The Phoenix Suns selected Deandre Ayton first overall in 2018, and fans believed that the franchise had just taken the next great star big man.
Heck – Ayton himself said that he and Devin Booker were going to form Shaq/Kobe 2.0, arguably the best big/wing combo in NBA history.
Such was the belief that people didn’t just question whether Ayton was going to be the franchise’s fourth Rookie of the Year award winner, but whether or not he could be a unanimous selection.
Then the 2018-19 season came and went, and while Ayton statistically still deserves to be the league’s Rookie of the Year over Luka Doncic and Trae Young, but the big games that were expected to lead SportsCenter a couple of times, as well as the leap in the team’s regular season record, never materialized.