By the time you plopped down after the work week on Friday, you either had the choice to watch the Season 2 finale of AppleTV+’s Severance or willingly consume the Suns’ hosting of the Eastern Conference-leading Cavaliers.
If we had Severance in our real lives — the ability to flip our brains in and out of an alternate consciousness for the more painful aspects of our lives — Suns fans might have opted into such a thing to watch Suns-Cavs with rookie center Oso Ighodaro reintegrated into the starting lineup because of injury. Cleveland won the first meeting Jan. 20 by 26 points.
But this time around, Phoenix pulled out a 123-112 win, easily their best of the season. It was Ighodaro’s matchup against one of the league’s best big man tandems, Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley, that made it so captivating.
He piled up 13 boards and added six assists and four assists in a team-high 44 minutes.
Suddenly, he, fellow rookie Ryan Dunn and two-way guard Collin Gillespie have given the Suns a lifeline into the final play-in spot.
Ighodaro’s rise into this position isn’t as sexy as that of the other two players. Yet, because of the turnover at center this season, he is arguably more imporant than Dunn or Gillespie in this conversation about what’s driven the Suns to finally find hope.
He’d already entered the rotation the past six games and in that span leads the rotation players with an eye-popping 20.5 net rating (124.2 offensive and 103.7 defensive).
For the season as a whole, however, his 783 minutes played still leads the team’s rotation players with a 4.7 net rating if you consider Gillespie at 11.9 had been hurt or with the G League most of the season (210 minutes for Phoenix).
The Athletic’s John Hollinger summed it up well on the Ighodaro front:
In particular, Ighodaro offers two skills in high demand at the center position: switchable defense and short-roll passing.
…
The Suns only give up 106.9 points per 100 possessions with Ighodaro on the floor this year, compared to 118.3 when he doesn’t play. That is, by far, the biggest defensive impact of any Suns player who has received meaningful playing time this season. While Ighodaro is not a true rim protector and requires help on the boards (just a 12.5 percent rebound rate), he’s so good at preventing opponents from getting high-percentage shots in the first place that his team wins on the exchange.
For context, Ighodaro’s rebounding rate is somewhere between Josh Okogie and Bol Bol, far below the three other centers who have started for Phoenix. They are all hovering near or above a 20% rebounding rate.
The Suns appear to be benefitting from his switchability for sure. But you could also take an even simpler analysis after listening to Phoenix players and coach Mike Budenholzer lately: They finally have a strong decision-making defender at center.
https://t.co/YqYz0rwmzT pic.twitter.com/NxgI67Y28I
— Kellan Olson (@KellanOlson) March 18, 2025
Oso Ighodaro’s energy-generating behavior comes in many forms
A Marquette product, Ighodaro has taken the Golden Eagles’ manual tracking of “energy-generating behavior,” or EGB, to his role with the Suns.
“Anything between a clap, a dap, slapping the floor … an assist, just anything that’s an energy generating play, we would track and really try to get a high number of those at Marquette, just to bring life to the game,” he told Arizona Sports’ Burns & Gambo on Thursday.
“That energy can carry over to offense, defense, culturally. We really valued that a lot.”
Ighodaro’s zippy passing might end in hockey assists, but the ball popping when he’s on the court also comes with these statistics:
The big man has Phoenix’s lowest usage rate (plays that end with a shot attempt, turnover or foul drawn) and one of its most efficient scoring rates as a rim-roller only. That lends to more belief he fits this offense led by three high-usage scorers like a glove.
The short-roll passing has been so aesthetically pleasing that you might not be noticing how Ighodaro is acquiring the ball in those situations. The Suns’ stars are making sure he is getting his touches.
https://t.co/9FPfhYhO86 pic.twitter.com/LvbwzY7teh
— Kellan Olson (@KellanOlson) March 19, 2025
Rewatching the last few Suns games and a thing that continues to stick out to me is the level of trust that Devin Booker already has in Oso Ighodaro to make the right plays when he’s trapped. pic.twitter.com/RvXOY0hWU4
— Mike Vigil (@protectedpick) March 22, 2025
In the last six games, Devin Booker has only passed to Kevin Durant and Dunn more per game, while Durant is passing to Ighodaro (5.3 times per game) nearly as much as to Booker (6.8).
“KD and Book get blitzed all the time,” Ighodaro told reporters after practice Wednesday. “If you sprint into the screen and I’m faster than the big, that creates a little pocket. If I walk up there or jog up there and my man’s right with me, they’re going to jump on ’em right way.
“So If I can buy him an extra second, then he gets an extra second to make his read … it’s like a trickle effect. I get an extra second on my read. Selfishly, I do it for myself a little bit but also just to take pressure off of KD and Book, especially.”
Phoenix is 12-9 in games Ighodaro has played 20 or more minutes.
That is not out of this world, but it should be pointed out that he’s only played 21 games of heavy minutes. Ighodaro has quietly been the second most-played center this year behind Mason Plumlee and ahead of newcomer Nick Richards and outgoer Jusuf Nurkic. As in, the Suns are not lacking in sample size with Ighodaro.
Which gives more room to believe he, Dunn and perhaps Gillespie sticking this out as opponents begin game-planning for them isn’t out of the realm of possibility.