The Phoenix Suns got a talented young big man with some exciting upside back on draft night when they traded for Mark Williams from the Charlotte Hornets. But as interesting as Williams is as a player, his presence on the roster is going to complicate some things, especially related to the Suns' current center rotation.
In case you hadn't noticed, Phoenix's options at center are now more than plentiful. On top of Mark, they also have the rookie, Khaman Maluach, along with Nick Richards and Oso Ighodaro. If you're the Suns' coaching staff and you want all these guys to play, there's of course the issue of figuring out where they all fit in the rotation, what roles they fill, and how to get them all minutes.
But that's a lot of centers to try to get playing time for. I think it's more likely Phoenix tries to trade one or more of them.
Given the current state of this team, it would seem to make the most sense for the Suns to move Richards first, given he's the most tenured of the bunch and there's likely going to be contenders interested in taking a flyer on him as a backup five option. After that, Ighodaro is probably the next most likely guy to be on the trade block.
The Suns have to figure out the center situation
And that's where the problem lies: neither of those players is going to have a ton of trade value, so it becomes a difficult situation for Phoenix. You don't exactly have many assets you can use to put together a compelling trade offer, so there's not a lot of obvious moves the Suns can make to move forward here.
Again, Richards is likely going to have some suitors calling about him at one point or another, but he's simply not going to get you a lot of return value all by himself. I think Phoenix could reasonably expect to get back maybe a few second-rounders or perhaps a comparable-value player similar to what they sent out to Charlotte in order to acquire him. It's better than nothing, but it's not much for a team trying to find their way.
This can become your reality if you find yourself with too many players that are redundant. That's not me saying all four of these centers do all the same things, but it's also hard to play any of them at any position besides the five.
It's another caveat to the challenging situation the Suns find themselves in, and the front office will have some work to do in figuring out how best to manage four guys seven foot or taller.