2020 Draft Open Thread: Follow along with the draft picks! - Bright Side of the Sun

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What: Suns hold the 10th overall pick in the 2020 Draft being held today.

When: The first pick will be called about 6:00pm AZ time, with the 10th pick being called roughly around 6:55pm.

TV: ESPN for the Draft itself

Streaming: The SOLAR PANEL is going LIVE on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter

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The Suns are slotted 10th overall, an area of the draft that’s been kind to the franchise in recent times. In the last two drafts, the Suns have taken Mikal Bridges (2018) and Cameron Johnson (2019) at 11th overall. Those two started at the forward spots in the eight-game Bubble where the team went 8-0 with only Ricky Rubio being older than 24 in the starting lineup.

A year ago, the Suns went into draft day with the 6th overall pick, but traded the pick to Minnesota for their 11th overall pick and young vet Dario Saric. A year later, the 6th pick (Jarrett Culver) had an understandably difficult year as a prospect with raw tools while the Suns got huge contributions from both Cam Johnson and Dario Saric all year long.

Then later in the draft, the Suns saw an opportunity for another vet/pick combo by trading a future pick (Milwaukee’s late 2020 first-rounder) to acquire the 24th overall pick and Aron Baynes from the Boston Celtics. While Ty Jerome did not have a good rookie year, Baynes was an integral part of the Suns resurgence all season before getting kicked in the chest by COVID-19.

Let’s see what magic Jones and his front office, which includes the ever-quiet pair Jeff Bower and Trevor Bukstein, can pull off this season.

The Suns could simply go ahead and take a player at 10th overall — Devin Vassell, Killian Hayes, etc. — or they can trade down a bit to get that vet/rook combo. The depth of talent is pretty good in the middle of the first round, with the player taken 10th just as likely to have a good NBA career as the player taken 20th.

Here are some resources for your researching pleasure...

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Here is the Suns current depth chart (including projected returning players)

Bold: under guaranteed contract for the season

Italics: likely to return, but not guaranteed

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Biggest Needs

Primary third guard - combo: Sure the Suns have an All-Star back court, but their backups are a really big drop off. Carter can defend like a hound and make catch-and-shoot threes, but is not a playmaker. Cam Payne also defends hard and can pass better than Carter, but he’s no passing savant and his shot is very suspect. The Suns could use a high-level third guard who can be counted on to score and pass and keep the offense flowing when CP3 and DB1 are both resting and/or out injured.

Power forward: While Mikal, Cam and Dario can all play power forward at times, none are purely made for the role. In fact, Kelly Oubre Jr. was the best of the lot, considering the Suns four-out scheme. The Suns could use a player with more girth than Mikal/Cam to defend the bigger fours who can still stretch the floor with threes.

Future lead playmaker: Chris Paul has a couple of excellent seasons left, if not more since he plays on guile and effort rather than pure athleticism. He will remind us of Steve Nash’s later years. It sure would be nice to draft a guy for the future who can eventually take over next to Devin Booker for the post-CP3 playoff era.

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Are you excited about today??? Me too! I will be hosting the Solar Panel live show streaming on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, starting an hour early at 5:00pm. We’ve got a ton of great guests to predict the picks, and we’ll give live reactions as the draft unfolds! We also have a boatload of prospect profiles and other highlight packages to share.

Join @Espo, @DaveKingNBA and @Saul_Bookman for the complete 2nd screen #Suns experience during the #NBADraft.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/T61bJntT4kY

Facebook: https://bit.ly/35CHUwY

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November 19, 2020 at 06:30AM
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2020 Draft Open Thread: Follow along with the draft picks! - Bright Side of the Sun
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