The Phoenix Suns enter the 2025-26 season attempting to rebuild their roster around Devin Booker, and few new players have more question marks surrounding them than center Mark Williams. Although trading for him kind of made sense - his upside for the price paid was ultimately too tempting to turn down - he has to be on the court to make a difference.
Through the first week of training camp, that has surprisingly not been the case. Head coach Jordan Ott is not worried about it, but sections of the fan base sure are. Williams was part of the Suns Fest event that took place in Footprint Center over the weekend, and he showed off a surprisingly soft shooting touch that got people talking.
Williams put on blast for lack of rim protecting.
Although the hope is that Williams can help the Suns improve on conceding 117.7 points per game last season - the fourth worst mark in the league - Law Murray of The Athletic was on the Slam N Jam podcast recently and claimed that the 23-year-old will do anything but. Murray going on to say he believes Williams is one of the worst rim protecting bigs in the league.
Unfortunately Law might be onto something here as last year with the Charlotte Hornets, that team gave up a whopping 118.9 points when Williams was on the court. The worst mark of his still young career, although it is hard to tell how much of that number can be attributed solely to him given the malaise of the Hornets this decade.
But to watch him on the court is to see a big man who displays some of the same worrying tendencies - defensively at least - to the disastrous Jusuf Nurkic. Williams has a bigger and more imposing frame and when he's able to get near opponents he does a better job of shutting down attempts around the rim.
But simply moving freely has been a problem given his injury history, while more skilled offensive bigs simply play around him. If you drag him out from the paint he is useless and easy to get around, while if he sticks inside only then he becomes a glorified Roy Hibbert. Again there is still plenty of time for Williams to change this, which is exactly why Phoenix traded for him.
Having better teammates such as Ryan Dunn and Dillon Brooks will help too, while rookie Khaman Maluach is saying and doing all the right things as he takes his first steps with the organization. If the Suns were hoping that trading for Williams was going to be an immediate improvement on the defensive end however, Law is right to point out that that isn't going to happen.