There are wins that feel like oxygen, and then there are wins that feel like you can finally unclench your jaw. Thursday night against the Los Angeles Lakers was the latter for the Phoenix Suns, a game that washed over the fan base and let everyone breathe a little deeper as they look ahead to Sacramento on Tuesday. When you do not play again for a few days, a performance like that lingers in the best way. It rides shotgun with you through the weekend. It hums in the background while you mow the lawn
or rewatch possessions on League Pass.
Injuries have reshaped the rotation, and when that happens, space opens up. Minutes are not handed out, they are claimed. Opportunity sits there waiting for someone with the nerve to grab it. On Thursday night, that someone was Rasheer Fleming, the rookie out of Saint Joe’s. He stepped into his window and looked comfortable doing it. He did not float through the game. He impacted it. And on a night when Phoenix needed contributions from everywhere, he answered the call.
When you see Rasheer Fleming step onto an NBA floor, your eyes do not have to work very hard to understand the intrigue. He looks the part immediately. 6’9”. A 7’5” wingspan that seems to blot out light. 240 pounds on a frame that carries it with ease. When he extends those condor arms into a passing lane or rises to contest at the rim, it is not a mild inconvenience for the offense. It is a problem that has to be solved in real time.
This season has not been about rushing him. It has been about building him. He arrived raw, the kind of prospect who makes you lean forward in your seat during Summer League and whisper to yourself that if it ever clicks, watch out. You could see the outlines of something meaningful in Vegas, yet on the offensive end, he would drift, processing a half-second late, thinking through reads instead of reacting to them.
Time has a way of sanding down those rough edges. Reps in the G League matter. Film sessions matter. The unglamorous minutes matter. And with each stretch of action, he has started to look more comfortable, more decisive, more in tune with where he is supposed to be and when he is supposed to be there.
There is also the draft context that lingers in the background. A second round pick, yes, although taken 31st overall, which is as close to the first round as you can live without technically being invited to the party. That slot carries its own subtle message. It says the league saw something. It says the gap between him and the traditional first-rounder was thin. Three spots behind Ryan Dunn the year before, which is less a separation and more a technicality.
Now the physical gifts that made you believe are starting to align with the on-court feel. And when that happens, when body and brain begin to sync up, that is when a developmental project starts to look like a rotation player in the making.
What we witnessed on Thursday felt like another mile marker in Rasheer Fleming’s growth chart. It was another reminder that this stretch of opportunity for the young guys is something you cannot properly measure with a box score or a spreadsheet. Development does not move in straight lines. It moves in minutes, in trust, in moments that stack on top of each other until a coach starts to lean your direction without hesitation.
Fleming had logged 266 minutes entering the matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers. That is not nothing, although it is not a featured role either. Lately, the runway has been longer. He has approached 20 minutes in five of the last six games he has appeared in, including Thursday night, and those minutes have not been accidental. They have been intentional.
Jordan Ott has started to weave him into the fabric of the game earlier, slipping him into the rotation in the first quarter, letting him feel the tempo while the contest is still finding its shape. It gives Phoenix a different look, more length, more switchability, and more chaos on the defensive end. It asks the opponent a new question.
Thursday followed a familiar script at first. Fleming checked in with 4:22 left in the opening quarter. That timing tracks. He entered with 3:15 left in the first against the Boston Celtics. He stepped in with 4:59 left in the first against the Portland Trail Blazers. The pattern is there.
What shifted against the Lakers was the leash. In prior games, his first stint had a defined endpoint. Against Boston, he exited with 6:22 left in the second quarter. Against Portland, his run ended at the start of the second. On Thursday, after the mandatory mid-quarter timeout, Ott let him stay out there. He kept Rasheer on the floor.
That detail matters. Coaches show belief in increments. An extra rotation. A few more possessions. Trust revealed not in words, but in substitution patterns. And on a night when Phoenix needed energy and length and a little bit of fearlessness, the rookie was given more room to breathe, which is how growth becomes real.
Ott saw the disruption. He saw Rasheer Fleming make life uncomfortable for Luka Doncic and LeBron James, and when that timeout hit, he did not reach for the substitution pattern he had been following in previous games. He let it ride. Why? Because Fleming earned it.
That is the ecosystem this roster is trying to build. Minutes are not gifted. They are claimed. You want to stay on the floor? Prove you belong there. On Thursday, Fleming proved it. His defense was active, physical, and aware. He used every inch of that wingspan to crowd air space, to shade driving lanes, to bother pull-ups. Disruption is his entry point into this league. If he hangs his hat there, the rest can grow around it.
The body has always been ready. The question was always whether the athletic gifts would align with the mental processing. That alignment is starting to show. He anticipates screens instead of reacting late. He navigates contact with balance. He keeps his hands high to deter passes, to alter sight lines, to make scorers think twice. These are not accidental habits. They are learned behaviors, signs that the game is slowing down for him.
Offensively, the confidence is creeping in as well. The three-point stroke looks clean, repeatable, unhurried. He went 2-of-3 from deep on Thursday night, stepping into those looks without hesitation. The season number sits at 27.6%, which tells part of the story. The recent stretch tells another. He is 7-of-17 over his last five games, good for 41.2%, and those attempts have come within the flow of the offense.
For a young player, that blend of defensive impact and growing offensive comfort is how you carve out a role. Fleming is beginning to understand that, and more importantly, he is beginning to show it.
There is one layer you would still like to see him peel back.
When the ball finds Rasheer Fleming above the break, the first instinct is often to keep it moving, to swing it to the next option, to stay within the structure of the offense. There is value in that. It shows discipline. It shows he understands the scheme. Yet there are moments when you want him to pause for half a beat, read the defender in front of him, and consider that the advantage might be his.
Attack.
Not every possession. Not recklessly. Not in a way that hijacks flow. Although when an athlete with his physical abilities catches the ball in space, there is room to explore. We saw a glimpse of it when he rolled off of a screen towards the cylinder in the third. It worked. The defender gave ground. The lane opened. The finish followed.
That is the next frontier in his development. Trusting that his length can carry him past contests. Trusting that when he extends toward the cylinder, his length creates angles that most players cannot erase. He might surprise himself with how unblockable he can be once he commits to the drive.
It is a small adjustment, although an important one. Growth in this league often lives in those in-between decisions, the choice to swing the ball or seize the moment. For Fleming, learning when to turn a catch into pressure on the rim feels like the next step in a journey that is already trending upward.
“We always tell him he has no idea how good he can be,” Collin Gillespie said of Fleming after the game.
I am grateful he had the runway to play through mistakes, to settle in, to leave fingerprints on the game. I am also grateful the front office resisted the urge to chase a veteran power forward on the trade market or in the buyout aisle to soak up those reps. They stayed committed to the developmental arc, trusting that when the window opened, it would belong to someone like Rasheer Fleming. Thursday night, the window opened, and he stepped through it.
This is what patience looks like. You draft a player 31st overall, you invest in the reps, you live with the uneven stretches, and you allow the growth to compound. When opportunity arrives, it does not feel foreign. It feels earned.
As I have said before, growth is linear. It climbs, it dips, it steadies, it climbs again. The next matchup might not fit him as cleanly. He might run into a coverage he has not solved yet. He might have to process something new on the fly and learn in real time how to counter it. That is not a setback, that is the curriculum.
Development in the NBA is not about perfection. It is about exposure. See it once. Adjust. See it again. Respond quicker. Fleming is in that phase now, gathering experiences, stacking possessions, building a foundation that will support the next leap.
