Deandre Ayton would win Rookie of the Year – if he only had a point guard

The Phoenix Suns are squandering the rookie season of Deandre Ayton by not giving him a legitimate point guard to feed him the ball, which will cause him to lose out on the Rookie of the Year award.

The Phoenix Suns need a point guard for many reasons, but at least from the selfish perspective of one player, that lack of a legitimate starting point is going to cause Deandre Ayton his only opportunity at winning one particular personal award: Rookie of the Year.

The Phoenix franchise has three Rookie of the Year award winners (Alvan Adams, Walter Davis, Amar’e Stoudemire) and several others who had a legitimate argument to be near the top of those discussions in their history, most notably Michael Finley.

Many fans and prognosticators believed prior to the start of the season that Deandre Ayton would have an inside track at that award this season, a mark that at least on a losing team, would have been a particular bright spot.

And while Ayton isn’t having the most remarkable of rookie seasons, he is on pace to finish with a double-double average (16.5p and 10.6r as of 2/10), something no Phoenix Suns rookie has ever accomplished, and a rare feat for rookies anyway, a statistical anomaly that only three rookie’s of the year award winners have accomplished since the turn of the century (Karl-Anthony Towns, Blake Griffin, and Emeka Okafor).

Instead, Luka Doncic‘s 20.6p/7.7r/5.7a, has him running away with the award and barring a major injury ASAP, it will undoubtedly go to him.

Phoenix Suns

So why, if a double-double is so rare by rookies, isn’t Ayton at the top of the RoY ranking?

It hurts that the Suns suck, (although Dallas isn’t in the playoff hunt with a 25-29 record, even with Luka’s impressive stat line), and Ayton’s stats aren’t that of dominant center right out of the gate, at least from an offensive statistical degree.

And why is this?

Because he doesn’t have a point guard who can get him the ball in the post with any modicum of consistency, and Suns management has failed him in acquiring such a point guard on multiple occasions this season, including the missed opportunity of Markelle Fultz.

Watch any Suns game and you will see a number of occasions in which the ball-handler will fail in their attempt to properly feed Ayton in the post. They either cannot get it into him and decide to look elsewhere, they telegraph the throw allowing the defense to get to the ball before Ayton can (or they throw the ball over his head, either way resulting in a turnover), or they pass it so weakly that he has to leave his post position just to get the ball, leaving him too far out to actually use his strength to finish at the hoop.

This happens multiple times per game,  and has unarguably cost Ayton easily  four points per game either with made buckets or in free throw attempts, dropping his scoring average to the 16+p it is currently at, and costing him the ability to average 20p per game, which would make him one of only two  players this century to average at least 20p/10r in their rookie years, coupled with Blake Griffin (22.5p/12.1r).

Now, would a 20p/10r  statistical line automatically place him over the top of Luka in the RoY race? Not necessarily. Luka is also averaging 5.5a to Ayton’s 0.9 blocks per game, although Ayton is also shooting 58.4% from the field, which at the moment is 8th best in the league, a state coupled with other variables both individual and team-based which could help sway voters in his favor.

Who knows too: maybe if Phoenix had a legitimate point guard, that player could open up the game for every player, not only helping Ayton’s stats but the overall offense as well, and whether or not they have a much  better record than 11-46 at this moment, even if they are 20-37, that’s still a step above last season and so could help an argument for his cause.

One could arguably celebrate Robert Sarver and James Jones‘ lack of moves as positives because they haven’t given away young assets just for the sake of making trades, but then again, good trades happen all the time for teams, and the fact that the Suns fell blank-backwards into one involving Kelly Oubre and Trevor Ariza, one would have to imagine that it could have happened again, only involving a point guard who could help the team now.

Yet the fact that that hasn’t happened, or that they haven’t found a decent enough point guard anywhere to help Ayton find those extra four points per game and Devin Booker stay off the ball opening up his own shooting opportunities, is a failure of the franchise, and has very likely cost Deandre Ayton the only chance of his career to win the Rookie of the Year award, an individual feather in his cap that too could have helped Phoenix design positive PR for a better and more obviously brighter future for an otherwise flailing and failing franchise.