If Ayton would just start attacking the basket off the dribble from the high post every now and then, he’d get his scoring opportunities. The one area I think the suns could have tried to use him more was in the short roll. There was a few times where we gave it to him and he made things happen. He’s just often too slow to make the play. He’ll catch and freeze…but when he’s caught and just gone, he showed me some stuff.
Truth is he’s just not a .5 guy unless he’s catching in the paint or is set from midrange. If he catches on the move outside of the paint, he doesn’t keep the ball moving and doesn’t attack. There’s a reason we kept bringing back a guy like Frank, that’s a role Frank shines in and I think Monty would like his big to be able to do that. They even specifically said they thought that’s what they were getting in Jalen. Thought he was a Jerami Grant like player.
I don't think it's fair to ask a player to do something they're not comfortable or good at, and then when they don't/won't/can't do it, hold it against them. DA is not a face-up, attack-off-the-dribble big. He never will be, that's not his game. He's a classic, low post, back-to-the-basket big who's also gotten better at facing up. But he's not AD, KAT, or Giannis so it's not as easy as saying "If he would only...". We need to stop expecting that kind of offense from. I don't know why fans are fixated on that aspect of his game. Would you complain about Shaq or Ewing or DHow not being able to take their guy off the dribble from the 3pt line? Is that a stable of Embiid's game? TimD did it every now and then, but his bread and butter was getting to his spot on the block and working from there.
We know DA can shoot 70-80% in the paint on post ups, bunnies, short roll shots and dumpoffs/lobs/PnR finishes. If that's not what the Suns are looking for or want to spend $30mil a year on, that's their decision. Just like it was the Suns' decision to move on from Stix because he wasn't the face-up 4 they envisioned - even tho he's proven to be a pretty good 5.
I understand we run the .5 offense and why Monty likes guys like Dario and Frank. I get that DA isn't that kind of frontcourt player, but I'd rather us find some happy medium where DA is screening and rolling as well as getting legit post up opportunities where he can either score easily or kick out to shooters. It doesn't need to be either/or. It doesn't need to be MikeD's 7SOL or Porter's Shaq-centric offense. I think we work very hard on the perimeter to generate shots when we could probably get easy looks on kickouts from DA if we post enough and teams are forced to double, especially when we have a clear advantage in the paint.
So, do we take advantage of what these guys do best or are we focusing too heavily on what they aren't?
