Suns ready for anything in Thursday’s draft
Jun 21, 2011, 8:33 PM | Updated: 9:40 pm
What does visiting eight different countries and attending 120 practices and or games over a five month period get an NBA franchise? Other than jet lag and a serious case of home sickness, it gets them a completed draft board.
That’s the path the Phoenix Suns director of player personnel John Treloar traveled to help general manager Lance Blanks and the rest of the team’s front office compile their list of potential picks. The fruit of that labor will come Thursday when they make their selection at No. 13 (that is if they don’t make a trade).
On Tuesday Blanks met with the media and shared some insight — maybe more than he intended to — on what the Suns plans are in the draft.
“I’d like to believe that– assuming we keep this pick, that we’ll have an opportunity to get a player that can help this organization,” he said.
He did leave open the possibilities of trading down or out of the first round completely if “there is not a player that we like or believe can help the organization.”
Despite hinting that they could trade down, it sounds like he feels there will be someone who can have an impact on the franchise at No. 13.
“You do have players that will be able to impact players around the league,” he said. “In terms of predicting who or where there isn’t a whole lot of clarity but the player at No. 15 could be as good if not better than the player at No. 10.”
While we can’t tell you who they’ll pick. We do know this. It’s likely that player is someone Treloar has seen at least a few times during his journey this past year.
Sports 620 KTAR’s Craig Grialou contributed to this report
