00:00Hey Suns fans, welcome back, let's talk about something that's probably been on your mind,
00:05if you've been sticking around until the very end of games this season, you know the kind of
00:09minutes when the starters are resting and the bench clears, the only way you've really seen
00:13rookie Kaman, Malawach, play, is if you've kept watching when most fans have already turned the
00:19game off, as we hit the all-star break 55 games into the season, the number 10 overall pick has
00:24logged just 107 minutes, and here's the key detail, every single one of those minutes has
00:29come in garbage time, his role is essentially non-existent right now, and when you look at the
00:34history of the league, that's actually a pretty rare and concerning trend, for a player, drafted, this,
00:40high. Now, before we go any further, let's be very clear, this is not a call to label Malawach a
00:47bust,
00:48that would be ridiculous and foolish to do, before we've ever seen him play real minutes in a real
00:53rotation for any substantial amount of time, but his lack of playing time is notable, especially when
00:59you consider how vital his development is to the son's long-term future. So, what's actually holding
01:04him back? First, you have to remember his background. When scouts evaluated the 19-year-old, no one
01:10expected him to walk into training camp, ready for serious NBA minutes. The kid grew up playing
01:15soccer and didn't start playing basketball until 2019. Some prospects can overcome that lack of
01:21experience quickly, but you can still see it in how Malawach moves on the floor, even in settings like
01:27summer league or the pre-season, where structure is loose, that rawness was evident. Secondly,
01:32the opportunities for him to play have been incredibly slim. Mark Williams has finally stayed
01:37healthy, which is a huge win for this team. On top of that, Oso Iguodaro has solidified himself as one
01:43of the better backup bigs in the league. Early in the season, when Nick Richards was struggling in a
01:49three-center rotation, it forced coach Bud to sit him by mid-December and stick to a two-man rotation.
01:54That was as much about Iguodaro's breakout as anything else. Looking ahead, things could change.
02:01If Williams were to get injured again, that would open a door. And now that Nick Richards is gone,
02:06Malawach would theoretically be in contention for at least a dozen minutes a night. As Iguodaro's
02:12backup, of course that's assuming coach Bud doesn't just decide to go small, which in itself would be an
02:17indictment of Malawach's development. And let's not forget the biggest factor. This team is winning.
02:22The Suns are competitive every single night, firmly in the mix for a top-six seed,
02:28and the depth across the roster keeps stepping up. If this team was nine games under, 500 instead of
02:35nine games over, we'd probably have seen at least a glimpse of Malawach by now. But, and this is the
02:40crucial part, if Malawach was truly impressing behind the scenes, or showing flashes in practice
02:46that warranted serious consideration, he'd be out there. It doesn't matter how good the team is,
02:50if a top-ten pick is ready, you find minutes for him, plus, the Suns need what he theoretically
02:55brings. Even at 19, Malawach gives you a bigger, longer frame than Mark Williams. This team has
03:01needed more, brute, force on the interior all season and that's a skill set he could provide.
03:06So, what does coach Bud actually think of him? Here's what Bud said on February 5th,
03:12when asked where Malawach has improved the most and how close he is to contributing,
03:16I'll quote him directly, just his strength I think in general, knowing that it was going to be
03:21something that he had to really work at from day one, and as a person that we want to develop,
03:25the ability to be available, is super important. So I think just that, we talked about habits with
03:31him from day one, coming up with routines, and he's taken steps, and that's the most important piece,
03:37because it transfers, throughout his entire career, he's in a good spot. Obviously the G League has helped
03:43some of that, and we're able to see how he functions on an NBA floor, and he's able to get
03:47reps, so he's in a good spot. Obviously our team has had a lot of success this year with our
03:52bigs
03:52being healthy, that was a major step with Mark Early, for him to be healthy, that has been a
03:57success with Mark, and Common is going to continue to take steps, he's 19 years old, and he's in a
04:02good
04:02place. As for general manager Brian Gregory, the man who made the pick, he hasn't spoken to the media
04:09since the season started. Now, let's really look at the history here, because this is where it gets
04:14stark. How does Maluac's playing time compare to other high picks? According to StatHead, if you go
04:21back through the last 25 drafts and look at every single top 10 pick, that's 250 players, only 8 others
04:28have played less than 200 minutes in their rookie season. Maluac is currently at 107 minutes with 27
04:33games left, of those 8, 4 were affected by injury, the other 4, 3 of them were big men,
04:402 of those names you might recognize, Phoenix's own Jalen Smith, from the 2020 draft, and Detroit's
04:47Darko Milicic from 2003, both played for contenders that made the NBA Finals, another Detroit pick,
04:54Rodney White in 2001, only got 129 minutes for a 50-win Pistons team.
05:00The final name, was the no. 10 pick in 2006, center Muhammad Sene from Seattle, who, like Maluac,
05:08bounced between the G League and the NBA, 3 of those 4 were considered busts, Jalen Smith is the
05:14semi-exception, having carved out a solid role in Chicago, the lack of even a hard look over a few
05:19weeks for a top 10 pick is incredibly rare, from that pool of 250 players, only 20 failed to crack
05:25500 minutes, that's just 8%, and that includes guys who got hurt, so, did any of those 20 actually
05:31pan out to be good, reliable players? After filtering out the injured ones, the only real success story
05:38is former Laker Andrew Bynum. He set the record as the youngest player to get in a game, had some
05:44productive but injury-riddled seasons, and even made an all-NBA second team, before his career derailed,
05:51the rest, guys like Alex Lenn, Joel Prizabilla, Chris Wilcox, and Mike Sweetney. Names that bounced
05:59around or flamed out quickly. Now, I know what you're thinking, coaches always say, big men take
06:05longer to develop. That's true, and Maluac's overall basketball background makes him raw at any
06:11position, let alone center, but if we look at other top 10 centers who were brought along slowly,
06:17the outlook isn't great. If we bump the minute threshold to 1,000 for a rookie season, which is
06:23about 14 minutes a game over 70 appearances, there are 17 bigs who pop up on stat head,
06:29Jacob Poltel clears it in 626 minutes, he's a good defensive big, but not much more, Ennis Cantor,
06:36now Ennis Freedom, qualifies at 874 minutes in a lockout-shortened season, but his career was an
06:43extreme rollercoaster, the other 15, they didn't work out, names like Thonmaker, James Wiseman,
06:49and Hashim Thabit. So, when it comes to precedent, it's grim, but here's the other side of the coin,
06:55just because a rookie gets serious minutes doesn't mean they're guaranteed to be good,
06:59there are plenty of failed picks in that group too. What this history tells us is that for Maluac to
07:05go
07:05from where his rookie season started, watching from the bench, to becoming the player the Suns hoped for
07:11when they drafted him, he's gonna have to be an outlier, an exception to the rule, and he absolutely
07:17could be that outlier, but it's also hard not to glance at the back half of the 2025 lottery and
07:22wonder, you look at Memphis' Cedric Coward at 11, who's in the rookie of the year conversation,
07:27New Orleans' Derek Queen at 13 is producing, other names like Igor Demin at 8 in Brooklyn and
07:32Colin Murray-Boyles at 9 in Toronto are getting solid minutes, then you have Maluac,
07:37and guys like Chicago's Noah Essenge at 12 and San Antonio's Carter Bryant at 14, who are all in a
07:44wait-and-see mode, and this brings us to the bigger picture for the Suns, unless a trade materializes or
07:50they get incredibly lucky, with pick swaps, Phoenix will not pick in the lottery for at least the next
07:56three years, they only have a mid-second round pick this coming June, no more elite young talent is
08:01walking through that door anytime soon, Common Maluac was the guy, he, along with Rashear Fleming,
08:08Mark Williams, and Jalen Green, are the internal growth that will define whether this team goes
08:14from a plucky, try-hard squad, to an actual contender, we won't know the trajectory of that
08:20flight path, until we finally see Maluac on the floor, so, Suns fans, here's my question to you,
08:26given the team's success this year and the lack of future draft capital, do you trust the front
08:31office's patience with Maluac, or are you starting to get concerned that a top 10 pick might be wasting
08:36a crucial development year?
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