Koby Brea selected 41st overall by the Phoenix Suns in the 2025 NBA Draft

Koby Brea will begin his professional career alongside Devin Booker.

During the second round of the 2025 NBA Draft on Thursday night in Brooklyn, NY, Brea was drafted with the 41st overall pick by the Phoenix Suns. The Los Angeles Lakers held the rights to this pick, but traded them to Phoenix on the day of the draft. Brea, a 6-foot-7 guard, becomes Mark Pope‘s first-ever draft selection (with the No. 41 pick — Pope’s jersey number at UK — no less) in his 10 years of being a head coach.

During the 2024-25 season with the Wildcats, Brea averaged a career-high 11.6 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 1.3 assists in 28.1 minutes per outing while shooting 47 percent from the field, an SEC-leading 43.5 percent from deep, and 91.4 percent from the free throw line. He finished fourth in program history in three-point percentage and tied for seventh-most in made triples during a single season with 93.

On the Suns, Brea will team up with former Wildcat guard Devin Booker, a four-time NBA All-Star. Another one-time Wildcat, center Nick Richards, is also on Phoenix’s 2025-26 roster. The Suns have a wealth of options in the backcourt as is, but more offseason moves could be made to provide Brea a clear path to early-season minutes.

Go be great @kobybrea . Dreams becoming a reality. pic.twitter.com/jkEuBw5iT1

— Kentucky Men’s Basketball (@KentuckyMBB) June 27, 2025

Brea, who turns 23 in November, spent his fifth and final college season at Kentucky, where he quickly proved he was capable of playing at the highest level of college basketball. The New York native started 16 of the 36 games he appeared in for the ‘Cats, most of those starts coming during SEC play as UK dealt with multiple injuries in the backcourt. He scored in double-digits 21 times, including a pair of 23-point outings against national champion Florida and in the NCAA Tournament against Illinois.

Prior to his time in Lexington, Brea spent four seasons with the Dayton Flyers. His freshman campaign in 2020-21 saw him play a limited role and miss a majority of the season due to fractures in both of his wrists. Fully healthy for the 2021-22 season, he averaged 8.1 points per game off the bench while shooting 42.3 percent from beyond the arc en route to his first of two Atlantic 10 Sixth Man of the Year awards.

Unfortunately, Brea went down with injuries once again, this time dealing with stress fractures in both of his legs. He elected to play through the pain during the 2022-23 season before opting for surgery once the offseason hit — which required metal rods to be inserted into his legs. Brea still saw 28 games of action that season, but his numbers dipped to 6.8 points per game with “only” a 37 percent outside shooting mark.

His senior season in 2023-24 was the one that put him on the map. Brea led the country in three-point shooting with a 49.8 percent clip. He averaged 11.1 points per game, once again coming off the bench for Dayton and winning another Atlantic 10 Sixth Man of the Year award. After jumping into the portal, he chose Kentucky over a final group of Blue Bloods that included Kansas, UConn, Duke, and North Carolina.

At Kentucky, Brea became known as more than just a shooter as the season went along. In particular, his defense and playmaking took a step in the right direction. Some of that was by necessity, with Brea having to step up in place of his injured teammates. The increased usage didn’t affect his efficiency, though — Brea still shot 40 percent from deep in the SEC.

“To stick long term, he’s gonna have to show that he can do other things too,” ESPN draft expert Jonathan Givony told KSR about Brea earlier this week. “That he can defend his position, that if people are running him off the line, that he can attack close outs, that he can make simple passes, but his bread and butter is always going to be with his shooting. And as long as he’s not a total liability on defense, I think he’s the guy that projects to have a good NBA career.”

Elite outside shooting is what put Brea on draft boards, but the skills he developed under Pope are what helped him get drafted.

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