Phoenix Suns

Suns Squared: Rookie Report

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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Starting a monthly feature checking in on the play of development of the Suns’ rookies.

The Suns spent the number 4 pick on the Dragan Bender and traded back into the top 10 to select Marquese Chriss at 8. In addition, the Suns selected Tyler Ulis at 34. All of them, make up a key part of the future for the Suns. Thus, their play and development are of the utmost importance. With that in mind, I want to start a monthly post where I’ll check in on the rookies and how they are playing.

The first thing I want to look at is the Usage Rate (USG) and True Shooting Percentage (TS%) of all the rookies to qualify for the minutes per game board in the NBA. This weeds out the rookies that haven’t played much and therefore could have heavily inflated or deflated numbers.

The graph above displays the qualifying with USG on the x-axis and TS% on the y-axis. The outlier to the far right of the graph is Joel Embiid who has a staggeringly high USG of 37.7%. All 3 of the Suns’ rookies rate around the average mark for USG and TS%. That is a pretty good sign, but all could be a little higher. Bender has the best shooting numbers but that could be because he has a slightly lower USG number the Chriss and Ulis. Hopefully, as the season progresses and the rookies get more settled in and used to NBA competition the shooting numbers will improve.

Z-Score Comparison

The next form of analysis I used is called a Z-score. A Z-score is a measure to see how a specific player performs compared to the average of other players in a certain statistic. It is calculated by taking the players number in the category, subtracting the population average from it and then dividing that number by the standard deviation of the data set. There is a full explanation here: http://stattrek.com/statistics/dictionary.aspx?definition=z%20score. It sounds more complex than it is but it really a simple way to see how a player is underperforming or overperforming related to the average of their peer group. The number displays how many standard deviations above or below the mean the players rank compared to their peers.

I used the qualifying rookies that appear in the graph above*. The chart below shows Bender, Chriss and Ulis Z-scores for PER, win score per 48 minutes, and box score plus minus. *List of rookies featured:

Rodney McGruder, Jamal Murray, Pascal Siakam, Joel Embiid, Andrew Harrison, Domantas Sabonis, Juan Hernangomez, Davis Bertans, Malcolm Brogdon, Dorian Finney-Smith, Patrick McCaw, Taurean Waller-Prince, Jaylen Brown, Malcolm Delaney, Mindaugas Kuzminskas, Tomas Satoransky, Kris Dunn, Alex Abrines, Willy Hernangomez, Denzel Valentine, Semaj Christon, Brandon Ingram, Dario Saric, Buddy Hield, and Isaiah Whitehead.

Z-Score	PER	WS/48	BPM	Overall
Marquese Chriss	-0.629	-1.2	-0.93	-2.759
Dragan Bender	-1.14	-1.24	-0.77	-3.15
Tyler Ulis	0.891	-0.03	0.22	1.081

Taking a look at these numbers there is not much positive to pull out. Tyler Ulis is certainly playing better than expected. It is important to contextualize these numbers if the Suns don’t play well as a team it is hard for the rookies to put up great numbers. On top of that, it is normal for rookies to not be very efficient their first year.

A couple final tidbits to end on is that both Bender and Ulis have great on/off numbers as the Suns are +16.4 and +15 with those two on the floor. So while all the numbers aren’t great now, they will improve over time as the rookies get more comfortable and used to the NBA.

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