Suns Completely Transform Center Position With Surprise Draft Night Moves

PHOENIX — The Phoenix Suns’ center position for the future completely changed in the matter of a couple minutes during Wednesday night’s draft. 

Right after the Suns got a gift with the 10th pick in Duke center Khaman Maluach, who surprisingly fell out of the top nine, Phoenix decided to make another move for a big man, trading for Charlotte Hornets center Mark Williams in exchange for Vasa Micic, the 29th pick and a future 2029 first-round pick. 

The Suns had a lot of question marks at center heading into the offseason after finishing the year with Nick Richards, Oso Ighodaro and Mason Plumlee. 

Plumlee is a free agent and unlikely to be retained after being benched late in the year, while Ighodaro is still on his rookie deal and Richards’ salary in non-guaranteed for next year, so the Suns have a choice to make six months after acquiring Richards from the Hornets in January to be their starting center. 

This is Phoenix’s third trade with Charlotte since January after the Suns also traded Jusuf Nurkic, who started the year as Phoenix’s starting center, in a separate deal to the Hornets ahead of the trade deadline. 

After trying to figure out their center rotation for a very long time, Phoenix seems like it may have just found its answer with the 23-year-old Williams and 18-year-old Maluach in the post-Kevin Durant era. 

Both players are young lob threats with extreme defensive upside, especially Maluach, giving Phoenix a solid foundation to build around. 

Williams has had injury problems in the past, failing a physical in a proposed trade to the Los Angeles Lakers in February, but has been extremely productive when he plays, averaging 15.3 points, 10.2 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game while shooting 60.4% from the field across 44 contests during the 2024–25 season.

The 7-foot Williams is also fairly inexpensive for now, due $6.3 million for the 2025-26 season and is a restricted free agent next summer.

Maluach has only been playing basketball since he was 13, but his height at 7-foot-2 and 7-foot-6 wingspan is why he was considered the best center in the draft after starting all 39 games for Duke in his lone season season with the Blue Devils, averaging 8.6 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks per game with 71.2% field-goal percentage.

With that said, Phoenix now goes from having Jalen Green, Devin Booker and Ryan Dunn as their building blocks for the future to adding Maluach and Williams to that fold. 

Pairing Maluach and Williams together replicates a strategy the Dallas Mavericks used very successfully when rostering both Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II in their run to the 2024 NBA Finals, but Phoenix could also be hoping Maluach develops a jumpshot, which he showed flashes of at Duke, to put the two big men on the court together.