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Deandre Ayton's role shrinks in light of Suns' short-term ambitions

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Coming into the 2020-21 season, Deandre Ayton seemed like a crucial swing piece for the Phoenix Suns: the player whose development (or lack thereof) would determine the height of the team's ceiling with talent-amplifying point guard Chris Paul in the fold.

Ayton, the 2018 No. 1 pick, had made meaningful strides in his sophomore campaign, particularly at the defensive end of the floor, and his rapidly improving court sense coupled with his immense physical tools seemed to portend another leap for the young center in Year 3.

But the Suns look like contenders this season for reasons that have little to do with Ayton's growth. Paul has been as good a floor general as ever, Devin Booker has continued to flourish as a multi-level scorer who can cook defenses on or off the ball, and Mikal Bridges - Phoenix's other third-year building block - has blossomed into one of the league's premier complementary players. The Suns' bench has also been among the best in the NBA, powered in large part by Ayton's backup, Dario Saric.

Ayton himself has been mostly solid and occasionally very good, but also inconsistent, often passive, and overall about the same player he was last year, if not slightly worse defensively.

If the Suns still existed in the developmentally focused space they occupied during Ayton's first two seasons, his stagnation wouldn't be much of a story. It might be mildly concerning as a predictor of his long-term outlook, but the team would still prioritize him and give him enough leash to play through his struggles. Instead, the Suns are one of the best teams in the league and a legitimate threat to win multiple playoff series, which means Ayton's warts have become a present-day concern.

His role has begun to shrink as a result: His minutes are down, his usage rate and touches are career lows, and before Monday night's win over Memphis, he'd gone four consecutive games without seeing the floor in the fourth quarter.

The Suns have taken to closing with Saric at center, and they've enjoyed a ton of success doing so. Over those four games - three of which were close heading into the fourth - Saric played 43 fourth-quarter minutes, during which the Suns outscored opponents by 37 points.

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It's unclear when or why the lightbulb in coach Monty Williams' head flicked on. In the four games prior, Ayton played 29 fourth-quarter minutes, during which Phoenix outscored opponents by 53 points. And Saric has still played just four minutes this season in situations defined as "clutch" - i.e. under five minutes left, score within five points - compared to 78 for Ayton. (Though part of the reason for that is the Suns have been pulling away from teams during Saric's stints early in those fourth quarters.)

After Saturday's loss to the Pacers, in which Saric played the entire fourth while Ayton watched from the bench, Williams said the recent decisions have been situational and aren't indicative of a long-term strategy. But it's easy to see the appeal. While Saric's physical tools don't come close to Ayton's, he's a smart player who spaces the floor in a way Ayton can't and offers an element of high-post passing that Ayton lacks.

Perhaps most pertinently, Saric is more capable of defending in space and playing the hedge-and-recover game in pick-and-roll. For the season, Saric sports the league's best individual net rating, a preposterous plus-23.7. So, this is as much about Saric thriving as it is about Ayton scuffling.

Offensively, Ayton's issues are the same as they've been since he entered the league. He's still not particularly assertive, still doesn't play with the kind of force that befits his size and dexterity, and is still a below-average post scorer whose aversion to physicality keeps him off the free-throw line. He still has a habit of settling for quick fadeaways rather than patiently working for deeper position against smaller defenders.

But defense is probably the bigger reason the Suns have been closing with Saric. He's a quicker decision-maker who has a keener sense of where to be. Ayton's help-side awareness and on-ball footwork aren't always up to snuff. And he's been one of the worst players in the league at defending isolations following pick-and-roll switches, allowing 1.25 points per possession, according to Synergy.

When forced to move side to side, he can struggle to change direction. He has a penchant for popping out of his stance and opening up his hips, which opens up driving lanes. And unlike the game's best big-man defenders, he doesn't have the timing to recover and alter shots after falling a half-step behind.

Interestingly, Ayton has also defended more of those post-switch isos than any player in the league. And those possessions are only logged when they end with the offensive player taking a shot, drawing a shooting foul, or turning the ball over. The Suns switch Ayton out onto guards a lot, and the possessions in which he switches and then prevents an offensive event from happening don't show up in Synergy's tracking data.

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In most cases, the players finishing those possessions are elite one-on-one creators. While Ayton's numbers defending those types of players are understandably bad, the volume of possessions in which he's switched onto them suggests the Suns trust his ability to handle himself on an island.

Of course, another way to frame that would be to say Williams doesn't trust Ayton to effectively show and recover. While part of the rationale for switching may be that Ayton is capable of moving his feet and using his huge wingspan to corral ball-handlers, another part of it may be that switching is in some ways a more straightforward coverage to execute.

Compared to Ayton, Saric tends to hedge more often when defending the screener in pick-and-roll. That may mean Williams likes him less as a switch defender, or that he simply trusts Saric more to recover after jumping up to or above the level of the screen, and to make rapid-fire reads when the opposing offense subsequently puts the Suns in rotation.

In a sense, the Suns are throwing Ayton into the fire, trying to find out which coverages he can and can't handle and just how switchable he can be, before they're forced to make on-the-fly adjustments in the postseason. They likely know by now that he's quite good in drop coverage, even if he doesn't impact shots at the rim as much as they'd like. But the Suns also surely know they can't rely solely on that coverage against high-level competition. Ayton had a monstrous defensive game playing predominantly in a drop against Memphis on Monday, but the Grizzlies - devoid as they are of pull-up shooting threats - are an ideal matchup for him and not representative of the teams Phoenix will have to go through in the playoffs.

Against the best offensive teams, Ayton typically plays close to the level of the screen in pick-and-roll. Even when he's ostensibly in a shallow drop, he often winds up defending the ball-handler via a late switch. As of now, he's probably getting beat by those ball-handlers a little too often for the Suns to feel comfortable about the idea of him anchoring their defense, especially because he doesn't offer a ton of ball pressure or help them generate turnovers even when he keeps the ball in front. All told, the team has allowed 9.4 more points per 100 possessions with him on the floor.

Opponents shoot 57% at the rim when he's in the vicinity, which is right around average for a center. And he doesn't do much to deter opponents' at-rim attempts when he's on the floor. The Suns concede those shots at a league-average rate overall and actually surrender them less frequently when Ayton is on the bench, according to Cleaning the Glass. That's kind of disappointing for a player with a 9-foot-3 standing reach. (In fairness, though, part of the reason for that trend is that he so frequently switches and gets pulled away from the basket.)

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The Suns still need a lot from Ayton in order to get where they're trying to go. His ceiling-raising potential far exceeds that of Saric. He's still the Suns' best rim-protector, his roll gravity is a vital ingredient in their offense, and he's a strong post defender who will be integral to slowing down opposing interior scorers. But the target is going to be squarely on Ayton's back in the postseason, and if he struggles, these reps with Saric as a closer will serve as important data points that inform Williams' lineup decisions in high-leverage moments.

If both guys are playing well, one of Williams' options will be playing them together, even though he's done it sparingly this season. Saric has played the vast majority of his NBA minutes at power forward, after all. The results in a small sample have been encouraging, producing a sterling 98.9 defensive rating in 41 minutes. Whether that's a look Williams will trust against the best teams at the highest level of competition is another matter. The team is probably still at its best with one of its big wings (Jae Crowder or Cameron Johnson) manning the 4, though the notion of having the lineup flexibility to upsize and downsize based on matchups is enticing.

For now, it's a bit strange to see the Suns closing games with a veteran tweener big over the presumed franchise center they picked first overall two years ago who'll be looking for a lucrative contract extension this summer. But acquiring a 36-year-old star and giving themselves a chance to make some real noise here and now has obviously rewired the team's priorities. Ayton's fluctuating role is emblematic of that organizational shift. Player development is taking a back seat.

The Suns are just 2 1/2 games back of the top-seeded Jazz. Home-court advantage throughout the West playoffs is well within reach. Because they're playing for something real now, it stands out more when Ayton blows a defensive rotation or has a spell of passivity on offense. His mistakes simply matter more than they used to.

Ayton is still important to what Phoenix is trying to accomplish this season, and he'll presumably remain a focal point of the franchise's long-term plans. But as the Suns peel out and leave their decade-long playoff drought in the rearview, it'll be incumbent on him to keep up.

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