Welcome Toumani Camara

[King4Day]

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The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie covers this stuff better than just about anyone and ranked Camara 67th overall, painting a fairly simple picture of what the 23-year-old out of Belgium is as a prospect.

It’s easy to sell yourself on a 6-foot-7 player without shoes who has a 7-foot wingspan and plays solid, switchable defense. In the NBA today, there might be no easier player type to sell yourself on. Camara is certainly worth a two-way flier, given his frame, defense and potential to shoot it.

Vecenie puts Camara down size-wise as someone with “essentially a perfect frame” for the modern 4.

He mentions '2-way player' but that was assuming he wasn't drafted.
I still wonder if we only sign him as a 2-way. If we sign him to a real contract, then that tells you we believe in him.

[Fo-Real]

Kid is gonna miss the Summer League because he can't be traded with Ayton to Indy until July 18th.

[ImNotMcDiSwear]

Doesn't look like an NBA player to me. Maybe we should have traded this pick too.

[WeekapaugGroove]

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The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie covers this stuff better than just about anyone and ranked Camara 67th overall, painting a fairly simple picture of what the 23-year-old out of Belgium is as a prospect.

It’s easy to sell yourself on a 6-foot-7 player without shoes who has a 7-foot wingspan and plays solid, switchable defense. In the NBA today, there might be no easier player type to sell yourself on. Camara is certainly worth a two-way flier, given his frame, defense and potential to shoot it.

Vecenie puts Camara down size-wise as someone with “essentially a perfect frame” for the modern 4.

He mentions '2-way player' but that was assuming he wasn't drafted.
I still wonder if we only sign him as a 2-way. If we sign him to a real contract, then that tells you we believe in him.

It's possible the Suns had an agreement with him ahead of time to take a 2way. That's pretty common at this point in the 2nd round.

But we'll see, it's possible they have him on the 15 man roster. It's not like he's some raw dude who has zero chance of playing.

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[WeekapaugGroove]

Doesn't look like an NBA player to me. Maybe we should have traded this pick too.

You could say this about any guy drafted in the second round and have more than a 80% chance of being right. **** you could say this about any guy picked 15-30 and be right more than 50% of the time.

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[BobbieL]

Doesn't look like an NBA player to me. Maybe we should have traded this pick too.

You could say this about any guy drafted in the second round and have more than a 80% chance of being right. **** you could say this about any guy picked 15-30 and be right more than 50% of the time.

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Can the Suns still hold his rights - but he goes to Europe for a couple years. Matures, improves his all around game and bring him back

I think the Suns can find two-way players more ready and I don't think they should be wasting a roster spot on a guy not ready.

[WeekapaugGroove]

Doesn't look like an NBA player to me. Maybe we should have traded this pick too.

You could say this about any guy drafted in the second round and have more than a 80% chance of being right. **** you could say this about any guy picked 15-30 and be right more than 50% of the time.

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Can the Suns still hold his rights - but he goes to Europe for a couple years. Matures, improves his all around game and bring him back

I think the Suns can find two-way players more ready and I don't think they should be wasting a roster spot on a guy not ready.

He's not some raw prospect, dudes 23 and looks physically mature. He'd be a great use of a 2way and I wouldn't be upset if he was on the 15.

Id they were going the stash route then you take some 19 yr old.


I was just saying if you're predicting a 2nd rounder isn't an NBA player it's a prediction you're going to get right most of the time. Not specific to this dude it's just the way it is.

Like go look back at any recent draft, there's only a handful of 2nds who make it. Like half of the lotto picks end up never really making it. That's just the draft.

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[Saberestar]

Was this real? Did he really show up at the draft?
If so, we must have given him a promise, so he knew going wasn't going to be foolish. Kinda cool to see those later picks get to come on stage like that.

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[Ghost of Kleine]

Doesn't look like an NBA player to me. Maybe we should have traded this pick too.

He's a two way player end of bench option with an at best outcome as MAYBE a 12th to 13th rotation utility wing/ forward like a lesser version of Larry Nance jr or Otto Porter Jr. Maybe if he hits his ceiling, a slightly bigger version of Craig with some playmaking perhaps? But he was the wrong choice with Jackson Davis still available!! Jones really whiffed this one and took the much lesser basic low end role player talent.

I like the kid ok enough, but he won't provide nearly the impact that Jackson Davis would have at a clear position of need for us depth wise. Jones really needs to stay away from the GM role and we need to bring in a LEGIT NBA GM who isn't a moron at value assessment. We've whiffed ( aside from Cam Johnson) on close to 5 years of adding legit cost controlled talent to balance out our roster. And it's really going to come back to bite us as all the other teams that DID actually add these young talents have them entering their primes.

Jones needs to go!! And we need to find creative ways to replenish the future assets he threw out carelessly.

[Desertfox]

It wasn't carelessly, it was very deliberate move so he doesn't have to do absolutely ANY scouting for the next 7 years. With our roster maxed out and no exceptions available he doesn't even have to worry about making trades or finding good role players. He's got the easiest job the next few years.

[Qwigglez]

LMAO. Was passed up 51 times.

Take a snapshot because Suns about to win Toumani championships starting soon.

[Crives]

It’s just to bad we had to include cash in that wiz trade, likely could have traded up. Maybe we bought Goodwin with the cash we sent to the wiz….

[sunsbg]

It wasn't carelessly, it was very deliberate move so he doesn't have to do absolutely ANY scouting for the next 7 years. With our roster maxed out and no exceptions available he doesn't even have to worry about making trades or finding good role players. He's got the easiest job the next few years.

I don't see how it's harder to login on RealGm, read a few of GoK's posts and select a player in the draft compared to finding useful, cheap veteran players and convince them to play for the Suns.

[Saberestar]

It wasn't carelessly, it was very deliberate move so he doesn't have to do absolutely ANY scouting for the next 7 years. With our roster maxed out and no exceptions available he doesn't even have to worry about making trades or finding good role players. He's got the easiest job the next few years.

What a dumb and lazy GM who has KD, Book and Beal on the roster for at least the next three seasons...it would be smarter to have 817272 2nds and scout teenagers all season long to try to build a playoff team for 2030! ****!

[King4Day]

It wasn't carelessly, it was very deliberate move so he doesn't have to do absolutely ANY scouting for the next 7 years. With our roster maxed out and no exceptions available he doesn't even have to worry about making trades or finding good role players. He's got the easiest job the next few years.

He'll have a job to do in the first round, every other year for half a decade.
I don't agree with GoK that we blew it by not picking a guy that nearly every other team passed on. There were probably a handful of guys that Jones, Ish, and Vogel talked about. Vogel probably had final say and if this guy fits the 'scrappy' mold...considering nobody we selected was/is going to get much playing time, you may as well get who you feel has the best shot of meeting their criteria.
This pick isn't intended to become a top 8 rotation player, as much as people may like to think that.

There's also a reason there aren't 3 rounds in a draft. Some 2nd rounders will hit, but most 2nd, and 1st rounders won't. Undrafted FA's are even more of a crap shoot.

[Desertfox]

It wasn't carelessly, it was very deliberate move so he doesn't have to do absolutely ANY scouting for the next 7 years. With our roster maxed out and no exceptions available he doesn't even have to worry about making trades or finding good role players. He's got the easiest job the next few years.

What a dumb and lazy GM who has KD, Book and Beal on the roster for at least the next three seasons...it would be smarter to have 817272 2nds and scout teenagers all season long to try to build a playoff team for 2030! ****!

He inherited Booker and both KD and Beal (and CP3) ONLY wanted to come play here. Literally the easiest GM job ever, still gave up a ton for them.

[Desertfox]

JJ has also trade for Torrey Craig twice and then basically drafted him once, when he couldn't trade for him.

[Ghost of Kleine]

Did they actually draft someone GoK didnt profile?

LOOL! It seems that way Frank. I didn't really profile him though because he would've easily been available from the undrafted pool! And we should've used that pick instead on Trace Jackson Davis or Jaylen Clark who were both available at 52. But Jones unsurprisingly chose a medial low end talent with a fringe role player ceiling but more likely 12-15 fringe rotation outcome. And looking upon Jones last few draft picks the Suns actually made might not be a "turn that frown upside down scenario"??

[Ghost of Kleine]

Lol, For those who might be disillusioned by what I've said about passing on Jackson Davis for Camara, Just take a brief look at their comparison:
https://www.tankathon.com/players/compare?players=toumani-camara--trayce-jackson-davis
Look specifically at production, and PER for translatable impact as well as win shares and BPM. As I've repeatedly said now. Camara will be a solid player, but not impact the game nearly to the level that Jackson Davis would have for us off the bench. Both are going to be in roles at the 4. Camara being relatively undersized at the 4 though at 6'8 and would be much more successful at the 3 if he can transition to that more. But ultimately Jackson Davis is the better all-around and more impactful player from the jump (if given equitable playing time. AND Again, Camara could have been had as an undrafted free agent signing! Meaning we really could've gotten BOTH Jackson Davis AND Camara to play a bigger/ more impactful lineup off the bench filling in the gaps with key free agents. All the Suns front office needed to do was to exercise a little more due diligence and strategy here and we could've most likely had BOTH. Or at least Jackson Davis and Clark who are both highly impactful players in their own positional roles.

Lastly, The reason I have the perspective that we blew it, And yes I do realize that the 52nd pick isn't some monumental decision in the grand scheme of things. But the reason I say we blew the pick is very simply because we just as easily could've taken the much better prospect with much better-established production (body of work) and key metrics. A player that fills/addresses a key position of need and checks multiple boxes for us, But again has better size, better production across the board, better-advanced metrics in the majority of categories, and still get Camara from the undrafted pool. This becomes very important BECAUSE of our
current/future situation and not really having ANY legitimate avenue for adding cost-controlled young talent going forward under the new CBA. So you need to absolutely maximize (to the fullest degree) whatever value options that you have left available to you. It's really that simple. for anyone still thinking I'm wrong to have this perspective, Let's just revisit this after both these players have played their 1st season and see who offers more impact for their team and has a better 1st year in their role??

** I'm at all wrong about this kid, Feel free to lineup with "I told you so's"!!!

[kennydorglas]

Yeah Jackson Davis made too much sense when Cleveland leapfrogged us to get Bates lol
Im actually sad on this one, maybe Sheandre will actually stay here and we're ****.