With the Finals coming to a close, the basketball world will quickly shift its collective attention to the NBA Draft coming up later this month. It’s shaping up to be a fairly tantalizing field of prospects, but according to most prognostications, including our own, one player in particular stands above the rest among the leader boards.
Arizona center Deandre Ayton is the popular choice to go No. 1 overall to the Phoenix Suns, which is beginning to feel more and more like a foregone conclusion given his press conference following his recent workout with the team, during which he said in no uncertain terms that he believes he’ll definitely be the top pick.
Even if he’s pointing out the inevitable, that’s rubbing some people the wrong way. Chief among them is Duke prospect Marvin Bagley III, who apparently thinks he has a good chance of toppling Ayton for the No. 1 overall pick.
Via ESPN:
“I definitely believe I’m the No. 1 pick,” Bagley said, “and if the Suns take me I’ll definitely show them why.”
Bagley hears all the speculation that Ayton will go No. 1 and said he uses it as motivation.
“It’s disrespectful and I use it as drive every single day,” he said. “At the end of the day, this is all talk right now. Eventually we’ll have to go on the court and we’ll have to play. That’s where all the talking ends.”
Ayton is apparently so confident that he won’t even bother working out for other prospective teams, and he even went so far as to predict that his pairing with Devin Booker will be like Kobe and Shaq 2.0.
Regardless, we’ll have to wait and see what happens when the Suns are on the clock at the Barclays Center on June 21.
(Via ESPN)
