Nylon Notebook: Positive Suns, Indiana surprises and more

The Phoenix Suns didn’t have the greatest start to the 2017-18 NBA season. After losing their first three games by a combined NBA record 92 points, firing head coach Earl Watson and then this totally innocuous tweet from their best veteran player at a hair salon, you could say it was a historically bad first week.

Just five days into the season, things looked bleak for the Suns, who roll out the league’s youngest roster and were expected to finish near the bottom of the Western Conference anyways. To clean up the mess from the first three games, the Suns named assistant coach Jay Triano the interim head coach and sent Eric Bledsoe home, with GM Ryan McDonough making it clear he wouldn’t be part of the team’s plans moving forward. Since then, the team has responded by rattling off four wins in their first five games under Triano including an impressive victory on the second leg of a road back-to-back over the Wizards on Wednesday night.

Read More: Effort is the secret to the Suns’ recent success

The statistical difference between the Suns first three games under Earl Watson and last five games under Jay Triano is stunning. Phoenix went from dead last in defensive rating and 29th in offensive rating to top half in the league in both categories, giving the young Suns the sixth highest net rating in the NBA since Oct. 22.

A closer look at Four Factors data reveals that the Suns’ biggest improvements since Triano took over were in shooting efficiency, opponent shooting efficiency and rebounding. The improvement in offensive rebounding may be partially explained by the types of lineups the two coaches have deployed. While Watson experimented with going small — his starting and most commonly used lineup featured Josh Jackson at the 4 — almost all of Triano’s most frequent lineups feature two big men with one being a traditional center (Chandler or Len).

Scoring efficiency improvements on both sides of the ball appear to be linked more closely to Eric Bledsoe being off the court over the past five games. If Bledsoe’s tweet left any room for debate, his play on the court made it clear he didn’t want to be there. In Bledsoe’s 83 minutes this season the Suns were outscored by a remarkable 71 points, giving him a putrid net rating of -33.2. He shot poorly, didn’t rebound the ball, and on defense made Lonzo Ball look like the future Hall-ofFamer his dad would have you believe he is:

Bledsoe’s absence alone was addition by subtraction, but it also cleared the way for 27-year-old rookie Mike James, who bounced around Europe for five years before being signed to a two-way contract as an emergency point guard for the Suns. Thrust into a larger-than-expected role early in the season, James has been a spark plug for Phoenix, averaging 19 points and 6 assists per 36 minutes and being a part of its most effective lineups since the coaching change. In fact, Triano’s starting lineup of James-Booker-Warren-Chriss-Chandler has compiled a net rating of +10.0 in (small sample size alert) 65 minutes after appearing together for just two total minutes under Watson.

There are positive signs from the youngsters in the early going as well. T.J. Warren dropped a career high 40 points against Washington and could be poised to break out as one of the league’s better bucket-getters despite being miscast as a wing in the modern era without legit 3-point range. Dragan Bender looks more comfortable making plays in his second year and is having a positive impact on defense. And after two years of looking like a middling efficiency gunner, Devin Booker has flashed a more well-rounded offensive game thus far in his third year — his rebound and assist rates are at career highs and he’s finally breaking the 40 percent threshold on 3-pointers as many predicted he would coming out of Kentucky, leading to a spike in shooting efficiency. As the season goes on it will be interesting to see how much of Booker’s improvement is a small sample size mirage and how much is real progress for a guy who just turned 21, but if he keeps up his impressive play on offense he’d be in pretty elite company for his age.

There are a few obvious areas for regression in the brief Triano era. Devin Booker and Mike James aren’t going to keep shooting 48.5 percent and 47.1 percent from 3, respectively, especially given how little they spot up. And even during this hot stretch the Suns rank last in the league in assist percentage, which could mean there’s only room for improvement if James or Booker get more comfortable running the offense but also indicates the need for an experienced floor general to generate higher percentage looks. It’s unlikely the inexperienced Suns will remain middle-of-the-pack in shooting efficiency without more assisted shots.

It’s far too early to call the Suns a good team under Triano, just as it was too early to write them off as a lost cause after the first three games. But for a franchise that looked dead in the water less than two weeks ago, and a fanbase starving to return to prominence, the early signs on how Jay Triano is leading this young squad are promising.

Is D’Angelo Russell emerging as an offensive superstar?

Touted as a potential offensive dynamo in the James Harden mold coming out of Ohio State, Russell showed flashes in his first two seasons in L.A. but struggled with consistency, injuries and off-court drama before being shipped to the Nets along with Timofey Mozgov’s albatross contract. This year Russell has been given the keys to Brooklyn’s fast-paced offense and has taken strides towards being the elite offensive lead guard many teams covet. He’s averaging an efficient 29.6 points per 36 minutes with 6.8 assists and has put up offensive numbers that compare favorably to other recent lottery guards in their age-21 seasons:

Russell’s defense still leaves a lot to be desired and if he maintains his usage his efficiency will fall — he’s shooting 55 percent on midrange shots — but it’s remarkable that the Nets may have found a franchise building block after giving away two top-three picks to Boston.

The Pacers might have outsmarted us

When Indiana traded Paul George to the Thunder for Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis, the move received a lot of backlash. Oladipo had mostly lost his luster as a former No. 2 overall pick after an unremarkable season playing next to Russell Westbrook, while Sabonis put together an uninspiring rookie campaign, finishing 57th among 69 qualified centers with a Real Plus-Minus of -2.04.

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So far Oladipo is putting together by far the best year of his career and has led the Pacers to a surprising 5-3 start, hitting game winning shots and running more of the offense than he did in Oklahoma City Meanwhile, Sabonis is averaging a double-double on over 60 percent shooting, playing good defense and even averaging 3.0 assists per game. Sabonis is the anti-modern big man who struggles stretching the floor and protecting the rim, so he was always going to be a poor fit on the Thunder, who already lacked spacing in lineups with Steven Adams and Andre Roberson. While the Thunder tried unsuccessfully to convert Sabonis into a stretch-4, the Pacers have played to Sabonis’ skillset by playing him more at the 5 than the 4 and letting him feast down low instead of taking 3s he’s ill-equipped to shoot.

The Pacers have done an excellent job fitting their new additions in, and Sabonis could form a lethal frontcourt combo with Myles Turner, a big who can cover his weaknesses, when he returns. Before the season I tabbed Indy as one of the least exciting teams in the league, and so far they’ve been proving me wrong.