Short-term team warning signs

[bwgood77]

How bad is Ayton really? I followed the Wolves for a long time and got more and more annoyed with Towns because he visibly put no effort or throught into defense while showing off on the other end (causing ignorant "fans" to consider him a good player). I hope Ayton is just incompetent, not unwilling?

I tend to lean incompetence right now over unwilling. He's just slow on rotations, gets stuck in no-mans-land and sometimes just ball watches. But with experience, being around a good defensive influence (Baynes, Bridges - calling him out during games) and hopefully playing in a good defensive scheme, we can minimise a lot of that incompetence and really put to work that length and athleticism which should lend itself to elite defense.

Incompetence is way too harsh of a description.

Despite having a dreadful first month on D (Human Statue on D), Ayton ended up the year with a better DPRM, DWS, and DRtg than Mikal Bridges, who no one would characterize as incompetent on D. Ayton was one of the best defender on an admittedly terrible defensive team. Richaun Holmes was the team best defensive player. But by the end of the season, I thought Ayton was better than Richaun.

His weakness by far is PNR coverage. It takes big men a couple of year to get the PNR coverage right, so we'll have to see. Unlike poor PNR defender (Kanter, etc), Ayton has no physical limitation that prevents him from being elite on PNR. If Ayton is competent on PNR coverage, he would be above average on D.

You can't compare different positions with advanced stats. Centers will always be better because rebounds count as defensive stats.

Ayton needs to be compared with other Cs, not a wing.

[GoodBehavior]

I tend to lean incompetence right now over unwilling. He's just slow on rotations, gets stuck in no-mans-land and sometimes just ball watches. But with experience, being around a good defensive influence (Baynes, Bridges - calling him out during games) and hopefully playing in a good defensive scheme, we can minimise a lot of that incompetence and really put to work that length and athleticism which should lend itself to elite defense.

Incompetence is way too harsh of a description.

Despite having a dreadful first month on D (Human Statue on D), Ayton ended up the year with a better DPRM, DWS, and DRtg than Mikal Bridges, who no one would characterize as incompetent on D. Ayton was one of the best defender on an admittedly terrible defensive team. Richaun Holmes was the team best defensive player. But by the end of the season, I thought Ayton was better than Richaun.

His weakness by far is PNR coverage. It takes big men a couple of year to get the PNR coverage right, so we'll have to see. Unlike poor PNR defender (Kanter, etc), Ayton has no physical limitation that prevents him from being elite on PNR. If Ayton is competent on PNR coverage, he would be above average on D.

You can't compare different positions with advanced stats. Centers will always be better because rebounds count as defensive stats.

Ayton needs to be compared with other Cs, not a wing.

Fair point. Ayton is still better than everyone on the team (compared to their respective positions), except for Holmes, Melton, and TYler based on DPRM. You can definitely say he's below average. But you can say that for practically the entire team.

Ayton ranked #51 out of 70 centers. Marginally higher than KAT.

Bridges: #78 out of 94 small forwards. Ariza: 81, Jackson: 84, and Booker at 91 (strange classification but we know he's at the bottom somewhere)

Oubre is #74 out of 94 small forwards (maybe that's why he should start over Bridges, though Bridges should get better in second year)

Tyler: #71 out of 109 shooting guard

New Additions:

Baynes: #18 out of 70 centers (Expected)

Saric: #86 out of 90 power forwards (Concerning)

Rubio: #12 out of 105 point guard (Love It)

[bwgood77]

Incompetence is way too harsh of a description.

Despite having a dreadful first month on D (Human Statue on D), Ayton ended up the year with a better DPRM, DWS, and DRtg than Mikal Bridges, who no one would characterize as incompetent on D. Ayton was one of the best defender on an admittedly terrible defensive team. Richaun Holmes was the team best defensive player. But by the end of the season, I thought Ayton was better than Richaun.

His weakness by far is PNR coverage. It takes big men a couple of year to get the PNR coverage right, so we'll have to see. Unlike poor PNR defender (Kanter, etc), Ayton has no physical limitation that prevents him from being elite on PNR. If Ayton is competent on PNR coverage, he would be above average on D.

You can't compare different positions with advanced stats. Centers will always be better because rebounds count as defensive stats.

Ayton needs to be compared with other Cs, not a wing.

Fair point. Ayton is still better than everyone on the team (compared to their respective positions), except for Holmes, Melton, and TYler based on DPRM. You can definitely say he's below average. But you can say that for practically the entire team.

Ayton ranked #51 out of 70 centers. Marginally higher than KAT.

Bridges: #78 out of 94 small forwards. Ariza: 81, Jackson: 84, and Booker at 91 (strange classification but we know he's at the bottom somewhere)

Oubre is #74 out of 94 small forwards (maybe that's why he should start over Bridges, though Bridges should get better in second year)

Tyler: #71 out of 109 shooting guard

New Additions:

Baynes: #18 out of 70 centers (Expected)

Saric: #86 out of 90 power forwards (Concerning)

Rubio: #12 out of 105 point guard (Love It)

Mikal Bridges is actually 57. You were looking at Miles. I've looked at that so many times it didn't seem right. http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/page/2/sort/DRPM/position/5

For some reason it put a bunch of Suns in the SF category. Look at page 3...Melton is also in SF at 50.

[GoodBehavior]

You can't compare different positions with advanced stats. Centers will always be better because rebounds count as defensive stats.

Ayton needs to be compared with other Cs, not a wing.

Fair point. Ayton is still better than everyone on the team (compared to their respective positions), except for Holmes, Melton, and TYler based on DPRM. You can definitely say he's below average. But you can say that for practically the entire team.

Ayton ranked #51 out of 70 centers. Marginally higher than KAT.

Bridges: #78 out of 94 small forwards. Ariza: 81, Jackson: 84, and Booker at 91 (strange classification but we know he's at the bottom somewhere)

Oubre is #74 out of 94 small forwards (maybe that's why he should start over Bridges, though Bridges should get better in second year)

Tyler: #71 out of 109 shooting guard

New Additions:

Baynes: #18 out of 70 centers (Expected)

Saric: #86 out of 90 power forwards (Concerning)

Rubio: #12 out of 105 point guard (Love It)

Mikal Bridges is actually 57. You were looking at Miles. I've looked at that so many times it didn't seem right. http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/page/2/sort/DRPM/position/5

For some reason it put a bunch of Suns in the SF category. Look at page 3.

Oh good catch!

[lilfishi22]

How bad is Ayton really? I followed the Wolves for a long time and got more and more annoyed with Towns because he visibly put no effort or throught into defense while showing off on the other end (causing ignorant "fans" to consider him a good player). I hope Ayton is just incompetent, not unwilling?

I tend to lean incompetence right now over unwilling. He's just slow on rotations, gets stuck in no-mans-land and sometimes just ball watches. But with experience, being around a good defensive influence (Baynes, Bridges - calling him out during games) and hopefully playing in a good defensive scheme, we can minimise a lot of that incompetence and really put to work that length and athleticism which should lend itself to elite defense.

Incompetence is way too harsh of a description.

Despite having a dreadful first month on D (Human Statue on D), Ayton ended up the year with a better DPRM, DWS, and DRtg than Mikal Bridges, who no one would characterize as incompetent on D. Ayton was one of the best defender on an admittedly terrible defensive team. Richaun Holmes was the team best defensive player. But by the end of the season, I thought Ayton was better than Richaun.

His weakness by far is PNR coverage. It takes big men a couple of year to get the PNR coverage right, so we'll have to see. Unlike poor PNR defender (Kanter, etc), Ayton has no physical limitation that prevents him from being elite on PNR. If Ayton is competent on PNR coverage, he would be above average on D.

Maybe too harsh but better than unwilling which are the two options. Unwilling means that he just doesn't care/not interested in being a good defensive player. He was improving month on month but I say incompetence because there are still a number of aspect to his defensive game which needs real improvement. I don't expect major improvement after one offseason but I want to see it year on year.

[grumpysaddle]

It's funny how all the good defenders individually have good defenders around them as well. Could it be that individual defensive stats aren't entirely "individual"? The Suns need everyone to step up and trust each other defensively. They haven't had a system or the personnel for that in a ~decade

[Jesus_H_Macy]

I don't know if the advanced stats would back this up, but I thought Ayton pretty clearly improved on D over the course of the season. I still got frustrated with him a lot, mainly on rotations and just wondering why the heck the dude didn't consistently block every shot in his vicinity since you'd see him do that every few games, but I didn't think he was bad by the end of the season. At least not for a rookie. I do think he is much better at 1-1 D vs. team D but theoretically if he's already got the skills to have good 1-1 D it should be easier for him to learn good team D since it indicates he has the athletic ability. I will definitely be disappointed if he isn't average to good on team D this season. No reason he shouldn't be.

[bwgood77]

I don't know if the advanced stats would back this up, but I thought Ayton pretty clearly improved on D over the course of the season. I still got frustrated with him a lot, mainly on rotations and just wondering why the heck the dude didn't consistently block every shot in his vicinity since you'd see him do that every few games, but I didn't think he was bad by the end of the season. At least not for a rookie. I do think he is much better at 1-1 D vs. team D but theoretically if he's already got the skills to have good 1-1 D it should be easier for him to learn good team D since it indicates he has the athletic ability. I will definitely be disappointed if he isn't average to good on team D this season. No reason he shouldn't be.

He did improve quite a bit, particularly with 1 on 1 defense and DFG%, but it still seemed like he wasn't completely engaged all the time...it was on and off.

[Jesus_H_Macy]

I don't know if the advanced stats would back this up, but I thought Ayton pretty clearly improved on D over the course of the season. I still got frustrated with him a lot, mainly on rotations and just wondering why the heck the dude didn't consistently block every shot in his vicinity since you'd see him do that every few games, but I didn't think he was bad by the end of the season. At least not for a rookie. I do think he is much better at 1-1 D vs. team D but theoretically if he's already got the skills to have good 1-1 D it should be easier for him to learn good team D since it indicates he has the athletic ability. I will definitely be disappointed if he isn't average to good on team D this season. No reason he shouldn't be.

He did improve quite a bit, particularly with 1 on 1 defense and DFG%, but it still seemed like he wasn't completely engaged all the time...it was on and off.

I agree, that frustrated me. Whenever I heard him talk he still sounded more or less like a kid to me. I'm hoping as he matures his focus and intensity improves.