Overview:
Perhaps the perfect representation of an NBA journeyman, Brandan Wright has bounced around from place-to-place in his seven-year career, playing for five different teams. However, that doesn’t mean Wright has been a poor performer, or even an average one at that.
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As one of the most efficient players in the NBA, Wright has posted a career field goal percentage above 60 percent, with a career average of just 0.5 turnovers per game, and while he hasn’t found a long-term home yet, one does seem likely in the near future.
After all, at the age of 27, Wright is pretty much in his prime, and teams should know what to expect out of the big man by now. Wright has proven himself to be one of the most consistently solid players in the NBA, and that’s really a fair way to describe him.
“Consistently solid.”
It’s a funny way to talk about a guy, and even sounds pretty vague, but in fact, there really aren’t better words to describe Wright. He’s athletic and he’s lengthy; he’s smart and he’s effective. But above all else, he’s consistent, and he’s been that way over his career.
Next: Weaknesses
Weaknesses:
The beauty of a player like Wright is that while he does have weaknesses, he typically finds ways to avoid having them become a problem for his team. For example, Wright has never been a three-point shooter, which is why he’s only attempted 11 for his career. That means, on average Wright is shooting a three once every 33 games, shooting just 1.6 total three-point shots per season in his career.
However, this tells you a lot about a player like Wright. While he’s solid insurance for a guy like Alex Len, he’s also never going to be anything remarkable. His top season saw him average 9.1 points per game on 67.7 percent shooting, which is certainly not bad, and for a bench player, it’s actually great, but he’s ultimately a player that wants to stay within himself.
Just look at his shot chart:
85 – That was the percent of Wright’s shots that came around the rim, and when he ventured outside that area, his shooting percentage went down by more than 17 percent. Additionally, Wright shot just 52-of-122 (42.6 percent) on shots outside of the restricted area, including a dismal 9-of-24 (37.5 percent) on shots outside of the paint.
For better or for worse, you know what you’re going to get.
Wright’s average of 21.5 minutes per game in Phoenix was actually a career-high with any team, but that didn’t necessarily mean increased success. Often time, playing more minutes allows a player to thrive with newfound freedom. However, for Wright it signified his lowest totals in points, rebounds and assists per 40 minutes since the 2011-12 season.
To give an idea of how much things have changed in the three seasons since then, the Suns’ top starters that year were Steve Nash, Jared Dudley, Grant Hill, Channing Frye and Marcin Gortat. Shannon Brown averaged 11.0 points per game on that team, while Michael Redd appeared in 51 outings. And if you want to get really depressed, Hakim Warrick, Sebastian Telfair, Ronnie Price and Josh Childress all appeared in at least 30 games.
Fun stuff.
Really fun stuff.
Essentially, Wright has kind of stunted his own potential growth, because teams that acquire his services are looking for a consistent, efficient player that can step in and fill a role when needed. If Wright were to focus on his outside shot or try to move to other areas, his appeal as a player would go down, and for that reason he’s kind of stuck in that limbo of being pretty good, but not great.
However, being pretty good in the NBA is certainly not a bad thing. Neither is having a laid-out role.
Next: Strengths
Strengths:
Wright’s weaknesses and strengths come from the same general idea that he is a player who plays within himself. While it can be frustrating knowing that player isn’t going to become that much more dynamic, Wright can serve as a calming force on a team like the Suns, which is something that can’t hurt given how up-and-down the team was at various points this year.
Wright is obviously a very good player when it comes to converting around the basket, and he does a lot of things in the paint that rank among the NBA’s best. For example, Brandan Wright’s offensive rebound rate of 9.9 ranks in the top 30 of the NBA (min. 70 games played). Additionally, Wright ranks fourth (min. 50 games) in the NBA in effective field goal percentage, and third in true shooting percentage on the same criteria, behind only Kyle Korver and Tyson Chandler.
Looking even deeper, Wright boasts one of the lowest turnover rates in the NBA, as he has the ninth best rate of all players who played in more than 65 games, at 7.0 percent. That means that essentially one out of 15 possessions that go through Wright end in a turnover, which is more than acceptable for a bench player.
Wright also ranks top-30 in PIE, or Player Impact Estimate, which is a measure of how much of a game a player impacts. That number really sums up who Brandan Wright is as a player. In limited minutes, he is going to make smart, important plays, that lead his team, rather than making the risky ones that could cost his team down the stretch.
It’s been that way for years:
Brandon Wright is one of the most efficient players in the NBA (100th percentile), in a tiny sample size. He's awesome posting up - 99th
— BBALLBREAKDOWN (@bballbreakdown) January 5, 2014
When Brandan Wright is on the floor, what does he bring that hurts the #Mavs? So efficient with his playing time.
— Jay Wallis (@WFAAJayWallis) February 16, 2012
Such a smart play by Brandan Wright....caught, heard the whistle and instinctively threw it back up in one motion. Score the bucket, and-1
— Chillin in my Bacta (@DarthAmin) January 29, 2015
As far as other strengths, Wright is a lengthy player and defender, who averaged right around three blocks per 40 minutes. As a fill-in player, Wright is everything you could want out of a guy and then some, not to mention he does set a good example for the younger guys.
Wright is incredibly vocal on defense, and even on a new team he still had no problem being a vocal leader. The takeaway from anyone who watches Wright live is that he does a lot of the little things out there that help win games, not to mention that he is incredibly bouncy and can grab a ball way up above the rim.
Oh, and I didn’t even mention the fact that he’s posted a PER (Player Efficiency Rating) above 20 in each of his last four seasons, and he’s posted a PER above 15 (the league average) every year since he’s been in the league.
For a guy making $5 million a year, especially with the cap going up, that’s really not that bad at all.
Next: Lowlights
Lowlights:
In his time in Phoenix, Wright did a good job (for the most part) filling his role, but he did have a couple of rough stretches that saw his impact diminished. For example, from Jan. 19-25, Wright scored a total of six points over the Suns’ four games, playing a total of 58 minutes.
Over that stretch, Wright shot just 3-of-11 (27.3 percent) from the field, although he did manage to stay turnover free. After the stretch, Wright was eight games into his career as a Sun, and it wasn’t really clear what his role on the team would be, but that would of course change.
In fact, outside of those games, Wright did not have a four game stretch where he shot worse than 40 percent from the field more than twice. Even when he only scored four or six points in a game, Wright was able to do it on very limited shots, and it’s probably safe to say there were only 2-or-3 games where his play actually had a negative impact on the result.
Take the Suns game against the Sacramento Kings from Mar. 25:
Wright scored five points in 28 minutes, on six shooting possessions. Wright made just 1-of-3 free throws, and he had three turnovers, posting the third worst plus/minus on the team (-8). In that game, Wright really didn’t do anything all that well, and the Suns lost by nine, falling to 38-34 on the year, but even that wasn’t really his fault. After all, in that game P.J. Tucker and Eric Bledsoe combined to shoot 8-of-26 (30.8 percent) from the floor, and as a team the Suns shot worse than 25.0 percent from three.
Then, going back a month-and-a-half earlier, Wright had a similar impact as the Suns lost to the Kings (again). Wright had five points on 2-of-3 shooting, but his plus/minus of -7 was the second worst mark on the team, in a game the Suns lost by two. However, Markieff Morris did shoot 3-of-20 (15.0 percent) from the field in that game, and the team shot worse than 18.0 percent from three, so I think Wright gets a pass.
Overall, the only real difference in those games was his plus/minus.
Usually when Wright has a bad game, his plus/minus still manages to be high, which is a testament to his low-volume, low-risk style of play. He doesn’t necessarily need to be the driving force, or even an especially involved player, in order to help the team, which is why he is so valuable as a player off the bench.
As far as single-play lowlights, there weren’t to many with the Suns, but he did get dunked on pretty bad earlier in the year when he was with the Dallas Mavericks, and it’s worth checking out…
While Wright would end up on the losing side of the game, he finished 2-of-2 from the field, posting four rebounds and two blocks to zero turnovers. Not that anyone cared, but still…
Next: Highlights
Highlights:
Earlier, I used the word bouncy to describe Brandan Wright, and that’s exactly where I’ll start with this section. While Wright never truly put his full bounciness on display in Phoenix, he certainly did the year before in Dallas, when he dunked all over Blake Griffin.
I figured Suns fans wouldn’t mind seeing that highlight. Especially after Griffin’s buzzer [REDACTED].
Wright certainly did have his moments in Phoenix though, posting a couple of double-doubles. Among those was Wright’s 18-point, 11-rebound outing against the New York Knicks. Wright went 7-of-8 from the field in that contest, finishing with a plus/minus of +17.
The next game, Wright followed up with a 16-point, eight-rebound, seven-block game against the New Orleans Pelicans, with a plus/minus of +4, in a game the Suns won by two. Wright went 8-of-10 from the field, with one of his two misses coming on a three-pointer that he only put up to avoid a shot clock violation.
Among Wright’s other best outings was a 16-point, 12-rebound, two-block, two-steal performance against the Golden State Warriors, in a game the Suns lost on a game winner with less than a second left. Wright’s big-time performance put the Suns in a position to steal one away from the NBA’s best team at home, and while they were unable to get the job done, his effort definitely deserved to be commended.
A common thread of all those games is that Wright shot at least 50 percent from the field in all of them. Wright would hit that mark of shooting in 64.1 percent (25-of-39) of the games he recorded a field goal attempt in, and he would even shoot 100 percent from the field on four separate occasions with the Suns, including one game against Brooklyn where he shot 5-of-5 from the field and 4-of-4 from the line.
In that game, Wright added eight rebounds and three combined blocks and steals, while remaining turnover-free in 25 minutes. By the way, the Suns won that game by eight:
Think about that: In roughly 10 percent of his games, Wright was perfect from the field in Phoenix, and for the season as a whole, he was perfect from the field in 14 of the 75 (18.7 percent) games he played in. There were other areas that he was perfect too.
Wright remained turnover free in 35 of the 40 games he played in while with the Suns. Essentially, for every eight games he played, he committed a turnover in just one of them. That number certainly showed up in wins, where he averaged 0.3 turnovers per game, compared to a “terrible” 0.6 turnovers per game in losses on the year.
If it isn’t painfully apparent, yes, I’m being sarcastic. That mark is absolutely fantastic. No two ways about it. Absolutely fantastic.
Next: Final Grade
Grade: B-
With a player like Wright, a grade like a C+ or B- seems fitting, considering that his role on a team is literally to be an above-average player. He doesn’t need to be flashy and he doesn’t need to be great; he just needs to go out and have a solid performance, and his team will prosper.
And honestly, if I were going to grade Wright for his role of bench/fill-in player, I’d be inclined to give him an A. Because that’s what he is. In the Wright role (pardon the pun, I waited all the way until the end to make it), he can be incredibly valuable for a team, and that doesn’t just apply to the Suns.
This is one of those games where you realize how bad the Rajon Rondo trade was, though. Dallas desperately needs Brandan Wright.
— Justin Russo (@FlyByKnite) February 10, 2015
As a whole, there’s really one way that I like to sum up Brandan Wright as a player:
It’s almost like the plus/minus statistic was invented for Brandan Wright.
So many times, you can look at a guy’s plus/minus, especially a star, and it doesn’t tell the story of the game. There are games where a team will win by 10-or-so, and the plus/minus of its best player will be insignificant or even negative, when it’s obvious that if he were not to play, his team wouldn’t have won.
However, that’s not the case with Wright. In Phoenix, Wright almost always had a plus/minus greater than the final spread of the game, and that was often an accurate reflection of how he played. And really, it goes back to his time before Phoenix.
Brandon Wright had the highest plus minus on the mavs the last two seasons and was shooting 75% before he was traded
— Reformed Aragorn (@Un_B_Weavable) January 31, 2015
Throughout his career, Brandan Wright has been the ultimate plus/minus, efficient, little-things-doing guy, and that’s really what his ultimate legacy will be. When it’s all said and done, Wright may be forgotten by many, but truth be told, that’s probably a testament to how cleanly he played, nothing more nothing less.
And that’s what Brandan Wright gives you… exactly what you need…
Nothing more. Nothing less.
More 2014-15 Phoenix Suns Player Grades:
Next: Phoenix Suns: 10 Takeaways From The 2014-15 Season (Part 1)