Some crafty guard scoring added to the fold.
Tennessee guard Jordan Gainey will play for the Summer Suns, Jon Chepkevich of DraftExpress reported.
Before he played for Tennessee and USC Upstate prior to that, Gainey was a star at Tucson Salpointe Catholic, where he won a 4A state championship as a senior in 2019-20, while his father Justin was an assistant at Arizona. Justin was Tennessee’s associate head coach last year.
Jordan initially signed with Pima Community College out of high school before instead choosing the postgraduate route ahead of his four-year Division 1 career.
The 6-foot-4, 190-pound guard is coming off an exceptional close to his college career that included SEC All-Tournament honors and NCAA Tournament All-Region honors.
Gainey averaged 14.4 points (30.3% from 3), three rebounds and 1.4 assists over those seven games, all while coming off the bench.
His 11.6 points per game off the bench (in all but one game) were third on his team behind Detroit Pistons No. 37 pick Chaz Lanier and Pistons Summer League invitee Zakai Zeigler.
He’s a crafty scorer who can shoot it at all three levels but is best shooting off the catch. When he drives, he’s able to score around contact, but not through it. His free-throw rate, which skyrocketed to 42.6% in his last yea,r is encouraging to that point, though.
He’ll join Drake product Mitch Mascari, two-way forward CJ Huntley and draft picks Khaman Maluach (assuming visa issues get worked out), Rasheer Fleming and Koby Brea in Las Vegas.
They could be joined by 2024 draft picks Ryan Dunn and Oso Ighodaro, as well as 2024-25 two-way players TyTy Washington Jr., Collin Gillespie, and Jalen Bridges, all three of whom are restricted free agents at $2 million.
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