Josh Jackson Selected No. 4 by Suns in 2017 NBA Draft, Twitter Praises Phoenix

The Phoenix Suns selected Kansas swingman Josh Jackson with the No. 4 overall pick Thursday, a move that became mostly expected in the lead-up to the 2017 NBA draft.

Jackson averaged 16.3 points, 7.4 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game during his lone season in Lawrence. He emerged as a third-team All-American selection, made the All-Big 12's first team and was named the conference's Freshman of the Year.

ESPN's Fran Fraschilla and Dick Vitale thought slipping to fourth overall will provide a source of motivation for Jackson:

Doug Haller of azcentral.com noted how the Suns have a promising young core of stars, made even stronger with the addition of Jackson:

Fox Sports' Skip Bayless sees Jackson as a solid piece of Phoenix's rotation:

Here's how others reacted to the pick:

"I think Josh is going to be a very good pro," Kansas coach Bill Self said, per Neil Best of Newsday. "In the NBA they talk about skill sets. Does he have an NBA skill? I think Josh has multiple NBA skills. He's a guard that can obviously play much bigger than that.

"You could almost play him at four spots offensively, and he's big enough and quick enough that he could almost guard four sports defensively."

Jackson entered the draft process competing with UCLA's Lonzo Ball and Washington's Markelle Fultz for the top overall selection. While Ball and Fultz were more oft-discussed as No. 1 picks, things might wind up working out for Jackson in the end. 

The top of the draft had a major shakeup when the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers agreed to a trade that saw Boston move to No. 3 and Philadelphia to No. 1. The Sixers selected Fultz with the top selection, leaving Ball to the Los Angeles Lakers—the only team for which he worked out.

Jackson was then available for the Celtics at No. 3, which set up the evening's first bit of uncertainty. Boston did not host Jackson for a workout, meaning its first opportunity to see him came after the trade was announced. That also meant the team had to do its own quick work to assess Jackson's character after a December incident with women's basketball player McKenzie Calvert, where he allegedly kicked the door and taillight of her car.

He told reporters at his Lakers workout that he had been taking an anger management course. 

"One of the biggest things I got out of it was just to control the things that I can control and not to worry about the things that I can't. And it sounds so simple, but I went home (to Detroit) and thought about that a lot, and I went home, and it made a huge amount of sense to me, because there are a lot of things in this world that we can't control but yet frustrates us but we just can't worry about them too much."

The Celtics decided to pass on Jackson at No. 3, which made him a pretty easy selection for Phoenix in the fourth slot. The Suns needed a defense-first wing to go alongside Devin Booker and Eric Bledsoe in their backcourt.

Having already drafted a pair of bigs in Dragan Bender and Marquese Chriss a year ago, the core of Phoenix's rebuild seems complete.