A break from pre-draft workouts does not mean a break for the Phoenix Suns
Jun 16, 2014, 5:29 PM | Updated: 5:29 pm
PHOENIX — Just because the steady stream of prospect visits has subsided does not mean the draft preparation has lessened.
In other words, the lack of on-court activity is not a sign of inactivity.
Quite the opposite, really.
The Suns have not held a pre-draft workout in five days. They don’t have one scheduled again until Friday.
“We’ll sit and talk about our rankings. We’ll watch a lot of film,” GM Ryan McDonough said.
It’s always good to take a step back, especially after having had 66 different draft hopefuls in town over the past two-and-a-half weeks.
“It helps,” McDonough said of the break. “There are some guys that, I think, grab your attention and cause you to watch you a little more. Some guys may move a little lower down the list. We don’t try to base too much on the workouts, but we do think the film study is important. We try to avoid recency bias. I think we’re all swayed, by some extent, by the last thing we saw and so we try to go back and look at the course of a guy’s career, especially this past year and see how he did in the games.”
With four picks, including three in the first round (Nos. 14, 18 and 27), the Suns have seen a wide range of talent work out on the practice court at US Airways Center.
Some of the bigger names, though, have yet to arrive.
“We’re trying to get all the top guys (in for a visit),” McDonough said. “What we’d consider doing for a certain player is packaging picks and moving up in the draft. Some agents I think believe that and might be willing to send their guys and some agents — most agents say, ‘well, just call us when you have the higher pick and then we’ll come in then.’ We’ve worked on probably eight or ten guys and I know you guys can probably figure out who they are, guys we haven’t had in we’re trying to get.”
One such guy is Nik Stauskas, a 6-foot-6 shooting guard out of Michigan, who many have pegged as a lottery selection and certainly would fit the Suns’ need for perimeter scoring. He shot 44.2 percent from three while averaging 17.5 points as a sophomore this year.
Stauskas, according to reports, has the Suns among four teams he will work out for ahead of the June 26 NBA Draft. He’s already worked out for Charlotte and Boston.
These days, time becomes a precious commodity for teams such as the Suns, who during this evaluation process are not only reviewing draft prospects, but free agency prospects as well.
“Free agency starts July 1 so there’s really not a whole lot of time in-between,” McDonough said. “We’re trying to prepare for both simultaneously and I think (this break) will allow us to kind of do that.”
