Phoenix Suns: The pros and cons of drafting Deandre Ayton No. 1 overall

Pro: Shooting touch

Deandre Ayton has exceptional shooting touch for a guy his size. He’s proficient in squaring up in the mid-range, projects to be a very good pick-and-pop option and may even expand his range to the NBA 3-point line in time. With soft hands and a decent stroke, Ayton could be the kind of rare stretch-5 that’s becoming more and more necessary in this league.

Though he only took one 3-pointer per game at Arizona, Ayton canned 34.3 percent of them — not exactly sniper-like accuracy, but promising enough to build on with more attention at the next level. He shot a respectable 73.3 percent from the foul line as well, which is always a good sign for projecting a seven-footer’s ability to spread the floor to at least the mid-range.

"“There aren’t that many 7’1″ guys with that length and strength who can step away from the basket and make shots,” McDonough said. “He did it some at Arizona, but that wasn’t his role. You didn’t get to see him on the perimeter a whole lot. Today he shot the NBA 3 pretty comfortably. He’s got really good form, good touch, good rotation on the ball for a guy that size especially.”"

This is one of the few areas where being pigeonholed into the 4-spot in college may have helped Ayton, since he was required to be a stretch-4 for the Wildcats. Rim-running centers are all the rage these days, but being able to spread the court and work pick-and-pops would do wonders for Devin Booker’s load on the offensive end, as well as the team’s floor-spacing in general.

Con: Over-reliance on skills that need work

Ayton made it look easy in college with his ability to outmuscle defenders down low, spread the defense out to the perimeter and reach sky-high for dunks on competition he towered over. He handled double-teams well too, and though his assist numbers didn’t show it, he’s fairly effective as a passer moving the ball when he’s doubled down low.

Unfortunately, much like Josh Jackson was taken aback by how much better everyone was in the pros, Ayton may have to get used to not being able to physically dominate his competition.

To be fair, there’s no reason Ayton won’t get to that level. As we’ve already covered, he certainly has the build to treat even some of the game’s strongest bigs like ragdolls down the road. He averaged 20.1 points, 11.6 rebounds, 1.9 blocks and 1.6 assists per game as a freshman, shooting 61.2 percent from the floor and racking up 24 double-doubles in 35 games. There’s no question the kid can play.

However, if you take a look at the strongest areas of his game, a lot of them reside in his sheer advantages of size, strength and length. He could back almost anyone down for favorable looks, soared over helpless defenders trying to box him out and could shoot over almost every big he faced down low in the Pac-12.

It’s not a bad thing to be more physically gifted than everyone else, but Ayton has a fairly simplistic post game because he never really had to develop more advanced moves to get his shot off. His best pick-and-pop looks were almost unfair because defenders were terrified he’d take them down low and simply conceded the mid-range jumper — a shot he settled for more often than you’d like, given his good but not great conversion rate from there.

There’s nothing wrong with Ayton not expanding his game more in college when he had the tools to dominate his competition as is. At the next level though, he won’t be bigger and stronger than everyone else, and it’ll be on him to develop the moves, strength, determination and basketball I.Q. to retain the advantage over his opposition.