Post#33 » by bwgood77 » Fri Jun 21, 2019 7:28 am
I will be surprised if most here don't come to really like TJ as a player. I have been watching the Suns for a very long time, and he is one of the more natural scorers I've seen. I hated that he was always hesitant to shoot the 3 in past years, but they wanted him to add it to his game, and threw an annual bonus to his contract to hit a certain # of 3s this past season, and he worked hard with David West's brother in the offseason, shooting over 40,000 3's, completely changing his form, and he came in on fire....he came within 5 3s of earning his bonus even though he only played in half of the games this year...he was shooting them at a high % on fairly high volume.
I know his % decreased by month, but in the final month it was still 39.5%, which is still pretty good, and he finished like 8th in the NBA in 3pt%. He just started on fire in the first month at 48%. I typically look at one year spikes with hesitation but watching him and knowing he rarely shot 3s in his first 4 years, changed his form, worked that hard, and tripled his attempts, I don't think it's anything to worry about. The guy is a gym rat.
But his bread and butter has always been his touch from short to mid range. It is uncanny. You will be surprised at this touch I think...he knows how to use the backboard and rim and bounces.
He has a rep of being a ball stopper and while that can be argued, I wouldn't exactly say that's a good description without context. He has spent his whole career watching Bledsoe, Booker or even Brandon Knight pound the ball and he typically has worked as an end of the shot clock outlet. This season when we finally moved on from the Earl Watson fiasco, with Kokoskov who wanted to move the ball, he moved it if he got it early in the shot clock, but again, he often would get it to finish, because that's what he is...a damn good finisher.
He is not a good assist guy but has improved a bit in that regard. I think it's kind of in part to what his role has always been. Knowing him I think he continues to improve there even though it will never be a strength.
His defense was improved this year. It's not really reflected on some of the box score stats like on b-ref due to playing with Ayton and Booker and also because those are based on rebounds and stuff, but he was much better 1 on 1 and is pretty good with steals and will typically turn those into fast break buckets himself. His DRPM was vastly improved even though our team's D likely got much worse with Ayton.
Anyway, I think you will enjoy watching him and I'm glad he's on a team I actually pull for...love your team and like the smaller market teams so I will be watching.