Suns nab Dayton’s Toumani Camara at 52nd in 2023 NBA Draft
Jun 22, 2023, 9:39 PM | Updated: Jun 23, 2023, 7:23 am
Toumani Camara #2 of the Dayton Flyers in position during a college basketball game against the George Washington Colonials at the Smith Center on January 21, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)
(Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)
The Phoenix Suns selected Dayton Flyers forward Toumani Camara with the 52nd overall selection in the 2023 NBA Draft, holding steady on Thursday amid a busy day finalizing a trade with the Washington Wizards to acquire Bradley Beal.
Camara was the 67th-rated player on Sam Vecenie’s draft guide for The Athletic.
He averaged 13.9 points, 8.6 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.2 steals per game at 6-foot-8 and 220 pounds this past season.
Born in Belgium before eventually moving to Florida, Camara split four seasons between Georgia and Dayton.
Camara shot 54% and 36% on three-pointers, taking 2.4 deep attempts per game. A jumbo wing, he joins a big three of Devin Booker, Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant.
Phoenix will be short on wings with Torrey Craig, T.J. Warren and Terrence Ross entering free agency and Ish Wainright potentially returning with a club option.
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The pick came after a busy day at work away from managing their draft attack.
The Suns on Sunday agreed to send Chris Paul, Landry Shamet and a selection of draft choices to Washington for Beal, Jordan Goodwin and Isaiah Todd.
Paul had said before word of the Beal trade that he wanted to remain in Phoenix. And after the trade, he likely didn’t want to play away from his family on the East Coast and for a Washington team entering the early, financially flattening stage of a rebuild.
The exact details of the Suns’ trade for Beal weren’t ironed out over the weekend as the Wizards attempted to send Paul and his contract to a destination of his choice.
That cleared up hours before the draft on Thursday when the Wizards in a separate trade sent Paul to the Golden State Warriors for Jordan Poole, Ryan Rollins and a few draft picks.
The Suns will send the Wizards six second-round picks (2024, 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028, 2030) with four more first-round pick swaps (2024, 2026, 2028, 2030). That kept their 52nd overall pick in hand.
They dealt Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, Jae Crowder a pick swap in 2028 and four first-rounders, including this year’s, to add Kevin Durant in February.
The Suns have not picked in the first round since 2020 when they took Jalen Smith 10th overall out of Maryland.
Last year’s first-round selection was dealt to the Oklahoma City Thunder in November 2020 as a part of the trade package for Chris Paul.
In 2021, Phoenix traded the 29th overall pick the afternoon of the draft to the Nets, along with guard Jevon Carter, in exchange for Shamet.
