Season-Long Problems Culminate
Simply put, the loss of Dragic has had a deeper impact than just the scoring column.
The ball was usually in Eric Bledsoe’s hands even with Dragic on the roster, but the Dragon was skilled when it came to making the right pass to keep Phoenix’s iso-heavy offense moving. His passes wouldn’t always lead to an assist, but they kept the offense alive and led to one or two more passes that would eventually find the open man for a quality shot. The guy racked up hockey assists, in other words.
You know why the Golden State Warriors and Atlanta Hawks shoot the ball so well from three-point range? It’s not just that they have shooters capable of knocking down the long ball. It’s that their offenses are predicated on a lot of ball and player movement, leading to a higher number of open shots. It’s a lot easier to shoot basketball’s most important shot when you’re wide open.
Bledsoe has vastly expanded his game since last season, but he’s still not a facilitator. Neither is Brandon Knight. These two need the ball in their hands to be effective and generally look to score first. There’s nothing wrong with that, and Dragic technically fit that same mold as well.
But since trading away Dragic, any shred of ball movement the Suns had before has fallen by the wayside. Only 48.3 of Phoenix’s points per game are created by an assist. Compare that to the 64.8 points created by assists by a team like the Golden State Warriors and you can see how difficult it is to score with so much iso-ball — which, to be clear, has been a problem with the Suns all season long:
But Phoenix’s assist-to-turnover ratio went from an already bad 1.38 before the break (tied for 23rd in the league) to 1.24 after the roster shakeup (29th). Their assist percentage (52.3) remains 30th in the NBA, and now the turnovers have gotten completely out of hand.
The Suns were averaging 14.9 turnovers per game before (21st), but with the ball in Bledsoe’s hands more than ever, that number has regressed even further to 15.9 per game (25th).
Again, some of that stems from Bledsoe playing with new teammates (and even some old teammates in different roles). Some of that stems from the fact that this is only Bledsoe’s first full season as starter. But a lot of it stems from him charging to the basket out of control and either losing the ball when the help defense comes or jumping through the air with no plan and flinging the ball out of bounds.
Turnovers, iso-ball and a lack of movement (off-the-ball player movement and ball movement alike) have been problems all season long. But with Dragic and Thomas no longer around to make it look better than it was, those problems have reared their ugly heads.
Next: Knight Down