The Phoenix Suns are entering a new era after trading Kevin Durant to the Houston Rockets for Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, the 10th pick, and multiple future second-round picks.
Phoenix made multiple moves on draft night, including drafting Duke’s Khaman Maluach and trading for the Charlotte Hornets‘ Mark Williams. Heading into draft night without a starting-caliber center, the Suns added two young rim-protectors and shot-blockers to pair alongside their scorers of Devin Booker and Green.
“Maluach will bring high-level intensity, rim-protection timing, rebounding ability and switchable defense — qualities the team lacked last season — injecting much-needed youth and energy into a roster overloaded in the backcourt,” wrote ESPN’s Jonathan Givony, one of several pundits who praised the Suns for their draft night.
Phoenix finished 36-46 in the regular season, missing the playoffs before eventually trading Durant before the draft. Booker is reportedly committed to staying with the Suns long-term, and they just added two strong frontcourt players who will help a team that struggled with defense and rebounding.
Suns Add Khaman Maluach & Mark Williams on Draft Night
The Suns drafted Maluach with the 10th overall pick, which they received in the trade that sent Durant to Houston. Phoenix’s big men last season were a rotating cast of Nick Richards, Jusuf Nurkic, and Mason Plumlee at different points of the year, none of whom played more than 24 minutes a game or scored more than 10 points a night.
Their interior defense was essentially an afterthought last season, as they ranked 27th in the league, but Maluach comes in to address those issues. As one of the youngest players in the draft he has a lot of room to improve, yet in his freshman season at Duke he proved to be one of the best rim-protectors in the country with his massive size and frame.
“It was a terrific outcome for Phoenix,” ESPN’s Jeremy Woo wrote on draft night. “And he might be the exact type of player they need to anchor whatever the team is going to look like moving forward.”
The 7-foot-2 Maluach averaged 8.6 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks on 71.2% shooting in Duke’s run to the Final Four this past season.
Williams heads to the Suns after a failed trade that attempted to send him to the Los Angeles Lakers at the 2025 NBA trade deadline. Instead, he goes to Phoenix in a deal that sent the 29th overall pick to the Hornets, who drafted UConn’s Liam McNeeley.
Like Maluach, Williams is a paint presence on defense who can anchor a team on that side of the floor. He averaged 15.3 points, 10.2 rebounds, 2.5 assists, and 1.2 blocks in 44 games for Charlotte this season. He has struggled with injuries through his first three seasons, but when healthy, is impactful on both sides of the floor.
Phoenix Has a Lot of the Same Players
Although analysts named Phoenix the biggest winners of NBA Draft night, the team made moves that put two similar players next to each other. Maluach praised Williams, but his development could stall if they choose to only play one of them at a time.
“Mark has been in the league for a couple years, and I’m going to learn a lot from him,” Maluach said after he was drafted 10th overall. “I’m going to learn how to navigate and how to get better and what stuff I need to do to be able to play throughout the whole year and get better.”
The Suns have other priorities to deal with, as after the Durant trade, they have three other very similar players. Their backcourt depth includes Booker, Green, and Bradley Beal, all of whom are two-guards who can score 20-25 points per game.
Phoenix is now set in two positions, but they lack any true depth across the rest of the court. Even after the massive Durant deal, they could be in line to make another off-season move, either trading Green, Brooks or a rotational player.
The Suns are in a strange position and have a long way to go to get back to a form similar to that of their 2022 run to the NBA Finals. They added top talent on draft night to fix their holes, but new head coach Jordan Ott has a lot of decisions to make on a roster that has extreme depth in some spots, but little to no depth in others.
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