Former local standouts among Valley Suns open tryout attendees

Several familiar faces were among the more-than-100 who were at Valley Suns open tryouts on Saturday

TEMPE — The Phoenix Suns’ G League affiliate Valley Suns held open tryouts on Saturday on Arizona State’s campus for the developmental squad.

Valley head coach John Little spoke beforehand about his approach to his new position and the open tryouts ahead.

The tryout session at the Sun Devil Fitness Complex ran for about three hours beginning around 9 a.m., with over 100 sign-ups.

James Jones and Phoenix assistant Vince Legarza, who also coached the Summer Suns, were also in attendance.

Among the vast number of players in attendance across five courts were:

• Chase Jeter, 6-foot-10 big who played collegiately at Duke and Arizona but dealt with injury troubles; also won a gold medal with USA Basketball at the U18 Americas in 2014
• Cameron Satterwhite, 6-foot-4 guard who played high school at Gilbert Christian and college at Loyola Chicago; his sister, Lauryn, played at Surprise Valley Vista High and Northwestern before transferring to Arizona State
• Josh Baker, 6-foot-4 guard who played high school at Tempe McClintock High and played 32 games on last year’s Grand Canyon University team that got the program’s first NCAA Tournament win
• Holland Woods, 6-foot-1 guard who played 25 games for Arizona State in 2020-21 and 29 games for Grand Canyon in 2021-22 after three seasons with Portland State
• Sam Cunliffe, 6-foot-6 wing who was one of Arizona State’s highest rated commits at the time, but most of his collegiate success came at Evansville
• Kyree Walker, 6-foot-6 wing who played at Phoenix Hillcrest Prep and committed to Arizona State as a five-star prospect but never ended up there; has some G League experience and Canadian league experience
• Michael Bibby, 6-foot-3 guard who played at Phoenix Shadow Mountain High for his dad, Mike; played collegiately at South Florida and App State
• Cameron Smith, 6-foot-7 wing formerly of Cal State Bakersfield
• Christian Zitney, 6-foot-3 guard who started at Grand Canyon and also played at Faulkner

“It’s a blessing to be here,” Zitney told a camera during the first part of tryouts.

What else did Valley Suns head coach John Little say?

Little shared thoughts on the Jaden Shackelford trade, after the team exchanged a 2025 first-round pick in the G League Draft for the former Oklahoma City Blue and Alabama guard.

“Jaden’s a good player,” Little said, recalling watching Shackelford average about 11 points per game against Little’s Maine Celtics in the G League Finals in April. “He’s just a very versatile guard, can play multiple positions.

“He’s very complementary and in his own right, he’s like that borderline NBA guy, and we’d love to help him take that next step.”

As for the players more ready to translate their games to the NBA such as two-way players Jalen Bridges and Collin Gillespie, Little understands the part he’ll play in their development.

“That’s one of our biggest roles here, help those guys and create opportunities that they can eventually be roster players, rotation players, so it’s been great,” Little said. “Those guys have been awesome, they’ve been in a ton this summer, got to start building relationships with them.

“It’s always great two-way communication, we’re always open with the (Phoenix) Suns with that, so hopefully we can add value to them and add value to (Phoenix).”

Little said Bridges’ size as a player his level of shooter along with his ability to defend multiple positions are some of the reasons the rookie could see an accelerated development by making the right reads as a secondary player.