Gambo: Six players the Suns have interest in with a 2nd-round draft pick

The Phoenix Suns have targeted a group of six players they would select in the second round of the 2026 NBA Draft, according to Arizona Sports’ John Gambadoro.

• Cincinnati forward Baba Miller
• Arkansas forward Trevon Brazile
• UCLA forward Tyler Bilodeau
• Tennessee point guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie
• Iowa State forward Joshua Jefferson
• St. John’s forward Dillon Mitchell

Most of those players are expected to be unavailable if the Suns don’t move up from the 47th overall pick.

Gambadoro reports it’s unlikely Phoenix can maneuver into the first round, but he adds the team believes it’s more viable to move into the 30s to get in a reasonable range to pick one of those players.

Jefferson, Miller and Mitchell are generally regarded as just outside the first round of the draft, while Gillespie, Brazile and Bilodeau are viewed as mid-second-round prospects.

Here are breakdowns of three of the six prospects by ArizonaSports.com’s Kellan Olson from a previously published piece.

Scouting report on Joshua Jefferson

Suns fans for years have been asking for a “power forward,” even though the position essentially doesn’t exist anymore in the capacity y’all are asking about. You want someone bigger than a traditional wing that rebounds and impacts the game around the basket.

Jefferson is close.

He’s a true playmaker. Great passing big men can fall into a few different sub-categories, like how current Suns center Ighodaro thrives when he’s at a standstill in dribble-handoff scenarios or catching the ball on a short roll. Jefferson, however, is using his dribble to set it up, hence the “playmaker” designation.

That skillset is deployed with a true NBA frame. This is a wide and strong man who utilizes a good handle, too.

Scouting report on Baba Miller

Like Ighodaro, Miller is a fluid athlete, where the pre-draft love a half-decade ago still shines through. Mix in some passing feel, which is more direct to playmaking as opposed to Ighodaro’s DHO-based looks, and you’ve got some explosive stuff.

That’s what draws all the oodles of buzz, but that’s more of a supplementary part of his game. The base will be on defense, where Miller showed a ton of promise. The tape was inconsistent in terms of his possession-to-possession impact but when it was all clicking, he was a monster. The exterior-to-interior coverage is there.

You’re watching the highlights and are probably confused as to why Miller is designated as more of a big, since it looks like he could handle being on the wing. But we are four years into his development and have seen little progress on the jumper.

Cincinnati had him pull back on it, with the 1.7 3PA/G the lowest of his four seasons in college. This most notably hurts his playmaking, because there’s no deep or midrange game for defenders to worry about beyond his back-to-the-basket work.

Essentially, that puts Miller in a tweener status, like Ighodaro. As we saw last year, players of Ighodaro’s ilk can make it work if they are great athletes with some high-end skills.

Scouting report on Dillon Mitchell

If we’re looking for the next Toumani Camara, our best shot is Mitchell.

Mitchell has as good an athletic profile as you’ll find for a prospect definitively outside the top-40. Unlike Camara and like Miller, this was a “guy” coming out of high school. Mitchell was ranked eighth in the country by 247 Sports in the 2022 recruiting class, sandwiched by two first-rounders in Ke’lel Ware and Keyonte George. He then went from Texas to Cincinnati before finishing with the Red Storm, where his defensive talents continued to soar.

This carries over to him with space, where as a roller, cutter or transition threat, he will glide on the ground and in the air.

Two outlier skills he brings on offense to compensate are rebounding and passing.

Some dudes you watch crash the glass, and there is a sense they are playing their own game within a game. It’s like their sole desire in life for those few seconds comes down to one thing and one thing alone — to get the basketball. Mitchell is one of those men on a mission, a true nut.

The passing was the best surprise on the tape. It’s nothing sexy, but a 3-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio is a rare sight to see in a draft prospect. He’s got it.

Mitchell’s massive holdup is still on offense, where some type of consistency as a slasher would do wonders for him. He really needs it because this is the worst shooting profile for a perimeter player I’ve seen in a few years.

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