Mark Williams knows re-signing with Suns just means more time to prove himself

Mark Williams was the healthiest he’s been in his four-year NBA career last season, and while that contributed to him officially re-signing with the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday, he recognizes what comes with that organizational trust.

“It’s definitely nice to have that off your shoulders, I guess, relief in a sense. But at the same time, it’s just more time to prove and I just have the opportunity to do that here,” Williams told reporters this week.

The three-year contract signing was extra special, as Williams’ older sister, Chicago Sky center Elizabeth Williams, was in town to play against the Phoenix Mercury on Tuesday night.

The 7-foot-1 player, formerly drafted 15th overall by the Charlotte Hornets, joined guards Collin Gillespie and Jordan Goodwin as key pieces from last year’s 45-win team to return.

He made 55 starts and logged 23.6 minutes per game as he averaged 11.7 points (64.4% shooting), eight rebounds, one assist and 0.9 blocks.

Williams will now continue to factor into a big man rotation with Oso Ighodaro (22 MPG) and Khaman Maluach (8.9 MPG), the former coming off playing all 82 regular-season games and the latter just over 400 total NBA minutes in his rookie campaign.

As Ighodaro and Maluach work to find increased roles in Phoenix’s offense, Williams said he is focused on making sure he’s ready for another full year. He missed a good chunk of time before and during the Suns’ first-round playoff series against the Oklahoma City Thunder with a left foot stress reaction.

“Just continuing to build my body, continuing to build on the court, expand my game on both sides of the ball and just continuing to be out on the floor,” Williams said. “With each year, I play more games. I want to continue to keep that trend going.”

Williams had a lot to get used to in his first year in the desert: He was on a new team, playing under a new general manager (Brian Gregory) and head coach (Jordan Ott). The whole situation simply taught him to be adaptable.

Gregory praised Williams on Tuesday for being among the rare breed of NBA big men that uses their “length, athletic ability and basketball IQ” to impact both ends of the floor.

But, as much as he highlighted Williams’ strengths, Gregory wants to see more just like the 24-year-old center himself.

“The one thing that we talk about with him is obviously there’s so much room for improvement as good as he is and impactful as he is,” Gregory said.

On the playing time of Williams, Ighodaro and Maluach for the upcoming season, Gregory said each’s share of minutes will sort itself out as the year comes and goes.

“Right now, the most important thing for Khaman is practice well and get ready for Summer League and to play well at Summer League,” Gregory said. “There’s a lot of different ways that things work out when it comes to minutes and playing time. And sometimes in July, a lot of different things are thrown out there. Usually in the season, things work out the kind of way they’re supposed to work out and everybody’s got to be ready.”

Mark Williams takes a new jersey number in swap with Devin Booker

Devin Booker recently decided to switch his jersey number from No. 1 to 15, Williams’ number last season.

It was a tip of the cap to his father, who wore the number in his playing days.

And by custom, that meant he’s had to negotiate a deal with Williams.

“He brought it up during the year actually. At one point, he kind of said it in passing and then at the end of the year it was like, yeah, it’s really going to happen,” Williams said.

“We’re in negotiations. We’ll agree on something here soon. I’m not worried about it.”

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