You’d be hard-pressed to find any Phoenix Suns fans who are upset about the team trading away former No. 1 overall pick Deandre Ayton (who has since been ditched by both the Portland Trail Blazers and Los Angeles Lakers). Yet, the same cannot be said about Toumani Camara, another player from that deal who is getting recognition as one of the best defenders in the sport.
Toumani Camara receives love as one of NBA’s top 25 defenders
In a ranking of the top 25 defensive players in the NBA, Sam Vecenie of the Game Theory Podcast tabbed Trail Blazers forward Toumani Camara as the 15th best defensive player in the sport.
“My goodness is Toumani Camara so good on defense,” Vecenie said. “If he played anywhere in a big market or on a team that was legitimately contending, we would be looking at Toumani Camara as like, oh yeah this guy is just automatically All-Defense every year.”
Unlike in 2024-25, when Camara finished ninth in Defensive Player of the Year voting and was named to the All-Defensive Second Team, the 6-foot-7 Belgian was left off those accolades while starting all 82 games for Portland a season ago.
On the surface, that makes some sense, provided Camara averaged a career low in blocks and saw his steals per game average dip to 1.1 from 1.5 the season prior. However, he notched a career-best 2.7 defensive win shares despite the dips in the stocks department.
Vecenie argues that, according to the tape he watched on Camara, he felt the Trail Blazers forward was better defensively this past season than he’d been prior.
“He is so good at guarding opposing team’s best players,” Vecenie said, noting that Camara uses his frame to disrupt opponents and take them out of position. “But more than anything he is so anticipatory.”
Vecenie praised Camara’s ability to know opponents’ tendencies and cut off their strengths better than any NBA defender not named Alex Caruso. He also said Portland ranking top 15 in defense, despite the fast pace the Blazers play at, is another feather in Camara’s defensive cap.
Suns should have kept Camara to lean into defensive identity
The Suns made huge strides as a defensive unit a season ago under first-year head coach Jordan Ott. The 2025-26 Suns finished 10th in defensive rating after winding up a lowly 28th in the category the season prior under head coach Mike Budenholzer.
In addition, the Suns were one of the most anticipatory and disruptive teams in the league defensively, averaging 9.5 steals per game. That ranked them fourth in the NBA, behind only the Detroit Pistons, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Golden State Warriors.
Suns fans can now only wonder how elite they could have been defensively had they kept Camara in the mix instead of shipping him away with DA.
Camara also could have addressed the power forward void the Suns have since filled via the vastly unpopular Miles Bridges trade, while being a seamless fit in Ott’s defensive schemes rooted in disrupting passing lanes with active hands and creating turnovers.
In addition to the impact Camara has forced opponents to feel defensively, he’s been among the most durable players in the entire sport. He’s missed just four regular season games over the past two seasons combined while notching more than 5,200 minutes in that span.
As Vecenie’s co-host Bryce Simon points out, Camara also embraces the intangibles out on the court that don’t show up in the box score.
“Toumani Camara led all players in offensive fouls drawn last year with 106,” Simon said. He noted that Jamal Shead was second in that category … with 66.
The 26-year-old is becoming a huge difference-maker in Portland, and it will surely sting Suns fans to know he could have been a key piece to the puzzle in The Valley.
Add us as a preferred source on Google