{"id":16024,"date":"2025-06-26T10:23:15","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T10:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/16024\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T10:23:15","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T10:23:15","slug":"suns-pick-up-two-centers-draft-dukes-khaman-maluach-then-trade-for-hornets-mark-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/16024\/","title":{"rendered":"Suns pick up two centers, draft Duke&#8217;s Khaman Maluach, then trade for Hornets Mark Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Phoenix Suns essentially traded for two centers in the first round of the NBA Draft, and it all came together fast.<\/p>\n<p>First came the surprise news that they were trading for Charlotte&#8217;s Mark Williams, a talented center with health and injury concerns (he was the player the Lakers agreed to trade for at February&#8217;s deadline, but backed out after his physical). Phoenix sent Charlotte the No. 29 pick in this draft (originally Cleveland&#8217;s) as well as a 2029 first-round pick, <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1938043837521248413\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:a trade broken by Shams Charania;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\">a trade broken by Shams Charania<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Then came the No. 10 pick, which is Phoenix&#8217;s, but it just re-acquired it in the Kevin Durant trade (because that trade can&#8217;t be made official until July 6, the Rockets made the pick for the Suns). Phoenix used it on Kahman Maluach, the 7&#8217;2&#8243; center from Duke.<\/p>\n<p>Maluach was born in South Sudan \u2014 something he is very proud of \u2014 but has been a challenge for him after the U.S. Government, under President Trump&#8217;s orders, <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/sports\/nba\/nba-draft-khaman-maluach-duke-south-sudan-rcna213634\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:revoked visas for South Sudanese living in the United States;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\">revoked visas for South Sudanese living in the United States<\/a>. The NBA league office has worked with Maluach to keep him in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>This is part of the Suns&#8217; retooling their roster around Devin Booker, giving him a couple of big centers in the paint who can be big screeners and lob threats on offense, as well as rim protectors on defense. It was a good night&#8217;s work for Phoenix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Phoenix Suns essentially traded for two centers in the first round of the NBA Draft, and it&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,15948,13593,7196,3359,8604,15947,15946,1589,1721,1807,5565,7193,130,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-16024","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-centers","12":"tag-cleveland","13":"tag-devin-booker","14":"tag-kevin-durant","15":"tag-lakers","16":"tag-maluach","17":"tag-mark-williams","18":"tag-phoenix","19":"tag-phoenix-suns","20":"tag-president-trump","21":"tag-rockets","22":"tag-shams-charania","23":"tag-trade","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-united-states-of-america","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","28":"tag-us","29":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114749178342997616","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}