The more Toumani Camara plays, the tougher it gets for the Suns to ignore what they gave up.
Phoenix fans have plenty of peace with the Deandre Ayton part of that deal, especially with the former No. 1 overall pick already moved on by both the Portland Trail Blazers and Los Angeles Lakers. Camara is the one that lingers. He’s the piece from that trade who’s turning heads now, and his reputation keeps climbing.
Sam Vecenie of the Game Theory Podcast recently slotted Camara 15th on his list of the NBA’s top 25 defenders, and he didn’t hold back on the praise.
“My goodness is Toumani Camara so good on defense,” Vecenie said. “If he played anywhere in a big market or on a team that was legitimately contending, we would be looking at Toumani Camara as like, oh yeah this guy is just automatically All-Defense every year.”
That kind of endorsement fits the way Camara’s season played out in Portland. The 6-foot-7 Belgian started all 82 games, yet he didn’t land on the All-Defensive teams or in Defensive Player of the Year voting the way he did in 2024-25, when he finished ninth in that race and earned All-Defensive Second Team honors.
The numbers offer one reason for that drop. Camara posted a career low in blocks and saw his steals per game fall to 1.1 from 1.5 the year before. But he still produced a career-best 2.7 defensive win shares, and Vecenie said the film told him more than the counting stats did.
“He is so good at guarding opposing team’s best players,” Vecenie said, noting that Camara uses his frame to disrupt opponents and take them out of position. “But more than anything he is so anticipatory.”
Vecenie went a step further, saying Camara reads opponents’ tendencies and shuts down their favorite actions better than any defender in the league not named Alex Caruso. He also pointed to Portland’s top-15 defense, especially impressive given the pace the Blazers play at, as more evidence of Camara’s value.
For the Suns, the timing makes the regret sting even more. Under first-year coach Jordan Ott, Phoenix jumped from 28th in defensive rating the season before under Mike Budenholzer to 10th in 2025-26. The Suns also leaned into disruption, finishing fourth in the NBA with 9.5 steals per game, behind only the Detroit Pistons, Oklahoma City Thunder and Golden State Warriors.
That’s why Camara feels like such a natural what-if. He would have fit right into Ott’s defensive approach, which depends on active hands, passing-lane pressure and turnovers. He also could have filled the power forward opening the Suns later addressed with the widely disliked Miles Bridges trade.
There’s another layer, too: Camara simply shows up. Over the past two seasons combined, he has missed just four regular season games and logged more than 5,200 minutes. Bryce Simon, Vecenie’s co-host, also noted the stuff that doesn’t show up in a box score - the hustle, the little plays, the connective work that makes a defense hum.
At 26, Camara is becoming a real difference-maker in Portland. And for Suns fans, that makes him the kind of player you can’t help but imagine in The Valley.
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Jalen Green and Miles Bridges sit squarely in that uncertain space, with their futures tied to how well they fit the direction Phoenix wants to take. Jordan Goodwin is a different kind of case, a defense-first guard with a clear bench role now and at least a chance to work his way into something larger if the opportunity opens up. [Read more 🡒]