Suns get closer look at Brice Johnson and Malachi Richardson

The first of three draft workouts for the Phoenix Suns started on Wednesday with two players on opposite ends of the spectrum.

North Carolina’s Brice Johnson spent four years in college and didn’t attempt one 3-pointer in 1,519 minutes. Syracuse’s Malachi Richardson surprisingly left school after his freshman year at the age of 20, and 55 percent of his 411 field goal attempts in his only season at the college level were from deep.

Richardson, who is 6-foot-6.25 with a 7-foot wingspan, has tailor made size and skills for a wing in today’s NBA game. He knocked down 35 percent of his 224 threes, including 41 percent on 106 attempts in conference play. The question about Richardson’s game surrounds his 2-point shooting percentage, which was dismal 37 percent.

When you dig a little deeper you can see Richardson shot an adequate 58-percent at the rim, according to hoop-math.com. The issues came on his two-point jumpers — Richardson made only 22-percent.

“I think it was a lot of shot selection,” explained Richardson. “And just taking tough shots, that’s what it really boiled down to. I think if I can clean that up, mature a little bit more when it comes to being on the floor and taking positive shots, good shots for our team — I think the percentages go up a lot more.”

While Richardson needs to show he can scale it back a bit, Johnson, on the other hand, wants to prove he can do more than play in transition, finish at the rim and score out of post ups.

“It will definitely translate, but at the same time I want to be able to expand my game,” said Johnson. “Not only am I not going to be posting up as much, but I do have to be able to step out and shoot threes sometimes. In college I was a back-to-the-basket type of player because that’s the system Coach Williams had. Nowadays everybody just wants to see me shoot the ball, they just want to know if I can shoot. They know I’m very athletic, I can dunk the ball very well, I think about 85 percent of shots were dunks this year.”

Johnson measured at 6-foot-10.5 with an 8-foot-10.25 standing reach at the NBA Draft Combine. He’s bulked up to 209 pounds, up from the 185 he weighed back in 2011.

The two players were connected in another way as Johnson’s Tar Heels crushed Richardson’s Orange 83-66 in the Final Four this past season. Johnson got some playful jabs in on Richardson in front of the media, but both have been working out in Las Vegas together for the draft hoping to obtain similar success at the next level.

The other two players at the first workout was French big man Alpha Kaba and Columbia guard Maodo Lo.