Markieff Morris: 2014-15 Phoenix Suns Player Grades

Strengths:

Keef has a lot of noticeable flaws, particularly on the defensive end, but his vast improvements as a scorer have been overlooked in their wake. In terms of consistency, the Suns might not have a better go-to option on offense than getting the ball to Keef and letting him take his man one-on-one.

He may not be strong enough to dominate the boards on the other end, but Morris was certainly strong enough to establish position posting his man up in the midrange, turn and face, and make a move that was hard to stop.

Of the 1,100 total field goals Keef attempted this season, 342 of them came on shots from 8-16 feet. On those close-to-midrange shots, he shot an impressive 50.6 percent, including 57.1 percent on fadeaway jumpers, 69 percent on pull-up jumpers and 56.3 percent on step-back jumpers.

With his back to the basket, Keef was clever with his spin moves to free up some space for fadeaways and step-backs. When he turned and faced, he used pump fakes to either get by his man or took advantage of his defender’s hesitation by popping the jumper before he could get a hand up.

Whether it was with one dribble to free up enough space for a jumper, multiple dribbles to get to the basket or no dribbles to just take a contested shot, Keef put many a respectable defender in his (poor man’s) midrange version of Kevin McHale‘s torture chamber.

Curiously enough, Morris seemed to thrive in situations where he was more tightly guarded. On shots with his defender 0-2 feet away, he shot 47.2 percent, per NBA.com. On shots with a defender 2-4 feet away, he converted a staggering 49.4 percent. But on wide open shots, with his defender six or more feet away, he shot a woeful 39.3 percent.

His ability to create his own offense while being tightly defended came in handy in crunch-time situations. Though the Suns rarely closed out tight games with a win, that was more because of their failures to get stops or rebounds on the other end. Forget about the buzzer beaters for just a second. How many times did Keef knock down a clutch shot on the preceding play to give Phoenix the lead?

The answer? Quite often, and the devastating manner of those defeats made Keef’s penchant for clutch shots fade from the spotlight.

In “clutch” situations, which NBA.com defines as the last five minutes of regulation with a five-point differential or less, Keef shot a respectable 46.1 percent.

That percentage only ranked him 39th in the league among players who logged at least 80 “clutch” minutes of playing time, but when you weed out the players who only took a few shots in those situations, you start to realize Keef is among the premier closers in the NBA — especially in the midrange.

In the clutch, Keef converted 35 of his 76 field goal attempts. The only players who attempted that many crunch-time shots and posted a better field goal percentage were LaMarcus Aldridge (44-for-78, 56.4 percent) and MVP candidate James Harden (37-for-77, 48.1 percent).

Okay, so many those parameters aren’t fair. So what if we include players who attempted at least 45 shots in clutch situations? “Clutch Keef” remains elite, ranking 13th in the NBA in clutch field goal percentage behind notable names like Anthony Davis, Pau Gasol, Dirk Nowitzki and DeMarcus Cousins.

The point is, when the Suns needed a bucket on offense, they were either going to Eric Bledsoe or Markieff Morris. If the Suns had been able to close out games with stops, we might remember Keef’s 2014-15 season a little differently.

Finally, as much as he catches flack for his defense, Morris actually isn’t as terrible as his reputation on that end. In fact, according to NBA.com, he held his opponent to 53.2 percent shooting on shots from less than 10 feet, 1.3 percent worse than they’d normally shoot from that range.

Even at the basket, he held his man to 59.6 percent on shots from less than six feet (0.3 percent worse than his man would normally shoot). He’s not an elite (or even great) defender by any means, especially taking into account his rebounding woes, but even being overmatched by the star power forwards of the West every night, Keef relatively held his own.

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