The Phoenix Suns’ Mark Williams had surgery Thursday to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder and is expected to miss several months after suffering the injury during an offseason workout.

The 7-foot-1 center just signed a fully guaranteed three-year, $38 million deal this offseason to return to Phoenix in free agency and he suffered the injury before ever getting the chance to play under his new contract. It’s a rough break for a player who was already trying to shake an “injury prone” label, having appeared in just 166 of a possible 328 regular-season games across his first four seasons.

The frustrating part is that Williams was finally coming off the healthiest stretch of his career, right before this latest setback. He played 60 games last season, a career high by a wide margin over his previous best of 44, and averaged a promising 11.7 points, 8.0 rebounds, an assist, and 0.9 blocks in 23.6 minutes a night.

Williams arrived in Phoenix via a 2025 draft-night trade from Charlotte, a change of scenery that came only after an earlier attempt to send him to the Lakers had fallen through at that year’s trade deadline, when he failed his physical. Once in Phoenix, he took over as the Suns’ starting center and became a key part of a group that helped the team exceed expectations on its way to a playoff berth.

With Williams out, Phoenix will likely lean on Oso Ighodaro and Khaman Maluach at center and they are likely to experiment with more small-ball line-ups. Williams’ injury is a real complication for a Suns team that is hoping to build on last season’s better-than-expected 45-37 finish.

Devin Booker, a five-time All-Star, remains the heart of this roster, and he’ll be surrounded by a strong backcourt rotation of Jalen Green, Collin Gillespie, and Jordan Goodwin, along with forwards Dillon Brooks and newly acquired Miles Bridges, who also arrives via a trade from Charlotte. Bridges should provide some much-needed interior scoring, which becomes even more important with Williams expected to miss significant time and the frontcourt suddenly looking a lot less settled than it did a few weeks ago.

It’s shaping up to be an uphill climb for Phoenix, but this should still be an entertaining team even without Williams patrolling the paint for the first few months of the season. The Suns have the personnel to lean into a run-and-gun style with their deep group of perimeter talent, and with their center rotation thinner than planned, leaning on pace and shooting over size may end up being less of a choice and more of a necessity as the season unfolds.