How Suns Center Battle Could Really Shake Out

The Suns will likely roll with Williams as the starter and Ighodaro as the backup to begin the year, just as they did last season, but do have some avenues to play Maluach and allow him to show that he will potentially be the team's long-term answer as their starting center.

Looking back at the beginning of the 2025-26 season, Phoenix played 23 games while using all three of Williams, Ighodaro and Nick Richards, so there is a chance the Suns try to use this same strategy with Maluach instead of Richards.

Another way they could use Maluach is playing him alongside Ighodaro in a jumbo lineup, which they experimented with very briefly last season, but this seems less likely after Phoenix added Miles Bridges and Koa Peat to create a solid power forward room.

The most probable path to major minutes for Maluach is if Williams, who has an extensive injury history, gets hurt again, which happened at the end of last season.

No matter what, Maluach will have to take advantage of any minutes he can find, and the Suns should have a short leash with all their centers and play whoever is the hottest or the best matchup against the opposing team.

We will see if coach Jordan Ott is willing to take any of these approaches to find Maluach minutes after he struggled at times his rookie season.

If he does and Maluach's development comes along strong, there's a possibility that Phoenix could trade away Williams or Ighodaro as soon as midseason.

Either way, having too much depth, like the Suns do at several positions, is not a bad problem to have, but they will have to find the best way to work through it, especially at the center spot.