Marquese Chriss sat down with Suns.com to answer fan submitted questions via the Player Mailbag. Check out his answers below.
Name: Peter Gruca
Location: NJ
Question: What’s your favorite thing about living in Arizona?
Marquese: I think the people. Everybody is really welcoming, they made me feel comfortable as soon as I got here. The weather too.
Name: Quiesha Hamm
Location: New Haven, CT
Question: Do you have any hobbies other than playing basketball or football? If so, what are they?
Marquese: I play videogames… that’s pretty much it. I play 2K, I play a game called Mafia. I play Dying Light. That’s pretty much it.
Name: Anthony Hyde
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Question: Who has been your most valuable teacher this year, either player or coach, and why?
Marquese: Tyson and Earl. They’re always being honest with me and telling me stuff when I mess up and teaching me as they go along. It’s not in a negative way, they’re being teachers.
Name: Casey Wright
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Question: Who did you look up to in the basketball world when you were growing up?
Marquese: I never really watched basketball. I still like my favorite player, Rudy Gay, LaMarcus Aldridge. And it’s not as if I watched them all the time, but when I saw them play, I just liked the way that they played.
Name: Dylan Buckor
Location: Elk Grove, CA
Question: When are you coming back to Pleasant Grove?!?!
Marquese: Ah man, probably not for a while. Probably during the summer I’ll get to go home. They need to hurry up and retire some jerseys up there.
Name: Dominic Zagara
Location: Burton, MI
Question: How old were you when you dunked for the first time?
Marquese: 14.
Name: Wendy Robinson
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Question: You’re doing really well, Marquese and I love how you’re getting really comfortable on the court. Keep up the good work. What do you miss the most from UW?
Marquese: I think I just miss the environment. It just felt like home, everything about it from the coaching staff and the teachers and my teammates. It was a fun experience for me and I miss it.
Name: Renato Dodge
Location: CA
Question: Do you hang out with the team in your free time? Who do you hang out with the most, and what do you guys do?
Marquese: Me, Tyler and Book hang out probably majority of the time, and then Al will come over and hang out or we will go out and see a movie, eat, stuff like that.
Name: Lincoln Huffman
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Question: What is your preferred brand of toothpaste?
Marquese: Probably Crest.
Name: Laiba Chaudhary
Location: Leeds, United Kingdom
Question: How many tattoos do you have? Are you planning to get a new one anytime soon?
Marquese: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Yeah, nine, and I am going to get more.
Name: Ian Kaz
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Question: Have you gotten any sort of rookie treatment yet?
Marquese: Just having to carry stuff really, that’s it. It’s nothing crazy. They say we’ve got it easy. The earliest we’ve got to be here is like an hour and a half. They said in the old NBA they would have to get here two and a half hours early, so I think we got it easy.
Name: Jefte Merlin
Location: Seattle, WA
Question: Who do you look up to the most?
Marquese: My mom. I just think she’s resilient, and she’s a fighter. She’s a hard worker. She gives me my sense of pride and my sense of competitiveness and everything like that.
Name: Jason Castillo
Location: Pasco, WA
Question: Why did you pick No. 0?
Marquese: It was just something different. I’ve been a bunch of different numbers. I’ve been number 8, 7, 22, 33, number 1. I was number 22 because Rudy Gay was number 22, but that was in high school. They didn’t have a number 22 jersey, so I was number 33. My senior year my point guard when I was a sophomore told me be number one, because only him and his brother wore it, so then I wore number one. I got to college and I was like I might as well change it up and wear 0.
Marquese Chriss Throws Down Insane Alley-Oop
Name: Steven Vinson
Location: Bellingham, WA
Question: OMG HOW DID YOU CATCH THAT LOB IN THE RAPTORS GAME?!?!
Marquese: I don’t know, I wish I had an answer. I honestly couldn’t see the ball, I just kinda stuck my hand up. I was a little mad, so I was just trying to dunk the ball as hard as I could and I ended up falling.
Name: Casey Wright
Location: Mesa, AZ
Question: What is something you always wanted to do that you haven’t yet?
Marquese: Hit a buzzer-beater.
Name: Jason Hughes
Location: Sacramento, CA
Question: What’s been the highlight of your rookie year so far? Good luck the rest of the season!
Marquese: There’s been a lot. The close games. Book hitting tough shots. I think a lot of them have to do with my teammates. I think it’s just fun cheering them on, especially later in the games when all the vets are in and they’re making tough plays. Like when Bled hit the buzzer-beater against Portland, and we got to run on the court. It’s things like that.
Name: Ericka Soto
Location: Laveen, AZ
Question: What do you like about being a professional basketball player? What do you dislike?
Marquese: I love that this is my life. My life is surrounded around basketball, everything I do it’s tailored towards becoming better at this and becoming a better person on and off the court. The worst part? I can’t really think of anything that’s bad. I’m doing something that I love to do and it’s my job, I’m getting paid for it.
Name: Todd DiMenna
Location: Saratoga Springs, NY
Question: How was the transformation from college to the NBA, and how are you adjusting?
Marquese: Honestly, I think it was smoother than most people expected, and that I even expected. I think the coaches made me feel comfortable in my own skin and what I was able to do, so going into Summer League I felt fine. I wasn’t nervous, I wasn’t anxious. I felt prepared.
Name: Samuel Denny
Location: England
Question: Do you watch soccer? If so, who is your favorite team?
Marquese: I don’t watch soccer, but I play FIFA. That’s pretty much it.