The Phoenix Suns have traded away Kevin Durant to the Houston Rockets for Dillon Brooks and Jalen Green, the #10 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft and five future second-round picks. What did they do with that haul? They drafted Khaman Maluach at #10, traded two late first-round picks for center Mark Williams, and traded up to the 31st and 41st picks of the 2025 Draft. In the process, they spent all five of the second-round picks they acquired in the Kevin Durant trade.

This is a review of each player and a grade based on what sort of bang for the buck the Suns got out of the pick. Fit will be taken into consideration to an extent that I assume Beal, Allen, O’Neale, Richards, won’t be on the opening day roster, but Booker, Green, Dunn, Brooks, and Oso Ighodaro will be. I also assume the Suns will hang onto the players they have acquired over the past few days (Williams, Maluach, Fleming, Brea, and CJ Huntley).

Let’s look at each of them as individually as possible and ignore “fit” to the maximum extent practical because we know this roster is still very much a work in progress.

Dillon Brooks is a 29-year-old, 6’6”, 220 lb. 3-and-D wing who comes with a nasty reputation. He’s very much in the mold of a Raja Bell or Matt Barnes defensive specialist who everyone hates when they’re on the other team and loves when they’re on yours. He makes $22 million this year and $21 million in 2026-27.

He may have already peaked statistically, showing a gradual decline in most areas since his best year in Memphis in 2022, including points, rebounds, and assists. Speaking of which, he is not capable of initiating the offense or playing PF. The one area where he has continued to improve, however, is three-point shooting, where he shot 39.7% last year. He remains a top 20% defender.

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Brooks grades out as about an average starter for a good team, which the Suns certainly aren’t. He’s a significant improvement over Ryan Dunn in terms of three-point shooting, floor spacing, and free throw shooting (where Dunn was 5th worst in the league last year). He’s also a significant, but modest, improvement over Royce O’Neale, even if it could be argued O’Neale is a better value on a contract less than half the size of Brooks’. Dillon is slightly overpaid, but not obscenely so.

All in all, this is a solid, if unspectacular, acquisition that solidified the Suns at small forward, making the position one that’s locked down (pun intended) for the next two years.

We’ll start with the boilerplate: Green is a 6’4”, 186 lb., 23-year-old shooting guard who averaged 21.0 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 3.4 apg, and shot 42.3% from the field in 32.9 mpg. Once you start any sort of deeper analysis, however, you begin to understand that these stats are basically empty calories.

His true shooting percentage and eFG% are in the 34th and 26th percentile, respectively. Given his 21.0 ppg, it’s clear that he’s a high-volume, low-efficiency scorer.

His defense has been horrific. Calling him a traffic cone is an insult to road construction equipment. It’s something closer to a traffic cone that’s been steamrolled and then melted into the asphalt. His first two seasons in the NBA, his defensive box plus minus ranked in the first percentile, or literally the worst in the NBA. In his second two seasons, it’s risen to about the 25th percentile. The eye test says that the defensive game comes too fast for Green, and he’s always a step too slow because he needs to THINK about what to do next on D, then do it, rather than instinctively knowing what to do and where to be.

While people like Flex from Jesey get upset at judging the roster before it’s set, unless the Suns plan on trading Devin Booker, it is ABSOLUTELY fair to judge Jalen Green’s fit with the team. Jalen Green and Booker will both be on the team; they play the same position, Green is very similar to Bradley Beal, and we’ve seen how well Beal fits in next to Booker already.

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The TL;DR is that Green has all the same problems playing alongside Booker that Bradley Beal does, but worse. Green is arguably a worse defender, shooter, and distributor statistically. He scores more than Beal, but far less efficiently. They’re basically the same size, playing the same role. With Booker and Beal playing together last year without Durant, the Suns were 1-5.

The Suns were 22-31 when Beal played last year. They were 14-15 when he didn’t play. Which is a sufficient sample size to say that the team was definitively better when Beal didn’t play.

The reason is likely simple: when Beal played, he wasn’t particularly good, and he either forced Booker to play out of position at small forward or at point guard, depending on who the other starters were. Jalen Green will cause the exact same problems as a nearly identical player.

It might be a different story if Green were 6’7” and could comfortably play small forward or was good enough defensively to defend point guards at the point of attack. But he isn’t, and he will almost certainly cause all the same on-court problems as Beal because he basically is the same as Beal.

All of this would be bad enough, but Green’s $33 million per-year contract goes on for another three years. This is a severe overpay for a player who grades out as a microwave sixth man at best, and not a starter. The Suns basically decided that having one untradable, unplayable shooting guard on a bloated contract wasn’t enough; they needed another for 50% longer. Oh, and they did it at the expense of Kevin Durant.

As a quick reminder, the Suns were 3-17 without Durant last year. Without massive help in the front court and at point guard, I expect the Suns to be historically bad this upcoming season, winning perhaps 12-13 games, while giving all their hard-lost ping-pong balls to some other team in pick swaps.

Thus, the fact that Green is less injury-prone than Beal is potentially a negative, given that the Suns were better when Beal was out, and I expect the same to be true for Green for exactly the same reasons.

For all of this, I give the acquisition of Green an F. I will be absolutely shocked if fans don’t feel about him the way they feel about Bradley Beal by the end of the season. The results of this experiment are completely foreseeable, because it’s the exact same experiment the Suns have been running for the past two years with a nearly identical player.

They say the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Apparently, Suns fans and management are completely nuts when it comes to Jalen Green, and I feel like to only sane one in the room.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Mark Williams is a 23-year-old, 7-foot, 240 lb. power forward-center in his 4th year out of Duke. He averaged 15.3 ppg on 60.4% shooting, 10.2 rpg, and 2.5 apg in 26.6 mpg in 44 games last season. That all looks great, until you get to the last part. In his first three years in the league, Williams has averaged 35 games per season played and 47 lost due to injury. These include ankle, hand, back, and foot injuries, some of them multiple times.

If he had a nickname, it would be Mr. Glass.

Perhaps these were all flukes, but this is likely the reason why Charlotte would part ways with someone who appears to be a starting caliber center (at first glance, more on this later) for two very late first-round draft picks. They instead kept Jusuf Nurkic, with whom Suns fans are very well acquainted. If the Hornets have more faith in Nurkic than Mark Williams, that should be a giant red flashing neon light.

Physically, Williams has all the tools. He has a 7’7” wingspan and a 9’9” vertical reach, amongst the highest ever recorded at the NBA draft combine. He has good athleticism, good free-throw shooting mechanics, and a soft touch around the basket. He’s a better-than-average passer for a big man.

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His rebounding is somewhere north of the 95th percentile both offensively and defensively, and if he played more than 30 mpg, he’d be among the league leaders. He’s a better-than-average shot blocker, and his length is enough that he could disrupt shots.

Notice that I wrote COULD.

Over the past three seasons, Williams' defensive box plus minus has steadily regressed, from 58th percentile in his first year, to 38th in his second, to a wretched 7th in his third. Some of this can be blamed on poor player development and coaching in a woeful basketball program. But he isn’t quick enough to guard people in space and struggles against stretch bigs. His effort is also very inconsistent. His basketball IQ is also below average, and he struggles with team defense and assignments.

Offensively, Williams has a soft touch near the basket and can throw down rim-rattling dunks. He’s not much of a threat outside the paint, and not a three-point shooter. He’s a strong offensive rebounder who gets a lot of points off of put-backs and finishing ability around the rim. He excels at lobs, and his size and athleticism make him a tough matchup for opposing defenses. He doesn’t stretch defenses, but overall, his advanced metrics say he’s a net plus on offense.

In a weird sort of way, he’s another empty calorie player like Jalen Green: eye-popping stats, but his actual on-court impact tends to be a net negative as a starter. Based on his performance to date, he grades out as a top-tier backup center, or marginal starter given his defensive deficiencies and limitations on offense when it comes to spacing the floor.

Fortunately, Williams is still on the 4th year of a rookie scale contract, meaning he only costs $6.2 million in cap space. The starting center and power forward spots in Phoenix are wide open, and if he manages to play defense, put in consistent effort, and stay healthy, this becomes an A or an A+. If he plays his usual 40 games per season and plays at a backup center level with lackadaisical defense, it’s a C- for costing the Suns a pair of picks that might have turned out better.

There’s also the question of “fit,” given that the Suns took Khaman Maluach with the 10th pick, who is physically similar to Williams. I don’t regard this as a big problem: Williams gets hurt a lot, he plays 27 mpg, and he’s a lot more polished than 18-year-old Maluach. Maluach is not ready to be a starter, and probably won’t be for at least a couple of years, so Williams will perform a service by helping him ease him into the role. Given that between the two, they only represent $13 million in salary (total) for a starting and backup center, I don’t really see the issue.

Thus, the talent, fit, and athleticism are there for this to be a home run trade, and the Suns probably made the right call to swing for the fences on a low-risk, high-reward kind of player.

Maluach is an 18-year-old, 7’2”, 250 lb. center with a 7’7” wingspan and 9’6” standing reach who played a single season at Duke. While there, he averaged 8.6 ppg in 21.2 mpg on an astounding 72.3% shooting from the field. He also averaged 6.6 rpg and 1.3 bpg. He also has a surprisingly good free-throw percentage of 76.6%.

On the plus side: his physical measurements are off the charts, and he’s more mobile than you’d expect from someone so big.

He’s young, coachable, has a fantastic attitude, and is beloved by his coaches and teammates. He plays hard and realizes what a gift he’s been given coming from South Sudan, which has been ravaged by famine, civil war, and genocide for decades. He doesn’t try to do too much and plays within himself, rarely turning the ball over or missing a shot.

His free-throw percentage suggests he could develop a shooting game, and we’ve seen him working on his 3-point range. He’s an amazing target for lobs, and a lot of his offense comes on put-backs from offensive rebounds. The difference between his offensive and defensive rating is a ridiculous 54 points. For comparison, Cooper Flaggs was “only” 26.8. His footwork, like most kids who started with soccer, is better than most of his American counterparts.

Photo by Jamie Schwaberow/NCAA Photos via Getty Images

The downside: The kid is beyond raw.

He only picked up basketball when he was 13, and he’s only 18 now. He has little in the way of instincts, and his reads are slow. This leads to being out of position and failure to anticipate what opponents will do next. This contributes to his low rate of blocks and steals for someone of his size and athleticism.

You don’t want him putting the ball on the floor (which, thankfully, he rarely does). He doesn’t really have any advanced post moves, and his hands are below average, resulting in fumbled passes and missed rebounds. For all his upside, he probably has a ways to go before he’s a playable NBA center.

For all the downsides, he’s young, athletic, and coachable enough that most analysts believe that he can become a good NBA player. Player comps are all over the place. I’ve seen Derrick Lively and DeAndre Jordan mentioned as comps. Personally, my opinion is he could be anywhere between Dikembe Mutombo and Hasheem Thabeet. The latter is why I can only give this a B+.

For those who don’t remember, Thabeet was the #2 pick in the 2009 draft, and he’s widely regarded as one of, if not the biggest, busts in draft history. Physically, Thabeet was very similar to Maluach (7’3”, 263 lb. with a 7’6.25” wingspan and 9’5” standing reach). They both started playing basketball later in life, growing up playing soccer in eastern Africa. Both played at big-name basketball universities (U Conn vs. Duke). Both were very raw players with poor instincts and little offensive game outside of lobs and put-backs. Both Thabeet and Maluach are described as having excellent work ethics. It’s hard not to make a comparison.

However, a deeper look shows that Maluach’s freshman statistics were better in almost every respect outside of blocks. When you move on to the “eye test”, it’s apparent that Maluach moves better than Thabeet, who could be described as “plodding”. Khaman has a much better shooting touch and makes better decisions with the ball.

Unfortunately, what ultimately caused Thabeet to fail was his inability to read plays and make good decisions on the fly. He never really developed the basketball IQ needed to prevent himself from being a liability at both ends of the court against NBA-level competition. As a result, Thabeet never averaged more than 13 mpg, 3.1 ppg, 3.6 rpg, or 1.3 bpg in any of his five seasons, and each of these came in his rookie season, where his team was willing to try to develop him, even if it meant getting killed on the scoreboard.

Maluach is starting at the same place in terms of his basketball IQ and feel for the game. The NBA is far faster and more physical than the NCAA game. If he does not build these mental tools to play the game, he will meet the same fate as Thabeet. Predicting whether he will grok the game in time is nearly impossible to predict, because it’s obvious he wants to and will give maximum effort.

From the Suns' perspective, they need to ensure he’s spending lots of time with coaches who “get” defensive big men and can teach the game. Jordan Ott reportedly worked well with Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley. But, as a head coach, he won’t have the time to focus on their resident developmental project.

So, ultimately, why the B+? Because NBA history is replete with big guys who never figured out the game, and there was only one Mount Mutombo. Statistics say Maluach is way more likely to be one of the former than the latter. Hopefully, with his athleticism, drive, and the Suns' coaching staff, he can live up to his potential.

But, right now, that’s all it is: potential.

Fleming is a 6’9” 232 lb. 20-year-old PF/C who played three seasons for St Joe’s. He averaged 14.7 ppg, 8.5 rpg, 1.5 bpg, and 1.5 spg in his junior year. He also shot 39.0% from three and 53.1% from the field overall. His vertical is below average, but it doesn’t matter as much given his 7’5” wingspan and 9’1.5” standing reach. His combine scores in the shuttle run, sprint, and lane agility were also well above average.

I personally had Fleming rated as the top power forward in the draft. Every other top contender had some massive hole in their game or in their physical profile. Collin Murray-Boyles is a little too short and doesn’t project as a three-point shooter. Asa Newell also doesn’t project as a three-point shooter the way a modern power forward needs to. Thomas Sorber weighs 263 lb. and projects more like a Mark West/Kurt Thomas sort of undersized center.

What I like about Fleming is that he checks all the boxes for a modern power forward, including mobility, height, three-point shooting, rebounding, shot blocking, and collecting steals on the interior with his long arms. He’s also still young enough (20.95 years) to have a lot of room to grow. If he fails, it’s going to be all on him, and not on something he can’t control (like his height, athleticism, hand-eye coordination, time to develop a bit in college, etc…). Thankfully, he has a reputation as a “hustler” who flies.

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In short, he’s an extremely good bet from everything I can tell. That said, there are still some questions about him.

His free-throw percentage leaves a bit to be desired at 74.3%, but not alarmingly so. His moves in the post are underdeveloped, and his footwork could use some improvement. He’s not someone you want putting the ball on the floor, and he’s not great at passing out of pressure. He doesn’t turn it over a lot either, so at least he isn’t trying to do too much. He’s not great at initiating for himself and needs to work on his pick-and-roll efficiency.

The most concerning part about Fleming is his “processing speed”.

He’s still trying to figure parts of the game out, and at times is a fraction of a second slow to react to things on the court, rather than having the basketball IQ to anticipate them. He’s also done well at a mid-tier school, and there are questions about how he will fare against better competition. Additionally, the sample size on his three-point shooting is somewhat low, and he fares much more poorly when his three-point shots are contested. He also doesn’t really have a mid-range game and sometimes appears to “lose focus” on defense.

That said, not every power forward needs to be a great passer and ball handler to be a great power forward: Amare Stoudemire was neither, and he was the best “true” power forward the team has had in the past 25 years.

Still, all of these warts aside, in my opinion, the Suns landed the best “pure” power forward with the 31st pick in the draft. Some boards had him as high as 1. He’s young enough that many of these issues could be fixed which experience. All the tools are there for him to succeed. There have been a number of comparisons for him out there, including Larry Nance Jr. and Brandon Bass. The comp that I think is closest is probably a slightly more athletic version of Paul Millsap, who carved out a 16-year NBA career with a similar profile.

I hesitate to spend much time on fit, but the Suns started with zero power forwards, and Fleming brings the number up to one. He’s going to have plenty of opportunities to contribute and prove himself while filling a position of extreme need.

Brea is a 6’6”, 212, 22-year-old fifth-year senior out of Kentucky who played shooting guard and small forward. He earned Atlantic 10 Sixth Man of the Year honors in both 2022 and 2024. During his collegiate career, he averaged 43.5% on three-pointers. Two years ago at Dayton, he led the country in three-point percentage at 49.8% on 6.0 attempts per game. This past year, he averaged 43.5% on 5.9 attempts per game, albeit against much stiffer competition. He averaged 11.6 ppg, 3.2 rpg, and 1.5 apg in 28.1 mpg in his final college year.

You can sum Koby Brea up in two words: three pointers.

That’s all he’s good at, but he just might be the best three-point specialist since Klay Thompson. If the Suns got the best power forward in the draft at 31, they got the best three-point shooter in the nation at 41. He’s great at shooting open or contested threes, and he’s very good at creating openings to shoot threes. He can do it off screens, step backs, pump fakes, turn arounds, or nifty little dribble moves to give himself an opening. He can step into it off the fast break, or with his feet set.

His shot is the cleanest looking you’ll ever see; it’s a thing of beauty without an ounce of wasted motion or energy. He moves in space well and is very adept at putting himself in spots for the ball to find him open. When he can’t get open, he does a good job of moving the ball to someone else without creating a turnover, and he rarely forces a shot or a pass, even from two-point range.

He is a virtuoso of the long ball: a master sniper of the highest order.

So, why would he go 41st, despite his good size and ridiculous shooting stroke?

Answer: because those are about all he has going for him. Everything else about him is well below average. He’s just bad on defense, with a 112.4 defensive rating. His athleticism is well below average. He doesn’t rebound or collect assists. His mid-range game is non-existent. He doesn’t create for himself outside of getting open for threes, and his handles are described as “sub-par”. He has a negative wingspan (i.e., he’s taller than his wingspan), meaning there’s limited potential for growth in a lot of areas.

Yet, even with all of that, I expect him to carve out a very long career for himself. But, because Booker, Green, Dunn, and Brooks are on the team ahead of him on the depth chart, and aren’t going anywhere, I don’t expect much of that career to be in Phoenix.

His closest comps are Kyle Korver and Duncan Robinson: 6’6”, 210 SG/SF three-point specialists who don’t contribute a lick of defense (or anything else besides three-pointers at a high percentage, for that matter) but manage careers that last 15-plus years. There will always be a need for that guy on the second unit who helps with spacing and defense doesn’t matter as much. You’ll always need a guy to spot up for three with 4 seconds on the clock and down by 2.

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Maybe, if by some miracle, he improves his defense, he becomes the next Klay Thompson. But, realistically, it’s Korver or Robinson. If you can draft a guy in the second round who’s likely to carve out a 15-year NBA career with a skill that doesn’t really erode, that’s a good deal. But, it’s only a good deal if there’s space on the roster to play them. Which there isn’t.

The Suns might be able to give him minutes if Booker starts at PG, Green at SG, and Brea acts as a backup shooting guard. There’s not much room at small forward behind Dunn and Brooks. But, given how bad the Suns have been in the past playing Booker at PG next to a defenseless SG, I don’t know how long that will last.

Given how the roster will look on opening day, I expect Brea to see only limited minutes, or minutes when there’s an injury. There’s an off chance that he can substitute in for Dunn if it becomes obvious his lack of shooting outweighs his defensive prowess. But, going into the season, it’s tough to see how Brea fits in or contributes meaningfully with those four as locks to be on the team already. There’s functionally no difference between a guy you never play, and a guy that you cut because he’s a bust.

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Huntley is a 6’11”, 221 lb., 23-year-old power forward who played five seasons for Appalachian State. Following the Suns’ trend of looking for people with ridiculous reach, CJ features a 7’4.5” wingspan and a 9’1.5” vertical reach. He was a bit of a late bloomer, but his final year of college was impressive. He averaged 15.7 ppg and 8.1 rpg in 33.6 mpg. The scoring was efficient: 49.3% overall, and 35.6% from three on 3.8 attempts per game.

On the positive side, Huntley measures well, both in terms of size and athleticism. He played well in the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament and in a workout with the Suns. His metrics at the combine could be described as “above average” across the board.

On the negative side, while above average in a lot of areas, nothing about his game stands out as a skill or ability that will carry him into the NBA. In the game these days, you need to have at least one “top flight” skill or ability, and C.J. just doesn’t have that. Additionally, some parts of his game are rudimentary (passing, dribbling, post moves, etc…), and he doesn’t get nearly the number of steals or blocks that you’d like to see from an athletic guy with this wingspan. He’s a good, but not great defender. He’s above average on offense. He’s a little above average as a three-point shooter. But, he did all this against a lower tier of competition at Appalachian State, and the question remains if he can be above average at anything at the NBA level.

Huntley gets a C- because the Suns chose a guy with great physical stats that don’t appear to translate to a marketable skill on the court. They also left two players for other teams to pick up as UFAs that clearly have top-tier skills: namely, Ryan Nembhard’s passing and Eric Dixon’s scoring. Both Nembhard and Dixon play positions of need for the Suns as well. Maybe other teams gave a better pitch, but that’s tough to believe given that signing Nembhard would have made him the ONLY PG under contract for the Suns, and Dixon would have likely been guaranteed some minutes in the PF rotation.

As it is, the Suns landed a guy I don’t project as having much chance of making it in the league, and missed out on some that will probably find a home.

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