UVA sophomore Ryan Dunn is headed to the Phoenix Suns, to play alongside the Big Three of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal, and could be primed for serious minutes right off the bat.
“The Suns don’t need another scorer or shooter. They need a dog. They need someone to do all the dirty work without the ball in their hands. That is who Ryan Dunn is,” the Arizona Sports Zone website wrote on Twitter after the Suns had taken Dunn with the 28th pick in the first round Wednesday night.
“Ryan Dunn to the Suns is perfect. Potentially an all-world defender. On offense he can screen, catch lobs, cut. This works surrounded by all Phoenix’s shooters. He’s going to be good, and if the shot develops, he has major upside,” Kevin O’Connor, an NBA analyst at The Ringer, wrote on Twitter.
Dunn, “the best wing defender I’ve evaluated in a long time,” per Sam Vecenie, a draft analyst at The Athletic, was the Suns’ top target, according to Forbes NBA writer Evan Sidery.
His offense is an obvious question mark – Dunn made just 11 jump shots in his sophomore season, shooting 22.4 percent on jumpers (11-of-49), according to data from Synergy Sports, and after back-to-back games in early November in which he was 5-of-6 and 8-of-9 at the line, Dunn was 24-of-54 (44.4 percent) at the charity stripe the rest of the way.
It’s what he can do on the defensive end that got the Suns’ attention. Dunn held opponents to 4.1 points per game on 28.1 percent shooting, both bonkers numbers, in 2023-2024.
His 7’1” wingspan and elite quickness makes him a swiss-army knife who can defend all five positions, which is evident by this odd stat pairing: 77 blocked shots and 44 steals in 34 games in 2023-2024.
Five NBA prospects in the last 10 years put up at least 75 and 40: Brandon Clarke, Matisse Thybulle, Jordan Bell, K.J. McDaniels and Willie Cauley-Stein.
The defense will get him on the court; the minutes will come down to how quickly he can develop on the offensive end.
“What he was asked to do at Virginia was to defend and he relied on his athleticism,” Suns GM James Jones said. “The shooting isn’t where he wanted it to be or where we think it will be in a few years. But he’s an impactful player, and great players find a way to impact the game, not just with the offensive box score.”
“I’m confident with our staff, with (coach Mike Budenholzer), our coaches, that he’ll be primed to improve as a shooter. And if he can do that and do it quickly, I think we found a gem,” Jones said.
Dunn, who was on hand at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn for the draft, spoke with reporters after his name was called, and the obvious question came up – can he improve on the offensive end?
“Yeah, I think I can. It’s just getting a lot of reps in practice and everything like that. Just getting the confidence and just let it go. That’s what I’m going to try to do in Phoenix, is be in the gym a lot, just do what I’ve got to do as a team,” Dunn said.
Share
Chris Graham
