Mario Hezonja: Phoenix Suns 2015 Draft Profile

Weaknesses

As you might have figured out by now, Hezonja is an incredibly cocky player, and it shows on the court. Take the following play for example. With his team up 19 points and less than five seconds left, Hezonja steals the ball away from the other team, and as you probably guessed, he doesn’t kill the clock.

Instead, he nutmegs a defender, bouncing the ball through his legs, runs down the court and throws down a windmill dunk right before the final buzzer. That dunk put his team up 21.

That play sums up a lot about Hezonja as a player. He’s very, very, very confident in his own abilities, almost to a fault at times. Hezonja has apparently fought with teammates and coaches, so he’d feel right at home on the Suns! and his body language on the court is often a big negative. It will be interesting to see how whichever team drafts Hezonja deals with his antics, because he can absolutely be an effective player given the opportunity.

Outside of his swagger, there seem to be two main flaws to Hezonja’s game at this point, and they’re kind of intertwined. Hezonja can struggle to play within a team on both offense and defense, which, according to DraftExpress, is part of why his coaches are frustrated with him as a player.

On offense, Hezonja seems to be far too content dribbling the ball around and settling for an isolation jumper, despite the fact that he’s actually a really good passer. Hezonja can be a bit of a black hole at times, and that can also be frustrating to deal with.

I’ve highlighted another play as an example of this. Hezonja dribbles the ball 10 times in a half court set, wasting over half the shot clock, before he starts to do anything. Now, this play ends in an awesome poster dunk for Hezonja, but more often than not, that is a bad way to attack NBA defenders. You have to be able to work within a team.

On the defensive side of the ball, Hezonja can lose interest if the ball isn’t in his vicinity, which causes him to lose his man a fair amount. He does have the recovery ability to make up for this, but as a two guard, he needs to get much better off ball.

In theory, you would want to be able to stick a guy like Hezonja on a Klay Thompson, and tell him to stay with Thompson and use his length to bother him. He’s not there yet. He could be some day, but he’s not there yet.

Essentially, the problems for Hezonja circle around whether or not he can play team basketball, but if he can, he may end up being an absolute steal in this draft.

Next: Potential Fit