After chill week at NBA Combine, Brayden Burries aims to stand out among top guards

“The first day we were out here, I texted JB. I was like 'Yo, where you at?'" Burries said. “He pulled up to the room and all three of us were chilling.”

So JB, being Arizona point guard Jaden Bradley, spent time with Burries and Koa Peat, who have already spent much of the predraft process together working out in Los Angeles.

Just like the way Arizona's three top scorers have had a chance to do since last summer, bonding together on a tight-knit Arizona team that won the Big 12 and reached the Final Four.

Never mind their difference in experience, or draft status, with Burries being a potential lottery pick after just one season in college, Peat being only 19 years old and a potential first-round pick if he doesn't return to Arizona and Bradley being a four-year veteran who is projected to fall outside the first round.

The only thing all that meant was that Burries could actually do the most chilling during the combine.

Bradley played in the Combine’s five-on-five scrimmages in an effort to prove himself a floor general worthy of a high second-round draft pick, while Peat had to spend the week under the microscope of his high-profile stay-or-go decision.

But Burries had much of the week off from the floor.

As a potential lottery pick with nothing to gain from the scrimmages, Burries sat out the five-on-five affairs, though he did show off his shooting touch in drills: Burries hit 70% off the dribble, 68.0% in the 3-point “star drill,” and 56.0% of his spot-up shots.

“I feel like I could have done better,” Burries said. “But I did pretty good.”

It probably didn’t matter much. After averaging just 4.0 points and shooting 21.0% over UA’s early-season games against Florida, UCLA and UConn, Burries turned himself into a proven shooter from all levels as a freshman in 2025-26.

He finished the season shooting 56.2% from two-point range, 39.1% from 3-point range and 80.5% from the line. Also, he led all of UA’s perimeter players in rebounding with an average of 4.9 per game and improved defensively.

There aren’t a lot of holes in his game.

If NBA scouts want to try to find one, they’ll have video of Arizona’s 39 games to pore through and, maybe, the chance to bring him in for a private tryout before the first round of the NBA Draft is held on June 23 in Brooklyn, New York.

Already, during his NBA Combine interview last week, Burries said he had held interviews with seven or eight teams, including several who hold picks in the lottery range: Dallas (9), Brooklyn (6), Milwaukee (10), Sacramento (7) and the Clippers (5), who play not too far from Burries’ home in San Bernardino and in a building (the Intuit Dome) that Burries and Arizona faced UCLA in back in November.

“To be able to play for a California team, that’d be crazy,” Burries said.

But while Burries is projected as a solid first-round pick, he has to differentiate himself in a crowded field of guards at the top of the draft: Kansas’ Darryn Peterson,  Arkansas’ Darius Acuff Jr., Illinois’ Keaton Wagler, Houston’s Kingston Flemings, Alabama’s Labaron Philon, Texas Tech’s Christian Anderson and Louisville’s Mikel Brown among them.

All could squeeze into the 14 lottery picks at the top of the draft. But Burries says he stands out, in part, because of how he can blend in.

With Bradley playing the vast majority of time at point guard for the Wildcats, Burries was the team’s top perimeter threat at shooting guard, but also spent time on the ball.

He says he can play both roles in the NBA.

“It was actually a blessing to play with JB, a veteran, a leader,” Burries said. “He helped me a lot this year. I can play alongside him, and also help him out and be on the ball. Now in workouts it’s working on my ball screens, my ball handling. Continue to sharpen that up, shooting. Stuff like that. I just gotta get better.”

Bradley appears to have little doubt that can happen.

Normally calm and collected during interviews, no matter the topic, Bradley burst into a grin when somebody asked him during his combine media interview to deliver a “scouting report” on Burries.

“I don’t feel like there’s a scouting report,” Bradley said. “Anything you do is wrong. Give him too much space, he’ll shoot a 3-ball. Press up, and he's gonna go right by you.

“I’m excited for his career. He's gonna be a great pick, a great asset to any team that gets him.”