Goodman’s NBA mock draft has Suns landing G Killian Hayes
May 9, 2020, 6:04 AM | Updated: 7:13 am
The more you peek at the 2020 NBA Draft class, the more you realize the Phoenix Suns could land a ready-to-contribute guard if their current positioning holds through the end of the paused 2019-20 season and the lottery.
ESPN’s Jonathan Givony proposed a scenario through his April mock draft that showed Phoenix barely missing out on drafting Iowa State point guard Tyrese Haliburton. The Suns took guard Killian Hayes at No. 10, a pick after Haliburton was off the board.
Stadium’s Jeff Goodman, in his 2.0 mock, also has the Suns drafting Hayes — but it comes notably with Haliburton still available.
Big, strong guard with no shortage of “feel” for the game. Hayes is a lefty who is an average athlete, but can really pass it and knows how to play.
At 6-foot-5 and 216 pounds, Hayes falls into the category of a combo guard who can run offense after starting point guard Ricky Rubio but also slide to the shooting guard spot in relief of Devin Booker if necessary. In 26.8 minutes per game for Ulm in the EuroCup, he averaged 12.8 points and 6.2 assists while shooting 39% from three-point range.
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Haliburton projects more as a pure point guard whose arrival in Phoenix would make him the successor to Rubio in the starting lineup.
He, too, can play off the ball thanks to his shooting, but his thin frame could limit him defensively by keeping him from playing alongside another point guard.
Perhaps the most interesting point of the early mock drafts so far is that Hayes and Haliburton will be be around later in the lottery for the 2020 draft.
In a class that lacks star power and could draw quite a few surprises before Phoenix selects in the first round, that’s good news for the Suns since both of Hayes and Haliburton are projected by other draft analysts to be potential top-five picks.
As Goodman’s mock shows, it’d be even better news if they had a choice between them as they look to fill a need.
