Marquese Chriss

Marquese Chriss (born July 2, 1997) is an American basketball player who plays for the Phoenix Suns in the NBA. He played college basketball for the Washington Huskies.

Chriss attended Pleasant Grove High School in Elk Grove, California. Before playing basketball, Chriss loved playing American football, with him being a standout player and enjoying to play at the tight end, defensive end, and free safety positions.[1] He did not begin playing basketball until his freshman year in 2011 after a broken collarbone during middle school football caused his mother, a licensed clinical worker named Shawntae Wright, to bar him from playing. Chriss was almost cut from the team due to the school having too many big players already on the team combined with him being a shy, passive person at the time. However, he would ultimately be a part of Pleasant Grove's basketball team, and he'd grow to really love the sport of basketball as well by the middle of his freshman season. Around that same time, he'd already receive scholarship offers from a few other mid-major to major universities. Despite this late start, he developed to be ranked as a Top 60 recruit in the Class of 2015.

Around the start of his freshman season at the University of Washington, Chriss had some considerable struggles as a college player. Some of these issues earlier in the season included him showing limited production on the court and fouling out on consecutive strings of games, which included four of his first six games of the season and a stretch of six straight games afterwards, which lead to him holding a total 15 games of being fouled out in the season. However, Chriss started seeing a sports psychologist as recommended by his mother, which helped him improve upon some of his problems earlier in the season. He would showcase some of his improvements to many scouts on February 18, 2016 in a close 78–75 loss against the University of California, where he matched up surprisingly well against draft lottery prospects Jaylen Brown and Ivan Rabb in particular, showcasing 17 points, 7 rebounds, and a game-high 4 blocks in the process. His best game, though, came during the first round of the NIT Tournament, where he'd produce a double-double of 27 points and 11 rebounds in a close 107–102 win over Long Beach State University. As a freshman, he averaged 13.7 points and 5.4 rebounds per game. He also wound up becoming the best freshman shot-blocker in Washington University's history with an average of 1.6 blocks per game and was an honorable mention for the Pac-12 All-Freshmen Team.

After his only season in Washington ended, he entered the 2016 NBA Draft. Throughout the draft process, Chriss went from being a considerable late-lottery or mid-first round talent to rising up in the draft as a potential Top 3 draft candidate. Before the draft officially began, Chriss would sign a multi-year endorsement deal with Nike. Chriss is also compared favorably to both former Suns players Shawn Marion and Amar'e Stoudemire, as well as Shawn Kemp during the prime of their careers. On draft night, he would end up being drafted by the Sacramento Kings with their 8th pick in the draft. However, Chriss would get traded to the Phoenix Suns in exchange for their 13th and 28th picks (which would be Georgios Papagiannis and Skal Labissière respectively), the Detroit Pistons' 2020 second round pick, and the draft rights to Bogdan Bogdanović. He would be joined as a part of a new power forward duo for the Suns with Dragan Bender, their 4th pick in the draft, who was also the other player Phoenix was deciding upon at the top with their first lottery pick.