only 3 players<\/a> who played in 10+ games last season and averaged over 36 minutes per game, it\u2019s somewhat of a dead stat.<\/p>\nSo I decided to take this exercise one step further. I used the per-36 projections Basketball Reference has for every member of the Phoenix Suns and normalized their statistical output to the minutes each player averaged last season. Ah, math and Excel. I heart you.<\/p>\n
I know this is a flawed way to approach it. Minutes and roles will change, and last season\u2019s playing time isn\u2019t necessarily indicative of what each player will receive this year. Still, it gives us a little more insight into the production Basketball-Reference is projecting based on a workload we\u2019ve actually seen these players handle.<\/p>\n
Basketball-Reference Projections (Based on Last Season\u2019s Minutes)PlayerMPGFGFGA3P3PAFTFTAORBTRBASTSTLBLKTOVPFPTSFG%3P%FT%Collin Gillespie28.54.410.52.86.91.01.21.14.24.61.30.21.51.712.70.4250.4040.855Devin Booker33.58.217.82.06.06.06.90.83.96.00.80.32.92.624.50.4590.3330.878Dillon Brooks30.46.114.12.26.22.22.70.83.61.80.90.21.43.216.60.4310.3610.833Haywood Highsmith13.01.43.10.71.80.40.50.61.90.90.50.30.41.23.90.4630.3940.746Jalen Green25.96.114.12.26.32.43.10.53.82.80.80.31.91.316.80.4320.3440.798Jamaree Bouyea14.02.35.00.51.80.60.90.41.91.80.60.40.70.95.80.4610.3080.715Jordan Goodwin22.53.37.81.43.90.60.91.94.82.31.40.31.11.98.60.4160.3670.727Khaman Malauch8.91.42.60.20.70.50.70.92.60.40.20.60.50.83.50.5260.3180.747Koby Brea7.01.22.70.61.60.40.50.31.10.80.20.10.40.53.50.4590.4070.812Luke Kennard21.63.16.11.63.50.81.00.52.52.50.70.10.91.28.50.5050.4530.888Mark Williams23.64.97.90.10.32.43.02.98.11.40.90.91.22.212.30.6240.3620.783Miles Bridges31.06.514.425.92.83.41.06.23.30.70.51.61.617.70.4520.3300.835Oso Ighodaro22.02.94.60.10.20.71.41.65.02.10.90.71.22.46.60.630.3450.513Pat Spencer18.62.86.70.92.50.81.00.82.63.40.70.11.31.27.30.4280.3480.77Rasheer Fleming12.21.74.00.82.20.50.70.92.30.50.40.40.51.14.70.4310.3590.643Ryan Dunn19.42.65.80.92.90.40.71.34.11.30.80.50.81.96.60.4540.3320.554<\/p>\n
I know this isn\u2019t a perfect science. Again, these are projections. They never truly are. There are also individual intricacies that get lost in this process. I don\u2019t believe Khaman Maluach will only play 8.9 minutes per game as he did a season ago, nor do I expect Mark Williams to have much impact when he returns from his labrum injury. Still, the exercise gives us an interesting look at how Basketball Reference views the individual players on this roster.<\/p>\n
Based on these projections, the Suns would have six players averaging double figures in scoring each night. Overall, the projections have the Suns shooting 47.5% from the field, 36% from beyond the arc, and 75.6% from the free-throw line. And I can fall in love with those three-point shooting numbers from Gillespie and Kennard.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the most interesting projection belongs to Devin Booker. Basketball Reference has him averaging 24.5 points per game, which would be his lowest scoring output since his sophomore season back in 2016-17, while matching his assist production from last year. His three-point percentage mildly increases while his free throw attempts drop from 8.1 last season to 6.9 this season. A question we have to ask ourselves is: What does a stat line of 24.5 and 6.0, with 2.9 turnovers, on 46\/33\/88 splits mean? To us, to him, and to the team?<\/p>\n
Another thing I find interesting is the overall shot diet, and it\u2019s something I\u2019m contemplating monitoring throughout the season. Every week during the season, I write a Suns Weekly, which I\u2019m renaming The Solar Report this season as an homage to my podcast\u2019s original name. Within that, I like to find one statistic to mine and monitor throughout the season. This year, the overall shot diet might be one of them.<\/p>\n
What does the balance of this offense actually look like? Based on these projections, the Suns would have five different players averaging more than 10 shot attempts per game. That isn\u2019t necessarily unfamiliar territory. We saw a similar distribution last season. What interests me is where those shots are going. Based on my normalized version of Basketball-Reference\u2019s projections, Miles Bridges would be second on the team with 14.4 field goal attempts per game, while Dillon Brooks and Jalen Green would both average 14.1.<\/p>\n
Is that the right balance? More importantly, what does balance even look like for this team? That\u2019s something I want to monitor throughout the season. Because with this many players capable of taking double-digit shots on any given night, how those opportunities are distributed could tell us quite a bit about what this offense ultimately becomes.<\/p>\n
Again, none of this is gospel. It\u2019s simply another way to look at what this roster could potentially produce. The numbers aren\u2019t telling us what will happen. They\u2019re establishing another baseline for what could happen. Roles will change, minutes will change, injuries and development will blow holes through some of these projections before Thanksgiving. But with training camp around the corner, we\u2019ve officially reached the point where speculation is about to collide with reality. The spreadsheets have had their turn. Now it\u2019s time for basketball to start providing the answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the offseason prepares to come to a close, with training camp starting in a little over a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":904825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82,69558],"class_list":["post-904824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports","tag-suns-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/904825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a><\/p>\n