RealGM

Looking at 3-man combos that have played at least 40-minutes together, the Suns have 10 combos with a net rating of +20 or more (+20 = total domination).

1) One player shows up in all 10 of those combos.
2) Two players show up 5 times each.

Guess who?

1) Dragic?
2) Bledsoe and Frye?

1 is definitely Dragic but I'm not sure about the second. Bledsoe and Plumlee?

Are the two who always play together the Morrii? I can't decide between Frye and Dragic for #1.

Plumlee and Ish.... im betting on the longshots lol.

Dragic
Markieff and Frye

Well considering this is Los Soles, I'm guessing Frye was the one in all ten.

1) Is Frye
2) Dragic and im quessing Marcus

Frye
Dragic/Plumlee

Some good responses. Well, here it is:

1) Frye
2) The Morrii ( I like that)

Noticeably absent from all 10? Plumlee. Don't get me wrong, I really like Plumlee, and he's definitely a key piece of some good lineups.

But I think the key takeaway from this is: Frye at the five. When Frye is in with a Morris, Frye is pretty much always the 5, so we have this:

1 -- _____
2 -- _____
3 -- _____
4 -- Morris
5 -- Frye

Mix-and-match at the 1, 2, and 3: we're still effective.

Ergo, key to this season's success was not only the return of Frye, but also our limited options at the five (no Gortat, Okafor and Len injured) forcing Frye to become our de facto backup 5.

Another angle on this: we have 7 units that have played at least 30 minutes together, only one that has Frye at the five.

Offensive Rating with Frye at the five:
139.8

Offensive Rating without Frye at the five:
109.3
108.2
106.1
94.6
91.0
79.7

Frye has always worked so much better as a 5 for us. Since 2010.

Calvin Klein wrote:Frye has always worked so much better as a 5 for us. Since 2010.

Found better data on this. In raw totals, the Suns are:

−64 with Frye on the bench
+2 with Frye at the 4
+113 with Frye at the 5

Los Soles wrote:Noticeably absent from all 10? Plumlee. Don't get me wrong, I really like Plumlee, and he's definitely a key piece of some good lineups.

At first I was inclined to say Miles, but I thought you can't be king of efficiency if you don't hit the FTs, unless your FG %s and rebounds are off the charts, which is not the case with Plumbs.

Same went with Bledsoe and the TOs, which is why I was undecided between Dragic and Frye. With the Suns Frye has always been a team advanced stats darling. WormWood used to rave about his +/- on .net, only behind Nash.

Frye's D is vastly underrated, in my opinion, and certainly far from respected by the refs. As for his rebounding, the totals are not high, in part because he can't get offensive rebounds due to his role as a stretch forward, which is one of the most mind boggling qualities Kevin Love possesses.

Here are those top 10 3-man combos:

Dragic - Marcus - Frye . . . . +34.9
Dragic - Markieff - Frye . . . +29.0
Ishmael - Marcus - Frye . . . +28.8
Green - Markieff - Frye . . . +25.1
Ishmael - Markieff - Frye . . +25.0
Dragic - Goodwin - Frye . . . +24.3
Green - Marcus - Frye . . . . +23.1
Marcus - Markieff - Frye . . . +23.0
Tucker - Markieff - Frye . . . +19.7
Goodwin - Marcus - Frye . . . +19.6

And the breakdown of players:

Frye - 10
Both Morrii - 5
Dragic - 3
Ishmael - 2
Green - 2
Goodwin - 2
Tucker - 1