NBA Draft: Regrading all 30 teams for the 2020 NBA Draft

Regrading all 30 teams for the 2020 NBA Draft: F Grades

Phoenix Suns: F

Jalen Smith, 10

In the weeks leading into the NBA Draft, Jalen Smith was flying up draft boards. The former Maryland center had the allure of “2020” basketball skills. He was potentially a stretch-5 who could also hold up defensively, a perfect fit for the modern NBA. This is what drew the Phoenix Suns to take him 10th overall.

There are a few different problems with this selection for the Suns. They didn’t need a center, at least not one badly enough to use a lottery pick. They took DeAndre Ayton with the first overall picks just a few seasons ago, and in the NBA Bubble, they discovered how good Dario Saric was as a backup 5.

Even if Jalen Smith turned out to be everything draft analysts hoped he would be, he was only going to play the 5. That meant he would be helpful only when Ayton wasn’t on the court. The Phoenix Suns likely didn’t feel like they had a lot of holes on their roster, and they were right; they were one of the league’s best teams and Smith barely played all season.

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The other problem with taking Smith is that he wasn’t worth the tenth pick. Even if Smith does turn out to be a useful stretch-5, he was the late-riser teams should have been wary of leading into the draft. No college basketball player did anything to change their draft stock from early March, so Smith rising up draft boards so quickly should have been a red flag.

Finally, and most painfully, the Suns had a chance to add a real difference-maker. One player, in particular, would be a perfect fit and could be helping this team right now in the playoffs, and that is Tyrese Haliburton. He would be the perfect bridge from Chris Paul to the future, a long-term partner for Devin Booker in the backcourt. Instead, the Suns let him continue to fall and reached for a backup center.

All of this conversation hasn’t even mentioned whether Smith has been any good because that largely didn’t matter. Unless he came out like Nikola Jokic it was never going to truly matter. So the fact that Smith played just 156 minutes this year and scored only 53 points is just twisting the knife. The supposed stretch-5 shot 23.5 percent on 3-pointers.

At the end of the day, the Phoenix Suns had a chance to take their last lottery pick for a long time and turn it into something useful. At the time it looked really bad that they passed on Haliburton for Smith; a season later it is inexplicable. Therefore the Suns are at the rear when re-grading the 2020 NBA Draft.