UA target Adan Diggs aims to help Goodyear Millennium win Arizona Open title

Because Goodyear's Millennium High School plays in a $16 million gym, has several Division I prospects and has faced several top national high school programs, including IMG Academy this season, it’s easy to figure that it, too, is some sort of basketball factory.

And it is. But it isn’t.

Let Adan Diggs explain. The Arizona recruiting target is rated one of the top 10 players in the high school class of 2028, a guy who could be having a much different life somewhere else, breathing basketball almost 24/7/365 at some faraway basketball-focused academy or prep school.

But he says he doesn’t want to. Or need to.

“It’s not that different,” Diggs said of Millennium compared to the basketball academies. “They’re just more isolated.”

They get basketball, with a side of school.

Diggs gets a school and basketball, together.

“Being at a normal public high school, still being able to be a kid at the end of the day with all your teammates, meeting new people in classes and getting to know teachers, is also a big part of a kid’s life that I don’t think most people understand,” Diggs said. “Doing all of that is really fun, rather than being stuck staring at a computer all day in your room, then going to practice for four and a half hours and doing that to the rest of the day.”

The Tigers have managed to do pretty well without that sort of routine.

They finished the regular season 21-3 and are one of three top contenders to win the Arizona Open Division title, facing Canyon View on Wednesday in their playoff opener as the No. 2 seed. They are expected to face top-seeded Sunnyslope in the Open Division title game, though third-seeded St. Mary’s and Duke signee Cameron Williams could get in the way.

One of the reasons Millennium is a favorite is that Gilbert Perry dropped off when Koa Peat left to become an Arizona freshman this season and another is simply Millennium’s sheer talent: The Tigers have several Division I prospects, including Arizona signee Cameron Holmes, four-star 2028 small forward Trey McKinney, and 2027 guard DJ Spencer.

Then there’s Diggs, who served as a magnet of sorts to ensure Holmes stuck with the Tigers after former coach Ty Amundsen left to become an ASU assistant coach last summer.

“I didn't know where my final destination was gonna be but ... we had the big addition of Adan,” Holmes said. “When we got Adan, I realized I wanted to play with a star.”

That’s one way to classify Diggs, the smooth, multiskilled 6-5 combo guard whom 247 Sports ranks the No. 7 overall player and top combo guard in the class of 2028, a ranking that Millennium coach Rich Thornton says is actually too low.

“There’s not six guys better than him, I can tell you that right now,” Thornton says.

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Having arrived to replace Amundson after coaching in Las Vegas with the well-regarded Bishop Gorman High School program and the Vegas Elite Club, Thornton has some perspective about talent level.

It doesn’t take him long to describe where and how Diggs fits in.

“He's just a God-gifted basketball player,” Thornton said last month after Goodyear beat Desert Vista. “He has a basketball body, an unbelievable skillset and a knack for really scoring the ball. And he’s a great, great teammate, too.”

Transferring to Millennium not only gave Diggs the chance to attend school closer to where he lives in Peoria with his mother, but also to become a teammate of Holmes, who had already struck up a relationship with him.

“I knew him growing up and we started communicating a while back, because there’s always been a speculation that I was gonna go to Millennium,” even as a freshman, Diggs said.

“Plans change, but I’m here now and ever since, he's just been a mentor. He wants to see me succeed, just as much as I want to see him succeed. So it's a constant pushing each other to be great.”

There’s one caveat, however: Diggs has to listen to Holmes’ pitches to get him to become a Wildcat, too.

“Of course,” Diggs says, adding that Arizona is high on his list anyway.

“It’s obviously really big,” Diggs said of his interest in UA. “Being able to stay just an hour or two away, so my family can come watch me play… and there’s huge games that could potentially lift my draft stock in the future to be what I want to be.”

If Diggs chooses the Wildcats, he might even join them in time for the 2027-28 season. Diggs said last month he was already looking into the extra classwork and other requirements he would need to meet in order to skip his junior season and graduate in 2027.

“That’s definitely the goal right now,” he said.

But his other focus picks up again Wednesday, when Millennium will meet Canyon View to start what could be a five-game run to the Open Division title, possibly against Sunnyslope.

While the Tigers are loaded with sophomore and junior talent, Holmes and fellow Millennium senior Dylan Coday are seniors that Diggs said he wants to end their careers on a big note.

“They really want to win a state championship this year,” Diggs said. “I promise to God I will put everything in my power to help achieve that goal.”