T.J. Warren: 2014-15 Phoenix Suns Player Grades
Strengths:
As a rookie, Warren displayed a veteran-like efficiency from the floor, particularly around the basket. The Suns drafted him because of his nose for the basket and it’s clear after one season that his knack for putting the ball in the hoop has transferred well to the next level.
According to NBA.com, Warren finished seventh among rookies in field goal percentage (52.8 percent), but of the six players ahead of him, only Mitch McGary (165) and Tarik Black (273) attempted a noteworthy number of field goal attempts compared to Warren (214).
Warren’s efficiency comes from his penchant for sticking to his strengths: namely, moving off the ball for easy looks right under the basket and a beyond-his-years midrange game. Warren’s floater is already at a veteran level and even when he catches the ball under the rim off a cut, he knows how to finish around taller defenders.
Warren shot 63.9 percent at the rim, a full nine percent better than the league average. Even in limited minutes, that’s pretty damn impressive for a rookie, especially since he sticks to it; 62.1 percent of Warren’s field goal attempts this season came from that area of the floor.
In fact, Warren is so adept at finishing at the basket he converted 78 of his 115 attempts (67.8 percent) from less than five feet away from the basket — narrowly beating out Jabari Parker for the highest such mark among rookies who attempted at least 100 shots from that range.
On shots from 5-9 feet, Warren was just as elite among his rookie brethren, converting 45.5 percent of those attempts — good for the second best percentage among rookies who attempted at least 15 shots from that range (Bojan Bogdanovic was first at 46.2 percent).
Warren scored the second-most points per touch (0.341) on the Phoenix Suns, per NBA.com, finishing behind only Gerald Green (0.411) — an enigmatic gunner who shot the ball pretty much every time he touched it. Warren also had the second highest effective field goal percentage (54.0 percent) among players who finished the season on the Suns’ roster, trailing only Brandan Wright‘s 58.0 percent.
From his rookie season, it’s pretty apparent that Warren knows how to score. On such a stagnant offense lacking ball movement, he represented a breath of fresh air for simply moving without the ball and converting easy buckets at the rim — the most basic of ways to score in basketball.
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