The Phoenix Suns have added three players over the past two days to deal with a weak frontcourt, upsetting the Boston Celtics.
The Phoenix Suns entered the 2025 NBA offseason with only the 29th and 52nd picks in the draft, but after trading future assets with Kevin Durant, they chose the tent overall, selected Duke standout Caman Malhach, and traded the 29th pick with Mark Williams.
The Suns around Devin Booker clearly need to address the size, sending three second picks to the Minnesota Timberwolves, including the 46th pick in this year’s draft, adding the 31st pick.
By that choice they added Rasheer Fleming. This is the best consensus player on the board heading towards the two of the draft. But they weren’t the only team looking at Fleming.
It has long been known that wolves were interested in trading the 31st pick, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania. The Boston Celtics, who held the pick 32, wanted Fleming, but so did many other teams, the Suns won the bidding war.
“The Celtics are said to bring Rushua Fleming from St. Joseph on No. 32,” Charania reported during the second round airing.
“So now the sun jumps to 31 and now they’re really considering Rushua Fleming with that choice. And it’s within minutes of the deal, after drafting Kaman Maulach last night.
Fleming makes projects when he becomes a gritty, high-energy role player for the Suns and desperately needs help in defense and shooting.
His external shots are not guaranteed, but he is solid in college and he plays with the high motors needed at Phoenix after the seasons of Bradley Beal and Jusuf Nurkic.
Fleming would have landed in a better developmental situation if the Celtics had chosen him, but he played a big role for the Sun and Boston ended up with his own quality player.
Noah Penda, like Fleming, was one of the best players of the consensus remaining on the draftboard.
He shot just 30.4% from the French league deep, but he is a high-level passerby in the wings and will make shooters like Derrick White, Payton Pritchard, Sam Hauser and even Baylor Seaerman.
If he can add his own shot, Boston fans will soon forget about Fleming and what happened. For now, Penda certainly has better defense than offense, but in France he averaged 10.2 points, 5.1 rebounds and 2.6 assists.
He probably wants to play point guard, but he doesn’t have the handle for that, but he will be all the players at the end of the Boston bench.