be on the move before the season starts already but anyway well that’s fun back to draft sorry yeah back to draft sure let’s go back to draft um okay well where we should start is Cooper’s going one Dylan Harper’s going two uh we can end the pod by talking about those guys if you want we shouldn’t at the top but we can talk about them if you want um and then somewhere I believe in the next seven picks is going to be Ace Bailey out of Ruckers VJ Edgecomb Trey Johnson Conanipple Kaman Malawatch are going to be seven of the first eight or nine picks i feel very confident that none of those guys are going to fall to 10 obviously Malawatch for what the Suns are targeting and what they could use and we’re talking about like upside swings i think that he’s perfect if there was a guy for them to trade up a couple of spots to try and go after I’m fine with that actually i know that keep every pick build for the future all this kind of stuff but we’re talking about picks in the 20s so if you can give up the 2028 or 2029 pick the thing is it’s so protected that you know it’s not really going to burn you as much so if some team just wants to pick up a future asset and doesn’t love Malawatch or doesn’t have room for him at seven or eight or nine um and you move up a couple of spots to go get him I’m completely fine with that thinking he’s the one guy out of that group that makes I love Canipple mhm i’m fine on Edgecomb fine on Trey Johnson idling Ace Bailey is worth worth the risk with not with everything going on and like the preconceived notions that come with him being the guy who’s not going to workouts and everything but his skill set is just like so explosive and volatile is the good word that’s a good one that I’ll go so after that I count I believe I had the list at 13 guys that I believe would make sense at 10 yeah or or under consideration at 10 the only guy that I don’t really have down here that’s ranked around here is Liam McNeely out of Yukon just because he’s the most like 17th pick in the draft that I’ve ever seen where it’s just like he is what he is shooter movement stuff smart player the Cory Kisser model the um like Jordan Hawkins is another good example another Yukon player where it’s like different height different kind of shooting skill set but like it’s a similar kind of deal where he’s limited in other range i will say real quick so I rounded up mock drafts starting basically after the KD trade there are 11 different guys that people have at the number 10 pick and I don’t know if I missed a Danny Wolf if he was in any mocks to the Suns he was not in there um we’ll talk about it it’s it’s down to nine if I include there’s one person who thinks Malawatch falls there’s one person who thinks Conanipple falls to the Sun so there’s nine if we take um a composite of mockdrafts across the web who have different guys like there’s that big of a range yes I’m ready to be wrong on that but I just think that we’ve seen how NBA teams think and like Malawatch’s raw physical tools yeah teams just do not let that guy let that thing kind of slip and then Canipple same like all the gamer stuff that he does like teams just head over heels for that kind of stuff i’m trying to see Shamsa’s reasoning for this trade happening uh basically McCollum is on an expiring deal washington is now expected to take in pelicans get younger possibly more dynamic i don’t know if that’s actually like why the trade was made we’ll have to figure that out later okay to continue to the draft I I guess I can just run through the names and then you can I’ll have we’ll take turns picking who we want to talk about yeah let’s do that here are all the names joan Baring i’ve heard Baron i’ve heard Baron Jr yan Baron Baron Bar i’ve I’ve heard Yawan Yawan Baron J baron 18-year-old center i did hear both yeah carter Bryant the wing out of Arizona cedric Coward the wing out of Washington State jaor Demond the point guard out of BYU noah Essenay the power forward i don’t know what his position is honest i have no idea he’s a power forward um out of Germany he played professionally in Germany the last year jeremiah Fears point guard out of Oklahoma i think uh asterisk on him he’s he should be in that group of seven to eight but there’s too many differing opinions on him for me to feel safe that he’s going to go that high would I expect him to go top nine but we’ll see he could fall a bit casper Yakonis point guard out of Illinois colin Murray Boils the power forward center I don’t know what position he plays out of South Carolina uh Asa Newell the center out of Georgia derek Queen the center out of Maryland jace Richardson the combo guard out of Michigan State thomas Sorber the center out of Georgetown and then Danny Wolf the center out of Michigan a few of those guys to be clear are ranked in like the high teens and it would be a surprise and a reach to take them at 10 but we’re just including the entire list there is there a name or a position that jumps out to you that you want to start with do you want to start with the big let’s start with the bigs yeah there’s been all this noise and it was I got mad about this online which is always a good thing to do because people are going to react rationally to it where there were all these reports from the league circles within league circles league personnel speaking closely with people directly in the situation with league personnel sources that were saying that the Suns are looking for a center and this was not just um one or two places it was like a lot of different people mentioning this like buzz about the Suns wanting a center so that is probably where we should start because your avenues for trade might be better than for free agent especially if you’re looking for like a day one starting center yeah I think looking at a rookie center to do that is asking for a lot Derek Lively’s don’t come along often was he the 10th pick though he was something do you care at all that they used assets to get centers backtoback they’ve now this would be the third time in a year that they’ve used assets to get a center do you care about that at all no it’s cost your thinking it’s sunk cost at this rate nick Richards did not do well i I think you just have to live with it and he’s your backup and I don’t know if that means Oso needs to figure out how to play the four or they fight up fight for the backup spot but yeah I think you need to just consider it sunk cost i agree at the same time I would just love to take another position anyway just cuz I I it’s not like I think Nick Richards or Roso Gadar will be a starting center but it just hurts we also can assume like position of that’s where it’s weird is like we’re hearing these reports about position of need in the draft and it’s like that’s a dangerous thing for this team especially because one they need talent and two in theory they should be trying to move a bunch of their guards right now so I don’t know if that pile up really matters right yeah you know that I believe in fit not so much in like constructing a roster but the developmental process that a guard will go through for example this is a horrible fit for Jaylen Green because it’s a horrible fit in general because it’s going to have Deon Booker play point guard which is not going to allow him to he’s going to have to try and Steve Nash this thing by making everyone better um and that is not how you maximize Deon Booker he can do it i’ve I’ve been a point book believer for a while but he can do it but you need to be maximizing the far and away the guy who is far and away your best player instead it’s going to be like “Okay can you get Jaylen Green comfortable can you get him in his spots can you do enough of the playmaking pick uh pick and roll ball handler stuff the second read stuff so he can kind of be in a position to exploit everything you’re setting up for him?” And then you’ve got every other two guard that’s around here so that is part of the thing is interesting like if they’re at 10 and for some reason Coniple Trey Johnson or VJ Edgecom there it’s like okay now you need to trade like two guys for them to even play yeah in the first place like be in your rotation in the first place and one of the reasons why I didn’t like the Rockets trade was it it I hate trades that force you to make other trades because like this just should have been a three or four team deal sending either Green elsewhere or Brooks elsewhere or both of them elsewhere because of the redundancy i think that there is value in having Green in his upset i think there’s value in having Brooks but it applies to the draft as well elaborated uh point here being I don’t think fit really matters here i just think you take whoever you think has the best chance at being awesome that’s that’s it like I don’t really buy into floor too much here i don’t really go that way so we were mentioning bigs should we just start listing should we start with who do you think is the most interesting to talk about from your perspective derek Queen okay derek Queen center out of Maryland little bit undized not the best athlete in the world but he is the most skilled big man in this class i think the thing that he is going to have to deal with is one there are conditioning questions with him like he has some room to grow as an athlete still because of his lack of conditioning and his moderate disinterest in defense combined with the athleticism combined with the conditioning all add up to a guy where I’m concerned about his ability to play defense mhm it is also a very tight squeeze to be what he is in the NBA like I think that getting a not saying he’s going to be Joic but when you think of skilled big men who handle the ball and they like attack the basket off the dribble like the way that he’s going to like he’s going to create off the dribble he’s not just going to be hub dribble handoff short roll stuff like he’s going to create he’s not going to run ball screens or or something you would like for him to do that later in his career but right now he’s not going to do that but can you be like there’s only Jokic and Nasreed for a reason like there’s not really anyone else that comes to mind like Sabonis I guess but he’s still more of a post guy shenun I guess kind of does that but he’s kind of more of a hub queen Queen’s more like he’s like an undersized boogie cousins with like handles are there right but how much are his handles going to matter if he is not as explosive as the guy defending him not as big as the guy who’s defending him like if you look at the tape it’s like fascinating because he can face up and do stuff spin moves between the legs crosses but like again does that matter if you get to the rim you get blocked because you don’t you aren’t a great leaper does it matter if you don’t have a great jump shot and you’re not really threatening from 20 feet let alone the three-point line um that’s my thing with him it’s like man he knows how to play basketball he has like a natural I guess feel and that’s kind of why I use the Boogie Cousins like skill set with the dribble and fielder there offensively but if you’re not going to make up if you’re going to have to make up for your bad defense with not like a prototypical NBA center game whether you’re talking the stretch or traditional then I’m a little worried and like you’re you’re making me ask too much of you got to prove you’re not lazy on defense you got to prove you can actually shoot cuz what i don’t think the shooting numbers were there and the volume wasn’t there on threes so then what are you um and the draft the people who’ve been watching him all year have basically said like the jumper is not one you stare at and say oh this will be functional in like two to three years someone will mention later like Ryan Kulk Brener out of Kraton like actually like you watch him shoot you watch Reo especially shoot from from Stanford last year uh for 29 excuse me and like they have a projectable jump shot his like sorbers is not there yet it’s like Derek Queen has a right leg fading twisting like post shot that has gone in for like three highlights but it’s like if you’re just standing there I don’t know if you can make a bucket wide open like you know what I mean like he has all the crazy shots but if he was just quicker on it like quicker on his feet you mentioned Boogie mhm boogie’s a good comp for like the skill set but Boogie was an incredible athlete he was so strong and he was fast like especially early in his career even like the New Orleans year remember when him and AD took over the world for like 3 months oh yeah um Oh sad that was another injury wasn’t it and maybe I’m wrong here but just watching him in college versus watching him in the pros i think that the quickness isn’t quite there enough for him to be reliable to like create his own shot create separation like every single time and and the reason why I’m being so hyper specific here with like little details of his game is because there I just feel like there’s a lot of qualifiers with him and that’s where I’m a little I’m scared of it’s weird because he like has really good footwork offensively and like just his IQ tempo with his dribble like he can do a lot with his feet and and maneuver but again yeah it’s it’s like I don’t know if I don’t know if that translates nor matters if you don’t have the bucket getting parts of getting open I guess so yeah I I think he’s the biggest low ceiling high floor guy in this range we’re going to talk about I would say yeah and I didn’t have him in my top five just because I feel like the qualifiers are too extreme i would love him on a blank canvas if that makes sense if this roster was actually coherent right now I would like him if you had the if he was three years ago if I knew who like where the six or seven players who were going to play for the Suns next year were I’d actually like it yeah i don’t know i know one guy that’s it or two i know Dunn and Booker still and that’s it like they say they’re keeping Jaylen Green let’s wait till training camp mhm who else you pick okay so I’ll start with the guy that I have number one on a Suns board specifically not for me but uh number one on the Suns board i have Thomas Sorber there out of Georgetown and my pitch basically is it’s very difficult to like navigate the window of Queen being very good it’s easy to see Sorber’s path like I can I can see it him being a great all-around big it’s easy to see passing’s awesome i think that Georgetown was a stinker offense i watched two games and it made me want to like it brought me back to the dark days of watching college basketball so much in that kind of way where they always get the big guy though there yeah like the dribble handoff short roll stuff was like occasionally shown but most of his passing shots were shown when he was doubled in the post and I would have liked to see it used functionally in other ways his reaction time if he gets post entry and flings it back out or just sees something is so fast and he uses his long he has a 7 foot6 wingspan so he uses his long arms in a way as a passer it’s really cool um the off the dribble stuff like all that kind of stuff eh I don’t know like that’s that’s where Queen like yes like he has the handle and all that kind of stuff sorber i don’t know the appeal here is I loved the way Vini put it and like the descriptors that he kind of used because I was like “Oh he’s like good as a diver he’s good as a roller.” But like Vini went into like the timing of where he is on his roles his hands he catches everything how he sets his screen how he gets out of his screen his like just feel for that element compared to most bigs is great and I mean you that is the NBA like I don’t need to explain the value of someone who knows how to set screens and roll already nerkach was someone who was still figuring that out in his like two and a half years into his son’s career however long he was here two years into his son’s career um whereas he’s going to have that down right away uh on defense he’s very productive like the numbers that I found basically he’s like going to be the first first round pick in like 20 years to average the things that he did was the stocks like two and a half or some three i think it was two blocks and a steal and a half or something and then like over two assists eight rebounds a game he was just really active defensively i think the biggest hold up with him and the butt that’s coming is his athleticism and con we’re using conditioning again which I don’t love he was listed at 263 and apparently weighs that much and I say apparently because when you watch him you kind of think he looks kind of thin at least his upper body he looks thin which makes me think that there’s like a ton of untapped potential for him both with strength and for speed again that’s us using this as a positive for him and we when we were using it as a negative for because he doesn’t have the again stuff we don’t know the things about conditioning questioning it’s it’s more just like underdeveloped opposed to not working hard sure how it comes across would like for him to be a little bit quicker and that’s where maybe with like you know cutting down and getting into NBA conditioning program he could be a little bit quicker but for now he’s mostly playing in a drop but like I can just see him being a very good pick and roll defender yeah i and he hangs on switches he’s active off the ball protecting the rim from the weak side uh and then on basketball on offense he’s just like a very good hub piece and screen setter and I think that it doesn’t need to be more than that like he’s been taking threes if he was healthy right now he’s not he had surgery in February missed the rest of the year didn’t do workouts at all um he wants to shoot threes we’ll see but that’s like something to note for three four five years down the line we know the trap here deandre Aton took threes at Arizona that never happened ever it still hasn’t happened in Portland um and then like offensively like the handle stuff whatever we’ll see but I just like the combination of not floor but the ceiling feels high floory does that make sense that’s basically my pitch on him and why I’d have him number one and I think that he could come in and it would just be a breath of fresh air with everything like Richards is more athletic but it would be a breath of fresh air in terms of where to be on the floor yeah being in the right spot benefiting from spacing elsewhere like he would be much better at that kind of stuff right away i think a lot of people talk about feel and they’re like like when I when I use feel for the game um with Queen it’s just like he just has this knack that’s like playground savvy he knows how things are moving he sees things but with Sorber it’s like he functions like an NBA like I I’m going to go to Tristan Thompson comps i don’t know if they measure up similarly but like Tristan Thompson was never like the longest fastest he was pretty big but he less in the league cuz he just knew where to be um he knew how to set screens and you see stuff with Sorber where it’s like from how big his frame gets when he sets screens it’s like man he just gets in the way um like doesn’t you know his legs are spaced out probably they’re going to draw offensive fouls in the league at some point but like he thinks of those things and then when you look at pick and roll coverage like yeah he’s in the drop a lot and he probably will be in the NBA but just the we talked about I think when DA in during the Suns’s final run he was just being so good at okay the the ball handler’s getting downhill on you you’re half committed to them and half committed to the roller and you just know how to confuse the ball handler and outthink them and be a step ahead of like “Oh I’m dropping off no I’m not.” And they throw a lob and you grab it you know stuff like that um and even just like help defense and seeing passing lanes when you’re off the ball he’s he’s good at so that kind of stuff is just like the he looks like a vet out there so I think that to me was what’s most appealing and it’s like yeah if he never develops a three never develops a anything more offensively than just like yeah he’s a kind of slow rim roller but he’s big so he can get layups I think he’s going to be a quality starter and probably last in the league a long time to finish out the positional group uh Baron Jay has been playing basketball for under five years like the sport and then competitively for I think under three years uh sevenfooter mobile agile he does rolling catching lobs and blocking shots like that’s all he does right now so it’s like okay how patient are you going to be with him i really wanted to actually put him on the Suns list cuz as an upside play he’s a phenomenal swing but you need to have like a and this patience like that word you know yeah not going to happen and also like is he 611 610 with the long wing span like it’s just like the physical profile isn’t like out of this world where you just see the next Rudy Gobear I guess and yeah just it’s more of like the Eve Mei Derek Lively kind of build where he’s like about seven feet he’s 6’11 with like 75 wingspan which is big but uh Danny Wolf out of Michigan if you want to talk about like handle um creating for others that kind of thing that we’re talking about with Queen like he’s legitimately got like a handle and move moves with pace around ball screens like he runs he ran ball screens all the time for Michigan like like a guard truly like a guard the issue is here while he has like quicker feet than you would expect like not an explosive athlete at all yeah zero and my biggest concern here is that there’s a DeAndre instance with Ducson Rristage here where he did not want to play the five at Michigan and they brought in Vlad Golden and got him to play the five with Wolf he has to be a five in the NBA like he cannot be anything else than a five he’s almost a true sevenfooter he’s just about there almost a true sevenfooter that’s kind of the dichotomy there to say the least but I think that he is someone where if he could shoot he would be in the top 10 but he can’t shoot his free throw percentage isn’t great his three-point percentages were never really that good overall i think that a lot of people have optimism that he is going to shoot but he just has to and the whole thing that I wrote about and why I do not have him in the top five to be clear 33.6% from three two and a half a game 64 and a half from the line on two 2.7 a game for um Michigan really great rebounder but is that going to translate to the pros when he’s not an explosive athlete and then uh you have to have a role for him like if if he’s off the ball what are you doing so he has to like come off the bench and be like your secondary creator almost it’s a very specific thing even Minnesota really struggles with getting the most out of Nas Reed with everything that he can do and it’s just not like a there’s not a fit there for the Suns at it’s a reach for him for any team at 10 i get it starting in like the early 20s and I’ I’d be fine with it at 29 but I think this is way too high and if it’s it’s kind of the oho I mean obviously very different athletes and positions are different but it’s kind of the oho offensive role I guess so it’s like ah do they need that what’s his defense like is it even is it capable is it can move his feet a little bit but he can I don’t think he can guard fours or threes at all and like even if he’s playing the four it’s like you have to be able to shoot and so he’s going to have to accept that he’s a five um in order to get the most out of everything he does and we’ll see if that is the case i could also see him being really great in the league if the right team drafts him that utilizes him properly and he grows as a shooter he could be really really really good asa Newell is really the only other name here it’s very bas it’s very basic like he’s got a ton of versatility potential on both ends of the floor it’s just potential right now just for now he’s a very high motor rebounder four or five if you had to the question being there is not good he’s a five but the question being there is not good okay let’s move to wings uh I’ll do the call Murray Boils thing because we we talk about Gregory check uh checking boxes there everyone’s picking him in the mocks by the way he’s the guy who checks all the boxes there they have an obvious opening on the like four to five spectrum of tweener they need both of those things anyway and that’s where he’s going to be he is incredibly impressive when you watch him i hadn’t seen much of him until a day or two ago and it’s really impressive um our friend RB on Twitter posted the the first like six minutes of a game against Florida i put it in my story and it’s a minute and a half long of highlights of his it’s 90 seconds it’s a 90 second highlight reel of his um from the first six minutes of a game against the best team in the country and South Carolina was like not great so two years ago I want to say maybe it might have been last year um I’m not sure i thought it was Florida State never mind i don’t know okay well the point being and and like the overall pitch here we didn’t really get to what he does might be the best defender in the draft is someone when you watch him especially at college it always sticks out when guys are smarter than everyone else and he just gets where everything is i don’t even think that he’s a good passer and what I mean by that is like the kinds of passes that he makes or like the kickouts and stuff it doesn’t evoke a lot of skill but he just sees everything so he just makes the pass and it gets there and it’s fine in the end um scored a lot i was surprised to see his numbers scoring knowing his profile he scored nearly 17 a game for South Carolina Carolina a lot of that was just being stronger in the post and working out working guys over there um and then defensively he’s just everywhere i don’t know if he’s like super switchable but he’s just everywhere and like on off the ball on the ball you’re just going to notice him on the floor you’re waiting for the butt he doesn’t shoot uh he took one three a game 26% last year 71% on nearly six free throws a game so maybe it’s there um do you see the appeal for the Suns drafting a non-shooter for the second straight year basically that’s my whole pitch here uh again it depends but I think you need either the four or the five to shoot one of those i think you could sell me but if it’s like him and Ryan Dunn then you you’re and even Book and Jaylen Green like then you need the center to shoot um again going back to our start of this podcast I think you need to take the best talent and there I I think there is a decent case to be made that he is the best talent like as far as he does everything else well I guess and my big thing on him is the sec and this is why he fits the Gregory Grinders as you call them he’s the second effort king you watch all the highlights it’s I’m chasing someone off the three-point line and recovering and there’s a couple swings and then I’m still helping it’s I do get beat off the dribble a little bit but I chase down and get a block from behind um it’s reading passing lanes as people are coming down the court stuff like that so for me again a feel guy who who it’s really good feel and just processing I guess is a better word for it um especially on defense and I like that um to your point though like yeah I think he has to be a four he could be the four and then you swing him to a backup five and then he’s switching late in games and that’s really where the role makes sense where it’s like hey I don’t need you to shoot if we’re going small but obviously that doesn’t always work in this league um and you need guys who have that size so yeah I mean he’s positionally a little problematic and then the shooting just makes that a a problem but I’m I understand why people are heavily having him go at that slot because I think again low floor i would bet on his IQ and just failure rate seems low compared to other people in this draft i think Carter Bryan is like the biggest lock of the lottery to just be a good Yeah biggest lock of this range of the lottery excuse me to be a good player in the league there are guys we watch at Arizona like going back to like Andre Guudala but like more recently TJ McConnell Solomon Hill where you just watch them and like you’re a professional basketball player like you just watch the way that they move around the floor and then everything we hear about him behind the scenes like we have like the insider information here for him compared to everyone else so for all we know everyone we talked about is an angel and works as hard as everyone but for him everyone raves about him behind the scenes like his approach everything just like pro pro i think the three is going to be very good i know it looks good yeah it looks very good um it looks way more polished than it should be i say polished I don’t mean like moving around screens movement shooting that kind of stuff that’s something that Bassini hit on in his profile of him and I totally agree with that but just like catch and shoot stuff defenders were there and he was just mechanics were sound all that kind of stuff i really liked how clean his jumper was you and I were fans of his passing throughout the year and think that there’s.5 stuff there to say the least and I think that there’s more stuff to be untapped there because again they had no point guard they had one guy for offense they didn’t even try to like make him a part of the offense ever in the start of the year they could have moved him into the starting lineup given him the KJ stuff they they didn’t that was a mistake obviously we talked about that a lot on Cats Talk over the years and then defensively I think he’s better than everyone thinks he is and everyone thinks he’s pretty good i think he’s awesome i think that the way that he gets into guys and the way he moves his feet when he gets into guys is a really rare thing we only see from a couple of defenders in the league right now i think I’m lower than you on the defensive profile um I I think he’s more of a four than a three and I I think that’s okay because the stretching actually makes it possible and you know he already has pretty good size he’s like 235 I think at the combine if you keep working on that like I think you’re in a really good spot to play a lot of different things and even like hey if I have to switch on a a small backup five I’ll be fine um three-point shot for Carter Bryant is like that’s where I’m curious because it seems super mechanical to me but it goes down like the the percentage is pretty good um so I’m not super worried about it and usually it’s like the guys who have funky jumpers that shoot really high percentages those are the ones who you worry about falling off but it’s usually not this way so I don’t know how I feel about it it’s just super mechanical and he has to be wide open but like it should be fine for the role he’s going to play um I was blanking on recent examples but like Markin and Matin were the other two where you watched them in college and you’re like you’re moving like an NBA player it’s just like you see it sometimes in that way and it’s not even like athleticism speed whatever it’s just the cadence to the way they play it’s a really weird thing if you if the Yeah the just maturity there as far as it’s basketball maturity basically yeah or like like you know how you always have just did the Gregory basketball maturity no like there is something to say for like you can tell oh the freshman is getting down on himself for having a rough game or missing the shot or not like he just looks like stone cold confident um and not like playing out of his mind he’s you know I don’t did he get in foul trouble a couple times but it’s just your classic college stuff i’m not worried about that um yeah i don’t know he’s He’s a super safe pick and that’s one again where it’s like maybe the safest pick after the top five picks that I can say like I know he’s going to be in the NBA a long time but I don’t know how high his ceiling is he might just be your third or fourth wing if it doesn’t go well but I don’t see him out of the league those are super super valuable yeah like he’s going to make $200 million like I feel pretty confident about that yeah um you know when you see a movie and you ask someone if they’ve seen it and they say “Yeah I’ve seen it.” And you’re like “It was good right i liked it.” And they’re like “It’s the best movie I’ve seen the last five years.” And you’re like “Okay I didn’t love it that much but it’s cool.” That’s how I feel about Senator Coward where it’s like “Okay I like him.” And I think that there the upside thing I get and the three profile I get but I don’t understand like having him like top five or top 10 like on on a board it’s it’s a bit much so if you’re not familiar like the brief story here because it’s a cool story uh played D3 at Willamat uh his coach future coach in the Big Sky Conference shout out to Montana State um was watching one of his like old coaching friends play at the D3 level like supporting his friend or whatever and when they were playing against Will and he’s like who’s that guy so then he recruited him to Eastern Washington coward plays there two years everyone who watches him in the Big Sky is like why is this guy here what doesn’t make sense riley brings him to Washington State he only plays in six games but in those six games it’s like even at that level that he’s playing against and the level to be clear it was their non-conference schedule the only game they played for a Pack 12 school that’s the new Pack 12 yeah exactly that against anyone half good was Iowa and he didn’t really play great in that game but you watched like his maturity level with like just how he played again it’s one of those Carter Bryant things where like the way that he used his body the way that he got into his shot some of like the choices that he made on the floor with the ball um it it’s a lot there where I can see the upside but it it was just in such a very specific environment that it seems like just too much to bet on and the 3 and D profile is like one where it’s kind of Desmond Bainy for me without a bunch of TCU time yeah yeah it’s kind of Desmond Bainy yeah i mean I think where I see him as like a top 10 top 15 guy but as like a I get there’s upside there but is there a ton is there like he’s going to be a can’t miss guy i don’t know and I’m ready to be wrong on that a lot of smart people really like him well like what’s the offensive profile with him for people who haven’t watched like how does he contribute in the NBA it’s kind of bookesque just with the again not like overall talent or whatever but the way he does it like physical mid-range yeah not the not crazy athlete but no just kind of like um I can’t remember how Rousilo and Vini put it but like Rousilo like brought up this one example of like him like knowing he could score on a guy in the post but then taking one more dribble just to kind of humiliate the guy a little bit and by all accounts seems like a nice nice kid or whatever but it’s just like he has that kind of mentality on the floor um but yeah and I don’t really know he’s a little bit small for the kind of wing that the Suns would want basically like it’s getting a little bit too redundant again so that kind of factors in for me a little bit i got to admit it kind of does uh Noah Sen like is I just don’t know um I’m comfortable raising my hand and saying I don’t he’s like a KD build type person well does not play much yeah no no one is really a KD build i would I would lighten that up a little but he but he’s a sevenfooter who has mobility and can handle the ball a bit and shoot yeah like modern power forward it’s an awesome idea all he does right now is like get to the free throw line that’s pretty much all he does everything else is theoretical someone’s going to take him to the lottery because of all those tools and if he works out good job there’s your top three guy that I was talking about as him uh doesn’t make sense for the Suns obviously with the developmental track record that you would need to kind of harness him if he goes to Oklahoma City I am terrified um who’s trying to move up apparently by the way and they’re at 15 right now and they have assets no one should trade with them do not do that don’t do it including the Suns there was like the It was Fischer story where they mentioned like moving from 10 to 15 no don’t do it don’t do it just take your guy at 10 anyway i mean you’re getting future assets i guess the the pitch is like 15 24 it’s like are you going to have three first round picks i don’t know i don’t know i don’t know there are ways to do it and we could we could elaborate on it but we’re already kind of Thomas Sorber is going to fall to 15 and Thomas Sorber is like your guy i Yeah then you might then you might as well but we we’re just kind of poking fun at like the idea of like helping Oklahoma City and it’s like helping um like whenever it was a thing of baseball forever real ballheads will know this when you like trading with the Tampa Bay Rays was just like don’t do that cuz they were just always like on to something with every trade that they did i don’t know if that’s still their track record but it was a couple years ago they’re on a heater yeah to wrap this is a very good point guard class it’s very good um in this range I’ll say there really isn’t one unless you want to count Dylan Harper uh there’s Yakuchonis out of Illinois there’s Fears out of Oklahoma and there’s Demen out of BYU uh I really like Yakuchonis i have him third i had Bryant second him third i have Fierce four and I have Murray Boils five on that top five i think Yakuchon just has the mix of high floor high ceiling i don’t really understand why some experts don’t have him in the top 10 because he’s someone that I watched quite a bit and it’s kind of confusing to me why the the appeal of that mix isn’t there i just think the value of his pull-up jumper and his step back is immense and like Fears just can’t shoot deon just can’t shoot like a lot of these like scorers like Ace Bailey is the guy who’s looked at as like the guy who can like create his own shot and all that kind of stuff black can do some of that too but like Yakuchon doesn’t get mentioned in that group for some reason when he is a guy who gets to his step back all the time like yes he relies on getting left getting to the step back all that kind of stuff but the playmaker that he is Demond is the best passer in this draft fears is the best create separation handle that stuff shiftiness kind of guy in the draft yakonis is just the best playmaker pick and roll ball handler overall in the entire class because the way the way that he navigates stuff the passes that he finds getting two or three steps ahead now I say this with an asterisk being he had a bunch of games where he had five six seven turnovers and a lot of teams are going to point at that and be like “No thank you.” and move on he’s 18 he’s a freshman like there there are some like benefits he doesn’t get i was reading Aldridge’s David Aldridge does this great story every year where he just talks to executives and scouts and you get like their opinion on it and just every single scout was like turns it over too much probably a backup and uh I don’t know he’s he’s big like I just the playmaker and like being able to set up his playmaking with the three I think it’s so obvious to see how he’s a very good NBA player and even if the shot isn’t as good as I think it is and he’s like a weak defender he’s still such a good playmaker that I think he’s at least like a competent third guard yeah I agree with that i’ll say I’m lower on him than you and part of it a lot of it is the athleticism in the handle where if you’re going to be a full-time heavy starting point guard heavily used starting point guard like a lot of the turnovers I think were just pocket picks where you get a good athlete on him and he’s trying to do too much again you can say that’s that’s inexperienced and you just get rid of the ball bud don’t do that um so that can be cleaned up and on that note I think just the handle and the athleticism again might limit how much he can get downhill in the NBA and really attack um but that being said like there’s a reason Tai Jerome I think is a good example he took a little bit of time but he was that guy with the Suns i’m like that’s not going to work out and I’m wrong now because like when you’re that good of a smart passer and creator even if you don’t have the athleticism or the handle you’re gonna be good if once the game slows down so I think that’s just the thing with him um and and yeah to your point back on the like finally a guy with a nice jump shot and we’re we’re not giving him enough credit and saying “Hey you can move the ball really well and you can shoot jumpers and make it.” Um yeah you’re going to be fine yeah maybe you’re not going to be the best defender but if you can hang I think he can hang he’ll be fine so yeah I agree that if he’s on the board I would be fine if the Suns took him for that at that spot because I think he’s that talented and it would add a lot um he shot 32 from three to be clear so that’s why a lot of people don’t see the shooting that I do it looks good though it looks great and he took a ton of bad shots it’s like a ton illinois didn’t have a creator until Will Riley another creator another person who could create their own shot get down he’ll be a playmaker kyle and Boswell went there from Arizona and did well but he wasn’t like setting guys up and all that kind of stuff like the way that Yakonis would so I think his shooting is going to be a plus in the league would you rather take the risk of Fierce or Deon deon is scary to me deon is scary because he shot under 30 from three and there’s real concerns about his ability to shoot at all and then the wild eclectic nature that he would play with occasionally was mixed with like a lack of aggression scoring the ball and it’s just this very odd mix where if harnessed he’ll he could be the best player in this class it’s he’s a 610 point guard he’s actually a 610 point guard if you are if you’re twice as aggressive if you’re him you get so many more opportunities to make the pass right like even if you’re just driving and attacking and and the problem with him is like he also doesn’t have the handles being like that big at 69 610 at as a point guard to like break guys down so that for me worries me about like if you can’t dribble and you can’t shoot but you pass well like what’s the point in some respects uh is an awful defender he was the worst defender I watched just didn’t care which I don’t know if that’s better or worse than trying on defense and being bad mhm um you fall into that trap all the time where you’re like “Oh when he tries he’s fine so he’ll be teams.” And then guys just don’t care about defense anyway in the league uh really quick handles great my red I think the thing that I don’t like about him and like the defense the shot whatever if he was a better finisher around the rim or if he just was more composed more consistently like it seems like he’s more out of control and Yakuchon is the guy who actually had more turnovers but when I watched Fears it was more like you’re getting out of control whereas Yakuchon just like misread the situation and made a mistake whereas Fears is like creating the mistakes for himself if that makes sense with that said if he shoots the ball he’s going to be an allNBA point guard yeah so uh that would be a guy that I would keep in mind for the Suns okay i think that’s everyone in that group we didn’t mention Jace Richardson but that would be way too high for him at 10 at 29 it kind of makes sense or it makes a lot of sense because I actually think the kid’s pretty good but whatever let’s rapid fire through a couple of names that we like anywhere in the draft before we go okay you want me to start please uh Nick Clifford out of Colorado State is the most like good eight-year pro that I’ve ever seen and him at 29 would be awesome but he’s probably gonna go it’s It’s very Tristan he’s in the middle of Yeah their two picks it’s very Tristan Dilva from last year where if he’s there at 29 that’s an absolute home run um but he won’t be i want to go yep ryan Kulk Brener i’m not like the biggest fan of his but there’s a lot of like at 29 he could be there and dude just like you know what you’re getting it kind of kind of the Is he Was he at school five years it feels like he was in school forever at Kraton you know what you’re getting like shot blocking shot blocking shot blocking like does he play more than 20 minutes a game i don’t know does it matter cuz you know 20 of those minutes teams are not scoring at the rim yeah it’s very easy to see how he is a good NBA player it’s one of those where it’s like easy to see but do you want him out it’s like once you’re talking about like oh could he survive in the playoffs it’s like I don’t know man he could just be a good NBA player that’s selected in the 30s or the 20s yeah and that’s a really good start we talked about on last episode uh I really like Fleming big fan big fan of Ray No for like anyone i like Fleming specifically for the Suns i like Clayton specifically for the Suns and something we didn’t mention with the point guards um you might look at Green Booker Beal and be like how do they get on the ball well you need someone else to actually like set the table run offense and be a point guard and like it’s asking a lot out of a rookie but if it’s Green and Booker starting and they do get rid of Beiel there’s plenty of room for a backup rookie point guard to get touches on the ball relieve the stress off of those guys and also bring a playmaking dynamic that the roster doesn’t have that’s the short term and then longterm you get the long-term guy to go alongside Booker and whatever you do with Jaylen Green whatever you do with Jaylen Green adoro will probably be who they pick at 29 and I’m hoping they do because he’s incredibly exciting to watch incredible probably the best athlete in the draft uh Motor is really good he was everywhere uh I really liked him jir Watkins is a really good swing that I like if he’s somehow there in the 50s he won’t be but was a bucket getter but then did some defense stuff i talked about him on our previous episode a bit anyone else that you like in the 40s50s range because they have 52 and 59 they’re probably going to try and move up a little bit i’m just I’m just on the Cam Jones if they don’t get a point guard give that a run because I I always I always just like the guys who are at school a while they played multiple roles kind of the the Macau Bridges like “Yeah you’re not the star to start.” um played alongside Tyler Koh and then once he left and did not get drafted by the Suns um Cam Jones just took over and was like “Okay by the way I’m a really good point guard too i’m here now.” Um it was impressive R.J lewis Jr at St john’s is really fun if someone can just like get him to chill out and even if he doesn’t chill out there’s Dylan Brooks kind of potential there not with like the weird stuff he does on the floor but just with how in your face he is with everything really like Elijah Martin as a short guard swing in the 50s and a bucket getter I really enjoyed seeing in the Big 10 last year was Bryce Williams out of Nebraska um I don’t really see him in like the 30s 40s per se but like as a swing towards the end of the round if you want to get a wing who can do a little bit of scoring I like him do you want to give your Rayard is it Rayod reo pitch Reo Maxim Reno I think it’s like the reasons why you like Kulkiner and like Kulk Brener is like five times the defender he is that’s just how good Kulk Brener is but very big drop big that can do the diving stuff and finish really well around the rim and then also shoot threes the only problem for him was that he actually can create off the dribble pass a bit i think he’s a better passer than everyone gives him credit for but when he rejected dribble handoffs and dribbled a bit he was always one dribble shy i think he was always scared of turning the ball over and if he just took one more dribble he would get to the rim because he put his shoulder into someone and he’s very long and can get to the rim but he just took a bunch of weird 8 to 12 footers and he would need to get that cleaned up i think he would get that cleaned up he’s one of my favorite guys in the like outside the top 15 i would probably if I don’t have a board made or whatever but he would probably be in the top 15 of mine i like him all right that’s all I got all right that’s it uh I don’t know what the plan is for tomorrow i will say if you’re hearing this before the draft I’m on Burns and Gambo from 2 to 4 and then it’ll be Gambo Vince Marada and I from four until probably six when they take the number 10 overall pick when they make their selection then it’ll be Luke Leinsky and I and then we’ll sprinkle uh you’ll be in there a bit and then uh Mitch Feldus is in there a bit we might just try and do like a Empire of the Suns on the air with Luke or something instead of doing a post pod thing um but we’d miss 29 we could maybe do it on Thursday we’ll we’ll have something for sure on pick 10 absolutely that night on the on this feed um as far as like 29 the second round and like rounding that out that that might be later in the week we’ll see how the week goes we’ll see we’ll see how you’re doing by then might be a little sleepy not feeling the best on a Tuesday which is never good but you know we we move through draft week and it’s great it’s super exciting and I believe we’ve got everything lined up right now for me to go to summer league which is fun because I that’s where I kind of got my start in a couple of different ways and I haven’t been backing quite a while let me end Let me end the podcast on a really positive note until they trade that number 10 pick for some veteran yeah they shouldn’t do that um they shouldn’t do that all right goodbye everyone

Kellan Olson and Kevin Zimmerman discuss who the Suns should pick with the 10th selection in the 2025 NBA draft Wednesday night.

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