Oso Ighodaro breakdown: What to expect from the Suns' second-round rookie

After walking away from Day 1 of the 2024 NBA Draft with Ryan Dunn, the No. 56 pick and two extra second-rounders, the Phoenix Suns weren’t done yet. PHNX Sports reported the Suns might look to move up in the pecking order on Day 2 if someone they liked fell far enough, and they wound up doing just that, trading up to pick No. 40 for Oso Ighodaro.

It wasn’t the Marquette product Suns fans were anticipating heading into the week, but by drafting Tyler Kolek’s high-IQ pick-and-roll partner for the Golden Eagles, Phoenix got an intriguing big man with a versatile skill-set.

Make no mistake about it: Oso Ighodaro was Phoenix’s intended second-round target. According to a source, he was the guy the Suns were hoping to get their hands on, and when they saw an opportunity to trade up for him, they took it.

First, the Suns sent an extra 2028 second-round pick in their possession (via the Boston Celtics, protected 31-45) to the New York Knicks in exchange for pick No. 51. At that point, the Suns packaged No. 51 and No. 56 in another trade with the Knicks, essentially giving them 51, 56, and that protected Celtics pick in 2028 to move up to No. 40 for Ighodaro.

So what should Phoenix expect out of the guy they were so excited to land? Let’s take a look at Oso Ighodaro’s game, starting with the strengths this Chandler, Arizona, native bring to the table.

Oso Ighodaro strengths

On the offensive end, Oso Ighodaro’s versatility starts as a playmaker. As CJ Moore highlighted in an excellent piece for The Athletic, Marquette coach Shaka Smart consulted with Denver Nuggets assistant David Adelman after Ighodaro’s sophomore year to pick his brain about some of the five-out actions they were running with Nikola Jokic. That feedback led to increased experimentation in practice, and as a result, Marquette started playing through Ighodaro more often as something of a point center.

The results showed in his junior year. Ighodaro’s 3.3 assists per game — followed by 2.9 assists per game this season — don’t sound like much, but keep in mind he was playing with Kolek, an elite floor general who led the NCAA in assists.

Ighodaro may be the best passing big in the entire draft class thanks to his combination of touch, vision and ability to process the game quickly. He has no problem making reads as an offensive hub from the top of the key or the elbows, zipping passes to corner shooters in the short roll when they need some oomph, putting the right amount of finesse on lobs, and showing terrific instincts on sleek bounce passes to backdoor cutters in tight windows:

Being able to do so with such a low number of turnovers (224 assists to 122 turnovers over his last two seasons at Marquette) speaks volumes about his growth as a playmaker. During that transition period, Smart had challenged Ighodaro to improve his handle, and he did. That allowed him to apply more pressure as someone who could use his athleticism and speed to put the ball on the ground and collapse a defense.

“At Marquette we ran a lot of NBA offense, just free-flowing, five-out, and I feel like it really prepared me to play in a system like this with a team like this,” Ighodaro said at his introductory press conference. “I think my playmaking and my ball skills will be really good for this team as a connector. All the scoring that is on this team, I think that someone like me that can kind of fill those gaps in between can be really effective.”

Even better, Ighodaro is a high-end screener, an intuitive roller and a proficient dribble handoff big who does the little things well in order to free up his ball-handlers. That’s an excellent quality to pair with the Suns’ Big 3, and Ighodaro makes good contact on screens. He’s a great re-screener who can readjust quickly, switching his hips to flip the angle at the drop of a hat.

Ighodaro is also visibly communicative with his teammates, leading them during timeouts at Marquette off the court and helping direct them where to go on the court. His high basketball IQ is pretty apparent:

Of course, all that screening ability and understanding of the game isn’t as effective if a player isn’t a threat on the court, but Ighodaro is an athletic, high-flying, above the rim finisher. Not only can he make plays out of the short roll, but he can close the distance between himself and the rim to feed others, or move without the ball to supply a useful lob threat.

According to Hoop-Math, Ighodaro took 53 percent of his shots at the rim last season and made 63 percent of them. He was assisted on 64 percent of his makes at the rim, and if he develops the same type of synergy with Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal that he enjoyed with Kolek, he’ll get plenty of high-quality looks just by capably fulfilling that aspect of his role.

When Ighodaro catches the ball in the short roll and the low man stays down to protect the basket, the 21-year-old loved to resort to his floater game. According to Sam Vecenie of The Athletic, he made an impressive 54.5 percent of his floaters the last two seasons, and he shot 52.2 percent overall on all 2-point jumpers — a look that constituted 46.2 percent of his shot diet. The form looks a little mechanical, but those runners and hook shots were undeniably effective, and Ighodaro never saw a push shot he didn’t like:

Vertical spacing was sorely missed in Phoenix last year, but Ighodaro’s leaping ability will provide that component on rim dives, especially as a guy who recorded a 39.5-inch max vertical leap and a combine-best 35-inch standing vertical at the 2024 NBA Draft Combine. He runs the floor hard in transition too, which should help a Suns squad that needed an injection of youthful energy from time to time.

Averaging 13.4 points per game on 57.6 percent shooting is fine and all, but most importantly, we haven’t even touched on the defensive end yet. Ighodaro may not have incredible size or awe-inspiring length, but he does possess the foot speed, lateral mobility and intellect to be a switchable big at the next level.

That scheme versatility may be his best defensive trait at the NBA level, since he was able to effectively blitz and recover, or move his feet on switches to keep ball-handlers in front. Doing so in the pros will be an elevated challenge, but his basketball IQ translates to that end of the floor too. Ighodaro was routinely engaged on defense, showing active hands and making the right reads and help rotations.

Finally, Oso Ighodaro is one of the more NBA-ready prospects in the draft, which should help him contribute from day one. Phoenix badly needed youth, defense, athleticism, lob threats and the ability to make an immediate impact, and they checked all of those boxes with the 40th pick in this year’s draft.

Oso Ighodaro weaknesses

With that being said, Oso Ighodaro was a second-round pick for a reason. Like 99 percent of NBA rookies, he has a few weaknesses in his game that he’ll need to improve in order to reach his ceiling.

For starters, Ighodaro is slightly undersized for a center at 6-foot-10 with a 6-foot-11 wingspan. He’s a supremely intelligent big, but he doesn’t play very physical at this stage. Most NBA bigs with a similar mix of basketball IQ, playmaking and finesse — Jokic, Domantas Sabonis, Alperen Sengun — are extremely strong and physical in order to function the way that they do.

Ighodaro is smaller and more prone to being uprooted from his spots. He wasn’t a great rebounder (6.9 boards per game) or shot-blocker (1.3 blocks per game), and Marquette was a terrible defensive rebounding team as a result. All of that points to an inherent disadvantage in length and physicality.

It wasn’t for lack of trying, of course; Ighodaro put in the effort defensively to keep opposing bigs out of the post and box out when shots went up. But he frequently struggled on those fronts, and being able to hinder drivers who seek out contact will be an adjustment. Basically, he’ll need to get stronger in order to handle NBA-level tussles on the interior against opposing bigs or on the perimeter guarding more powerful drivers.

The other chief concern with Ighodaro is his lack of shooting range outside of 12-15 feet. The Marquette product took a grand total of two 3-point attempts during his four years in college, missing both. He shot just 62.3 percent from the foul line last year, which was slightly above his career average (61.6 percent) for the Golden Eagles.

Simply put, he’s not a stretch-big at this point. He’s still young, but so far, there’s little indication he’ll ever become one either.

That in and of itself is not a death blow to his potential career, but Ighodaro’s shot will likely take time to be serviceable beyond the midrange, and there’s no guarantee it happens at all. This puts even more of an emphasis on being able to cut and roll well with this particular group, accentuating his strengths while avoiding situations where that lack of perimeter touch becomes a problem.

In short, Ighodaro will need to prove he’s not a tweener due to his relative lack of size, length, physicality and shot-blocking. Defensively, he’s better-suited right now as a 4 who can switch onto the perimeter, but on the offensive end, his playmaking abilities, utility as a pick-and-roll threat and lack of 3-point shooting make him more fit for the 5-spot.

Conclusion

Despite the concerns over his lack of size, physicality and perimeter shooting, Oso Ighodaro is a cerebral, playmaking big who can defensively hold his own on the perimeter while setting good screens and throwing down alley-oops on the other end. Those traits make him a natural fit with a Suns team that will call on their rookies to contribute from day one.

Although he doesn’t bring the floor-spacing component that Mike Budenholzer is used to having with his big men, Ighodaro can at least provide a change of pace at the 5 with his athleticism, speed, above-the-rim presence and defensive versatility. He brings a few different traits that Jusuf Nurkic does not, but he’ll also lend some of the same facilitating chops that Nurk provides as an occasional offensive hub. If Ighodaro’s earning regular minutes, that could improve the carryover between the first and second units.

He’ll need to shore up his rebounding and prove he can be a rim protector at the next level, but it’s worth noting that Marquette’s opponents went from shooting 51 percent at the rim with Ighodaro on the court to 67 percent whenever he sat, per Swish Theory’s Matt Powers.

Between Oso Ighodaro and Ryan Dunn, the Suns definitely checked off multiple boxes on the defensive end, and it’s easy to see why both players were so high on the team’s draft board.