The first half of the season has passed. Grades are being given to each of the Phoenix Suns. What grade did Ryan Anderson get?
Note : This is the second piece in a new series of posts grading each player on the current Phoenix Suns roster for how they did in the first half of the season. This will only cover the first 41 games (through January 6th).
On August 31st, 2018, the Phoenix Suns sent Brandon Knight and Marquese Chriss to the Houston Rockets for Ryan Anderson and De’Anthony Melton.
At that time, Ryan McDonough was still the General Manager for the team. He talked about how excited he was to add Ryan, who had established himself as one of the league’s best shooters. He spoke with confidence on how he thought he’d be a great fit in the Suns offensive system.
The team was adding one of the most productive stretch fours in league history. His 1,315 career three-pointers ranked him third all-time behind Dirk Nowitzki and Rashard Lewis among players 6-10 or taller.
He had 10 years of NBA experience and held career averages of 12.8 points and 5.4 rebounds while making 2.1 three-pointers per game on 38.2 percent shooting from long range.
A player with that pedigree was supposed to help stretch the floor and provide experience next to rookie and first overall pick Deandre Ayton.
Coming into the season, Anderson was one of just two players to average at least two made triples per game in each of the last eight seasons. His only company in that aspect was Steph Curry.
Sure, he fell out of favor in Houston due mainly to his albatross contract and complete inability to play any form of defense. However, he was thought to be a huge short term upgrade over the likes of Marquese Chriss and Dragan Bender.
Over the last four seasons, he had made 2.3 triples per game on 38.7 percent accuracy. So, his shooting was still there.
However, he came out of the gates shooting blanks for Phoenix and at mid-season was looking at 31.7% field goal shooting and a 20.8% clip from downtown.
If you look into detail, it could almost have been seen coming. The three seasons prior his offensive numbers had taken a serious dip. His scoring average dropped from 17 to 13.6 to 9.3 points per game. His field goal attempts fell from 14.1 to 10.7 to 7.3 per game. Even his free throw attempts plummeted from 3.5 to 2.1 to 1.4 per contest.
That’s not a good sign but some times a change of scenery helps.
It didn’t and he wasn’t providing any thing else on the floor to keep himself in games. After starting the first six matches, he was benched the next two, started the two after that and then completely fell out of the rotation. He only played in 15 of the first 41 games of the season, the last 16 being DNP-Coach’s Decision.
With the team struggling for a while on the defensive end and looking for a spark, only blocking one shot in 278 minutes won’t get a player far.
Grade : F
Despite his accolades as a tall shooter with a smooth stroke that was expected to step in and be an immediate improve as a stretch forward, he just didn’t cut it.
He was an absolute failure for the first half of the season and for that, he was rightfully pinned to the end of the bench.