NBA fans, more than those of any other sports league, love to use foresight. It’s why Tankathon exists, and the league’s executives have backed up this mindset with things like making very dumb trades involving superstars when there should be a 0% shot of that star being traded.
The Phoenix Suns are 1-4 to start this season, and the above affliction has a good deal of X users — at least in this guy’s Suns-centric social media bubble — freaking out about how first-year head coach Jordan Ott has not gone full-bore playing rookies Khaman Maluach and Rasheer Fleming.
Look, there is merit to that concern!
Maluach on pace to play < 300 total minutes his rookie season. The last top-10 pick with under 300 min?
Jalen Smith. Yes, that Jalen Smith.
Full list of top-10 picks who logged fewer than 300 minutes in their rookie season over the last 50 years (Fultz, Randle were injured). pic.twitter.com/ib2hMmLjfn
— Matt Petersen (@TheMattPetersen) October 30, 2025
It’s now a matter of when, not if, that comes.
Ott has cultural standards to establish, and there is a process to this whole deal. Wings Royce O’Neale, Dillon Brooks and even second-year guys Ryan Dunn and Oso Ighodaro are going to violate basic standards far less often than the rookies at this point.
There is validity to setting consistent non-negotiables since the Suns are resetting their entire foundation this season.
Five games indeed have given us a compass of where this team stands, even if Jalen Green has yet to play and Mark Williams has yet to ramp up completely.
But it’ll take time for the rookies to get out of the gates.
“Strength is a big piece to it all,” Ott told reporters Thursday. “They’re going to get their reps. It’s going to happen, whether it’s the next game or two weeks or in a month. They’re going to get a chance.
“We want their time on the court when they’re in their stay-ready games to matter. They’re going to have eyes on them in their stay-ready games. We’re going to coach it like it’s a high-level, training camp, early-season practice. … Every rep matters for those guys. They may not be playing in the game you guys see, but they’re going to be playing in the game the day after and that means something. We’re going to be constantly evaluating them in any scenario that we can.”
TL;DR: Let’s be a little patient here. But the process of integrating the rookies should go something like this:
— Nov. 10 vs. New Orleans (15 games in): The Suns have gotten the offseason/newness kinks out with a healthy-ish roster and have either begun winning or continued losing. Ott has found out what rotations and players he can rely on — and what this team is good and bad at.
— Thanksgiving (19 games in): Assuming they are indeed on pace for 30 wins instead 40-plus, it is now time to make a more concerted effort to sprinkle in more rookie minutes. Need that extra wing stopper? Give Fleming a 10-minute stint if the matchup makes sense. Playing the T-Wolves, Spurs and Rockets in a row before Thanksgiving? Peppering in Maluach minutes to get him some bump against Rudy Gobert, Naz Reid, Victor Wembanyama, Alperen Sengun and Steven Adams seems obviously advantageous.
— Halfway point on Jan. 19 (41 games in): It is very clear if this team is sniffing the lottery or in the play-in race by this point. In any case, you’ve got to keep playing the vets to showcase their trade value! Sorry! We’re less than a month from the deadline. Ott has been steadfast that he will adjust by game and by opponent, and those adjustments should include playing a mix of veterans and young guys to allow them to make mistakes. After all, this offensively limited team is dead in the water if Brooks, O’Neale and Grayson Allen aren’t bombing from 3.
— Trade deadline on Feb. 5 (50 games in): The record isn’t good! The losing has taken its toll on the veterans, and other teams like O’Neale’s and Allen’s shooting chops to throw a younger piece or lower-tier picks at Phoenix despite two years left on their contracts (Allen’s $37.4 million and O’Neale’s $22.5 million). One or both are out, opening the door for the Suns to recalibrate to play bigger at wing with Fleming and Dunn in the rotation. Nick Richards has rebuilt some stock as a low-salary backup bruiser on an expiring deal, and he is shipped out to force Maluach minutes on the Suns. Any injuries to Mark Williams or load management for the starting center add to the rookie’s duties. The rooks are fully integrated, and now their opportunity is here with 30 games to end the season!
Why haven’t Suns rookies Khaman Maluach and Rasheer Fleming gotten the playing time many feel they deserve?
Maluach may have been the No. 10 pick, but his fall in the NBA Draft likely had something to do with where he fell on the developmental scale more than his widely agreed-upon upside — which is high.
To narrow his profile down from our perspective here in Arizona, the Duke product was arguably the second- or third-best center on the court when the Blue Devils visited Tucson and beat Arizona last November, as the Wildcats ran out an injury-limited Motiejus Krivas and rising backup Henri Veesaar.
When the teams ran it back in the Sweet 16 in late March, Maluach had taken steps forward. Still, he mirrored Veesaar with 13 points and six rebounds in that game. And Veesaar was coming off the bench behind Tobe Awaka, to show you how weird college basketball handles developing bigs.
Maluach averaged 8.6 points and 6.6 boards a game, putting up just five double-doubles all year. For context, Deandre Ayton — flaws and all — was at 20.1 points and 11.6 rebounds when the Suns drafted him first overall out of Arizona in 2018. In hindsight, the volume of production misguided his NBA ceiling as he was uncontroversially drafted ahead of guys like Luka Doncic and Trae Young.
In the past year, Maluach’s physical profile has gone from literally throwing up and leaving a game when he was gassed in January, to looking a little sluggish in NBA Summer League play, to now appearing caught up as much as an 18-year-old playing in the NBA can be from a physical standpoint. Now it’s about a steep basketball learning curve for a player at a position where vocally directing his teammates from the paint in real time is a huge part of his job.
Meanwhile, Fleming’s path to playing time at the present moment appears more obvious.
His catch-and-shoot abilities flashed already, and a preseason finale that gave him precious time guarding Doncic one-on-one indicated he’s at least ready to hang even if the complexities of weak-side and off-ball defense might be too heavy for him.
A few problems with handing him more playing time:
Good luck knocking down Brooks’ playing time, considering he fits everything this Suns front office wants to chisel out of his young team’s identity.
Dunn’s existence and year of experience at a similar wing position put Fleming in a limited spot, as well. Phoenix did plenty of maneuvering to land the Virginia product in the 2024 draft, and investing in his future is on equal ground as is building out Fleming’s role.
And finally, O’Neale’s role as an undersized wing stopper and 3-point gunner is important and hard to delete out of the equation without a trade.