Suns remain secretive about naming new starting center

PHOENIX — Dishonesty! Deception! Subterfuge!

That is my sarcastic tone of buzz words for how Phoenix Suns head coach Jordan Ott is going about naming a new starting center, as the coach had previously stated a timeframe around Monday would be when he announced it, only for him to now play the game of keeping it close to the vest.

For now, unless Ott changes his mind on Tuesday, we’ll have to wait till shortly before Wednesday’s season opener in Portland against the Trail Blazers to find out if it is Oso Ighodaro or Khaman Maluach.

“We’ll keep trying to figure it out as we get close to Wednesday,” Ott said.

The details that were revealed are that Ott again didn’t commit to saying the starter on Wednesday is the guy going forward, but acknowledged he’s not the type of coach to swap starters in and out. So that’s almost a yes? The other is that a few times he referenced the importance of who closes the game as well. So like last season with Ighodaro and Williams, that’ll be a flow-of-the-game thing.

Some coaches don’t care about this type of thing, scoffing at the supposed advantage this will create by not letting the opponent know something like this or announcing the starting lineup an extra hour before tip-off during a pregame media availability.

Some, however, will take any edge they can get.

The irony you can trace back, though, is we are often told by coaches these types of position battles don’t matter and who starts a game is really not that big of a deal. If that was the case, then it wouldn’t matter or not if it was made public. Therefore, it matters!

Either way, it’s most likely Ighodaro. The third-year big was the guy to get the most reps with the starters, and when the foursome on the perimeter sat for the second-to-last preseason game, Ighodaro rested right along with them.

While Ighodaro was flat-out one of the Suns’ five best players last season, this again is more about Maluach not being ready yet. We are starting to drift away from “this is not a good or a bad thing” and more toward “maybe this is a bad thing.” Maluach’s development over the course of the season should see him show visible improvement. He needs to make enough strides to be the guy by the end of the season, or this does indeed become a bad thing.

Ighodaro’s hub work offensively as a playmaker and high-level screening is just as valuable as his versatility and All-Defense-caliber work on the other end. But a weakness of his that could become crippling is his free-throw shooting. He sits at 49% through two seasons, and that is low enough to where teams will at least have conversations heading into a matchup about intentionally fouling him at the end of close games.

Phoenix’s coaching staff has almost assuredly discussed this possibility and mapped out how it wants to plan for it. Ott, however, declined to answer if that’s the case. He instead talked about how that’s an area where they’ll miss Williams, and when receiving a follow up on if he’s spoken with Ighodaro about it, Ott said free-throw shooting in general has come up but wouldn’t say if this part of a game would.

“That’ll change game to game and some of it we do have to see, we gotta see exactly what we’re going to do end of games at that spot,” Ott said.

It’s definitely going to happen at some point, so if it spirals enough to the point where Ighodaro can’t finish out that specific game, the solution will either be Maluach (a better free-throw shooter) or small-ball lineups to close.

Phoenix has strengthened and switched up its depth behind those two. Duop Reath and Drew Timme now slot in on two-ways. Reath is a stretch 5 while Timme is known for his post-up and passing play.

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