Phoenix Suns draw 22nd overall pick in first round of 2024 NBA Draft
MINNEAPOLIS – The Phoenix Suns will have the 22nd pick in the 2024 NBA Draft after finishing second in a tiebreaker with the Milwaukee Bucks and New Orleans Pelicans. The two-day draft is set for June 26-27 in Brooklyn, N.Y.
The Suns, Bucks and Pelicans all finished the regular season with the same record at 49-33. The Bucks won the tiebreaker, the Suns finished second and the Pelicans landed third.
Milwaukee will have the 21st overall pick that will go to New Orleans and the Pelicans have the 23rd pick that will go to Bucks, after the Pelicans exercised their swap rights with the Bucks. NBA President of League Operations Byron Spruell conducted the drawing at the NBA office in Secaucus, N.J.
Marc Dieli, a partner from the accounting firm of Ernst & Young, oversaw the tiebreaker as there were six tiebreakers decided for the draft order.
Suns have 22nd pick in 1st round of 2024 #NBA Draft.#Suns finished 2nd in 3-way tiebreaker with the Bucks, who won it, and the Pelicans, who finished 3rd based off "random drawings" by NBA president of league operations, Byron Spruell.
Bucks 21st to Pels.
Pels 23rd to Bucks. pic.twitter.com/bsnw2vi9pu— Duane Rankin (@DuaneRankin) April 22, 2024
The Suns haven’t had a first-round pick since 2021 when they took Day’Ron Sharpe out of North Carolina with the 29th overall pick and traded his draft rights and Jevon Carter to Brooklyn for Landry Shamet. They winded up trading Shamet last summer to Washington in a deal that brought Bradley Beal from the Wizards to Phoenix.
The last first-round draft pick to play for the Suns was Jalen Smith, who they took 10th overall out of Maryland in the 2020 draft. Smith averaged 4.1 points in 56 games with the Suns before being traded to Indiana before the trade deadline in the 2021-22 season that brought Torrey Craig back to the Suns.
Phoenix traded its 2023, 2025, 2027 and 2029 first-round picks and a 2028 first-round pick swap to Brooklyn in the blockbuster deal for Kevin Durant before the 2022-23 trade deadline. Durant is in his first full season with the Suns in which he averaged 27.1 points on 52.3% shooting in 75 regular-season games.
That’s the most games Durant played in the regular season since the 2018-19 season when playing 78 games with the Golden State Warriors. He suffered an Achilles injury in the 2019 finals that sidelined him the entire 2019-20 season with the Brooklyn Nets.
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Phoenix's second-round pick in this year's draft (51st overall) goes to Washington. The Suns sent four first-round pick swaps (2024, 2026, 2028 and 2030) and six second-round picks (2024, 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028 and 2030) to the Wizards last summer in acquiring Bradley Beal and sending Chris Paul and Shamet to the Wizards. Washington later traded Paul to Golden State and got Jordan Poole in return.
Beal averaged 18.2 points on a career-best 51.3% shooting overall and from 3 at 43.% in 53 regular-season games in this first season in Phoenix. It's the first time Beal averaged fewer than 20 points since his fourth NBA season when averaging 17.4 points in 2015-16. It's the fifth straight season he's played fewer than 60 games after playing the entire 82-game regular season in back-to-back seasons in 2017-18 and 2018-19.
The Suns forfeited a second-round pick in this year's draft after the league determined they "violated league rules governing the timing of this season’s free agency discussions" involving backup big man Drew Eubanks. They started negotiations for Eubanks before the date permitted to do so. Eubanks averaged 5.1 points on 60.1% shooting and 4.3 rebounds in 75 games in the 2023-24 regular season.
Phoenix acquired three second-round picks (2024, 2026 and 2028) from the Magic last summer in looking to recoup some of those second-round picks they sent to Washington for Beal. The 2024 pick from Orlando was from Denver in a previous deal. That's the pick the Suns forfeited with the Eubanks situation. The 2026 pick from Orlando came from the Los Angeles Clippers in a previous deal and the 2028 pick is protected from the 31st to the 45th overall pick in the second round.
The Suns traded away their second-round pick from last year, forward Tounami Camara out of Dayton, as part of a three-team deal with Milwaukee and Portland right before this season's training camp in which they acquired Grayson Allen from the Bucks and Jusuf Nurkic, Nassir Little and Keon Johnson from the Blazers.
Allen averaged 13.5 points and led the NBA in 3-point shooting percentage this season at 46.1% in 75 games. The Suns recently signed him to a four-year, $70-million extension that kicks in next season with a player option.
Nurkic averaged a double-double in the regular season of 10.9 points on 51% shooting and 11 rebounds in 76 games. It's the most games Nurkic has played in a regular season since seeing action in 72 in the 2018-19 season with the Blazers.
Have opinions about the current state of the Suns? Reach Suns Insider Duane Rankin at dmrankin@gannett.com or contact him at 480-787-1240. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @DuaneRankin.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: NBA Draft 2024: Phoenix Suns to have 22nd pick
