Phoenix’s center competition has an unusually concrete measure of familiarity. It was the 1,232 minutes Collin Gillespie spent alongside Oso Ighodaro last season, compared with 89 minutes next to Khaman Maluach. That 1,143-minute gap does not settle the center competition. It does explain why Phoenix needs a sustained preseason examination rather than a quick camp verdict.
Thursday brought two separate decisions. The Suns exercised Ryan Dunn’s fourth-year option and Maluach’s third-year option, securing additional contractual control over both players. Coach Jordan Ott also said Phoenix expects to choose a starting center a couple of days before the Oct. 21 opener against Portland. One decision concerns the roster’s future. The other concerns how the roster functions immediately.
The two decisions ask very different things of Phoenix. Maluach’s option does not make him the starter, just as a starting assignment would not amount to a long-term endorsement. Phoenix can protect its investment in a rookie while asking him to earn a larger role possession by possession.
The timing is shaped by the absence of Mark Williams, whose torn left shoulder labrum is expected to keep him out for months. Ighodaro and Maluach are now central to the short-term answer, with Ott leaving room for starting and closing combinations to shift according to the matchup. That makes the eventual starting label less important than the quality of the minutes behind it.
A team can survive an unsettled opening lineup more easily than a second unit that repeatedly loses its shape.
Gillespie’s experience with the two centers is the clearest reason to avoid a premature conclusion. His much longer partnership with Ighodaro gives Phoenix a larger body of experience to evaluate. Screens, rolls and passing windows are the sorts of connections a guard and center must repeatedly coordinate.
His work with Maluach is much newer. The difference is not a verdict on either center. It is a description of how much more the Suns still need to learn about that partnership.
Maluach’s rookie season included 46 games, one start and an average of 8.9 minutes. That limited exposure should not be treated as a ceiling, but it does make short flashes especially dangerous to overinterpret. A clean lob connection can show promise. It cannot by itself establish that the timing will hold through longer shifts, changing lineups and defensive adjustments.
Thursday’s second-unit grouping offered a useful glimpse without becoming a depth-chart announcement. Gillespie worked with Luke Kennard, Dunn, Koby Brea and Maluach, while the combinations continued to change from day to day. The important work was in the small connections: screens arriving on time, releases creating a passing window, and the guard and center recognizing when a lob or pocket pass is actually available.
Those actions rarely dominate a box score, yet they determine whether an offense gains momentum or spends a possession repairing its own spacing. A screen that arrives late can push a ballhandler away from the intended lane. A roll that starts too early can close the window it was meant to create.
