This is an IHeart podcast.

Welcoming into the show, we've got our guy, Ryan McDonough,

we're going to be asking him some of the inside baseball questions on the draft.

I have not spoken ever to Ryan, so happy to meet you. I'm super excited.

Former GM of the Phoenix Suns spent a decade working for the Boston Celtics, where he was

everything from an international scout to assistant GM to my man, Danny, Trader Danny Aange.

Currently, our Odyssey Basketball Insider, that's where I'm from, Odyssey Basketball Insider,

cannot wait to ask him a ton of questions. How are you doing, sir?

Hey, Trista, I'm doing well.

I want to, because there's a lot of people doing mocks. I'm not really too interested in, in, like,

debating who's going to go where or who's the best fit where.

I'm really interested in the process of drafting and just kind of how it all works from someone who's been there and has been there with a bunch of different teams.

First and foremost, there's this big debate about team needs versus best available.

What is your stance on that? And is that a trend that sort of changes over time? And what are some

examples of ways that door one works and doesn't work and door two works and doesn't work.

Yeah, really good question. I think the first thing you have to ask as a franchise is if player X in the draft is better, and he probably won't be better immediately.

Obviously, these things take some time. But if he has a chance to be better than

anybody on our roster, we should probably draft player X because we can move the other guys

on the roster, you know, if he's that good, if he has a chance to be a special transcendent

player. Now, there are some arguments the other way. I mean, one of the things that we get

criticized for, and I certainly had some involvement with was the Andréant

with the number one pick in Phoenix thought process at the time, organizationally right or wrong.

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