It's early goings yet, but Khaman Maluach doesn't quite look like the top big man prospect he was hyped up as, at least with Summer League out of the way.
"Phoenix opted to take the Duke project, and I’ll emphasize the word “project” here, said The Athletic's John Hollinger, "his was a rough entry to professional basketball. The 7-1 Maluach only posted a 13.5 percent rebound rate, took nearly half his shots from 3 and had one assist in 70 minutes. Watching from courtside made me more concerned about his hands, as contested rebounds and alley-oop opportunities escaped him at times."
Yes, the Suns needed a center, and any other team with that need would have gladly taken Maluach as well -- his pick should not reflect badly on Phoenix's front office. But Phoenix is on a time clock with Devin Booker's patience and prime slowly draining, and drafting Maluach feels like they bought and moved into a house without realizing that its toilets had yet to be hooked up to the plumbing. The team does also have other needs, and could easily end up with buyers' remorse watching later picks flourish elsewhere. These are three of the ones they'll be looking at the most.
1. Joan Beringer
Boy, oh boy, did the Timberwolves knock it out of the park with this one. If we're talking about rolling the dice on a project at the center position, Phoenix has to be punching the air looking at Minnesota's newest darling, Joan Beringer out of France.
Beringer was also advertised as a super raw prospect, but there are levels to that. Maluach looked uncomfortable with the pace of professional basketball, period. But based on how Beringer's Summer League performance went, you know that his arc will be expanding on a narrow, but godly set of tools.
Beringer will need to add polish to his game. But his game, as it stands, is predicated on violently hunting for blocks like a free safety in space, and hard cuts to the rim. Dwight Howard got to the ****ing Finals with an upgraded version of that skill set.
2. Yang Hansen
You can transfer everything about Joan Beringer's entry on this list onto Yang Hansen's profile, but instead of physical tools, you have offensive polish and unreal court vision. And with the basketball IQ that predicates that sort of game, Hansen seems to be very self-aware of what he currently offers as a player:
"Players actively seek contact. In games, everything is faster—players are more confident and decisive. In China, we focus more on half-court tactics and detailed plays...The physicality and athleticism of NBA big men far exceeded my expectations...In the CBA, I was seen as a traditional center, but that definition doesn’t really hold up in the NBA."
And true to his word, Chinese Jokic has delivered as expected, and if there's anything that the Suns need as much, or even more than, a big, it's playmaking. Hansen kills two birds with one stone -- because he knows the exact arc he needs to to get both in the same shot. Someone needs to get Devin Booker and Jalen Green the ball in space, and while he needs his own physical growth, Hansen could have been the man for the job.
3. Kasparis Jakucionis
This might actually be the biggest stretch of the three entries on this list -- a starting backcourt of Green, Booker, and Jakucionis is crowded. But every lineup needs a primary distributor of the ball to grease the wheels, and Jakucionis is the best to slip by the Suns by far.
Now, while Jakucionis' slip to the 20th pick in the draft was alarming, he might have proven doubters to at least have a point about him. Jakucionis performed less than admirably through his six games of Summer League. A negative assist-to-turnover ratio is not what you want to see from your starting point guard, and especially not from an average of under 3 assists per game.
However, the flashes were there, especially in a masterful Game 4. And more than anything else, his performance against the Hawks showed that while adjusting the NBA's levels of physicality and speed might take a bit of time, Jakucionis has the ability to adapt to the league, at least more so than the player Phoenix actually took with the 10th pick.