Deandre Ayton Is On Pace For An Historic Rookie Season

Deandre Ayton has some heavy expectations in his rookie year with the Suns. When a player is drafted No. 1 overall in the NBA Draft, there’s a sense that they need to come in and contribute immediately. The Suns are desperate for high impact young players they can rely on in the future to pair with Devin Booker in hopes of building the foundation of a contender.

Luckily, that’s exactly what Ayton has been for them through the first quarter of his first NBA season. The Suns big man is going out there and showing an incredible ability at getting to the rim. He knows where to get his money and while there’s potential at him expanding his game farther out that isn’t necessary. Look at his shot chart for this season. He knows where the easy points reside.

This might be why the Suns offensive rating plummets to a dreadful 92 points per 100 possessions when Ayton is off the floor, compared to 107.3 when he’s out there. He gives Phoenix another very necessary weapon on offense and forces defenses to protect against his interior presence, opening things up for everyone else in the process. Ayton’s also putting up numbers at a current pace that’s historic for a rookie. According to Basketball-Reference, if Ayton keeps up his current level of play then he’ll be the only rookie in NBA history to finish with a stat line average of 15+ points and 10+ rebounds per game while shooting 60 percent from the field.

Does this make Ayton the most dominant rookie ever? No, but it shows the kind of ridiculous numbers he can put up at an insanely efficient rate. Young players are rarely ever efficient, but Ayton is bucking that trend in a huge way for Phoenix. Of course, this is all on the offensive end where he’s a super athletic monster with a gigantic frame. He’s not exactly a fast player, but he has a great burst and explodes to the rim whenever opportunity presents itself.

However, that ability to move smoothly and position himself well hasn’t translated to the defensive end, at least yet. All rookies are bad on defense in some way, but Ayton has proven to struggle greatly on that end. The Suns bad defense gets worse with him on the floor, as they have a 111.8 DRtg with him and a 106.3 DRtg without him. He often looks slow on that end which makes it difficult for the Suns to run him out there as a rim protector.

However, his offensive abilities far outweigh the defensive negatives for now and the Suns can hope he continues developing on that end to tap into the potential he does have there. Part of Ayton’s job is to learn how to be an NBA player, and offensively he’s already there. The defense may or may not come, and that will determine exactly how dominant a force he can be in the league.