Koa Peat

Uh, I'm interested to hear, 'cause I, uh, yeah, there's a lot of interesting ways to go with Phoenix.

So thir- 12 eligible, Devin Booker, Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, Mark Williams, Collin Gillespie, Kamryn Maluch, Luke Kennard, Jordan Goodwin, Koa Peat, Ryan Dunn, Oso Ighodaro, and Rashear Fleming.

So you have to protect eight, and that means you have to expose four of these players.

Mm.

The Phoenix Suns, Jalen Green unprotected obviously for me, Luke Kennard, Ryan Dunn, which that was hard, and Oso Ighodaro also, which like that's a crazy one for me.

But if you look at like Rashied Fleming, Koa Peat, Jordan Goodwin, uh, Maluach, Gillespie, Mark Williams, who I thought about not protecting, Dillon Brooks, and, um, Devin Booker.

So is there a conversation to be had that maybe they would unprotect Mark Williams and protect, you know, Oso Ighodaro or something like that, or Ryan Dunn? Yeah, maybe if the injury consis- or injury issues cons- continued.

Um, but Mark Williams has a couple years left on his deal.

Like, this isn't Rashied.

Like, you could get away with that with Koa Peat this year.

Let's say the Suns...

Like, I've made the argument that since Mikal Bridges is out, this means more Koa Peat will be there, but it's like, you could make the argument Koa Peat's not ready yet.

Can't shoot the ball incredibly well yet, and we took him 30th overall, and I'm gonna be here defending that all year long.

Guys, he was the 30th overall pick.

Let him come back.

But we're not, we're not, we're not doing that.

But, you know, a lot of people know you for NBA draft coverage and, you know, you know, prospects that you've been scouting since high school, right? And the Suns are in this unique situation here where they have obviously some older players: Devin Booker, Dillon Brooks, Miles Bridges, right? This is an, a, a relatively older core compared to some of their other guys.

Kamueyu Mwa, Oso Ighodaro, Koa Peat, who they just drafted.

So I wanna start youngest and go oldest and just kinda get your assessment on where these players are at, how you see them playing out in the NBA, and maybe what the next step in their development is.

And I've been really looking forward, Ben, to talking to you about Koa Peat.

And I'm very curious about your takeaways from Koa pre-Summer League and post-Summer League.

Yeah.

I think Jordan Ott has like proven he has like an identity and a system, and it's not like the Suns team that was just like Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, your turn, my turn, without like good, you know, good rebounders, good defenders, guys to like insulate these rookies and have them play like a certain role.

And I also think Jordan Ott has been pretty good at like getting the most out of players and using them in like way, in like very specific ways, like a Gillespie or, or like a Jordan Goodwin, like really leaning in to him as like a spot-up shooter and a rebounder and like a power forwardy-type guard.

Yeah, for sure.

I hate that a really – and I know it got overshadowed because you got Koa and you got Rashear and you got Kobe.

And obviously before anybody, come on, on the summer league circuit.

But I really hated that – CJ had the injury that ultimately kept him out of all of summer league because I felt like he was someone that built up some great momentum On the post-All-Star break portion of the G League schedule, ascending into a starting role, posting multiple double-doubles, knocking down multiple threes across multiple games, short roll reads, really finding synergy with Kobe Brea in the two-man game and pick and roll, but also in handoffs, even running a little bit of inverted stuff.

He's a four.

We have enough fours.

But that goes back to the small ball conversation that we're having because if you're comfortable with having him in your small ball conversation with playing him up, playing Koa up, playing Haywood, playing Miles, you name it, playing them up a bit to just be a stop gap in between now and when you can count on having Mark back, and then seeing where you are in mid, because it'll be probably like 55, 60 games into the season, and you hope to be 35 and 25 at that point in the season, And if he's a part of that and he's playing eight or 10 minutes, again, like I mentioned the Isaiah Livers role where they trusted him to just play minutes to eat up minutes.

He wasn't necessarily the biggest net positive all time, but he was very rarely a net negative.

So you, you, you have to expect them to look like they did last year.

And the Wildcats are not gonna be with, with Koa Peat or Braden Buries.

Those, those two guys were, were the catalyst.

But they bring back a, a couple of key pieces in the center, and forgive me if I'm pronouncing it wrong, Mo Krivas, and then, uh, their small forward, uh, now I'm gonna try to pronounce that one.

I ...

Betting the season is probably a little bit too strong, but they're kind of putting all their chips into the idea of being able to get, uh, a, a transfer from Clemson eligible through a TRO, through a lawsuit, through something or other, uh, to be able to make this thing all work, as Koa Peat turned into the 30th pick in the NBA draft.

And we'll get into all that there.

But let's just talk big picture.

It had been so long since Arizona went to the Final Four.

Came up short of, of winning, uh, a national title, but, uh, again, what he did was, was really, really impressive, especially with a team that I know you questioned going into the year, and I questioned to some degree too, because, you know, you were talking about playing two freshmen big, big minutes.

Big minutes in, in Brayden Buries and, and Koa Peat.

Uh, both showed that they were not really freshmen in terms of their maturity, right?