Sometimes, professional teams like getting hometown heroes. Other times, it seeks talent from other places.
With the Suns’ NBA draft, the organization both picked a player who attended a local high school and traded away a pick that was used on another Phoenix-area standout. It wasn’t quite the Mikal-Bridges-Philadelphia-76ers Situation, but an interesting turn of events allowed the Suns to do so.
Phoenix traded its first-round pick, No. 22, to the Denver Nuggets for a package that netted them picks 28, 56, and two future second-rounders. With that pick, the Nuggets chose center DaRon Holmes, a former Millennium High School (Goodyear, Ariz.) star who was named Arizona Gatorade Player of the Year as a junior for his averages of 23.7 points, 10.6 rebounds, 3.8 blocks and 3.1 assists per game. While the Suns‘ needed another big, they chose to pass on the player from the Phoenix suburb.
They maneuvered with the 56th pick in the draft to move back up to No. 40, which they used on center Oso Ighodaro, another Phoenix native. Ighodaro was part of the 2020 Desert Vista (Phoenix) High School championship team, a season in which he averaged 15.9 points, 10.6 rebounds, and 4.4 blocks per game.
In truth, the hometown rarely matters much. LeBron James would have been selected first overall by the Cleveland Cavaliers regardless of his Akron connections; the Charlotte Hornets want Steph Curry because he’s Steph Curry, not just because he went to high school there.
But sometimes, the connection may play a role. The previous Phoenix management team selected Deandre Ayton, who played high school basketball at local Hillcrest Prep and college at the University of Arizona first overall in 2018 despite also hiring Luka Doncic’s former head coach that same offseason.
As for this Suns management group, it seems like trading Holmes was about collecting some much-needed assets, and drafting Ighodaro was about his fit and potential. It has little to do with the high schools.
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