Mason Plumlee 2024-25 Suns season preview: Screen-setting, rim-running, smart backup big

Mason Plumlee’s first two preseason games for the Phoenix Suns haven’t been gems by any means, but before anyone starts panicking, let’s recall what this team got out of its backup center spot last year with Drew Eubanks.

We’re nowhere near being down that bad again yet.

Plumlee will have to prove himself over the next few weeks if he wants to avoid his minutes getting eaten up by the impressive Oso Ighodaro. But to start the season, coach Mike Budenholzer seems like the type to lean more toward experience, and Plumlee has more to offer this team than the Chicken Littles of Twitter would have you believe.

Over the next seven days, we’re going through our Suns season preview series, one-by-one, for all 17 players on the roster. That includes both a written piece for the avid readers (hello there!) and a video breakdown for the visual learners.

On Day 10, we’re taking another look at backup center Mason Plumlee, why it’s far too early to give up on him after two preseason games, and what he can offer the Suns on both ends of the floor.

Mason Plumlee 2024-25 Suns Season Preview

Last year, Plumlee was sidelined for two months in the middle of the season by a sprained MCL. That clearly impacted his production, as he only averaged 5.3 points and 5.1 rebounds per game on 56.9 percent shooting.

In the two seasons prior, Plumlee stayed healthy, playing in 79 and 73 games. He’s no spring chicken at 34 years old, and he struggled when he was on the court last year, but there’s a good chance that was mostly a byproduct of his injury. The hope is that a fully healthy Mason Plumlee will look better (and more spry).

“It feels great to be healthy and I look at every season as a fresh start,” Plumlee said.

Even in a “down year,” Plumlee showcased some underrated skills that can help Phoenix off the bench.

As a 6-foot-10 big with a chiseled, 250-pound frame, Plumlee sets the same type of bone-crunching screens that Jusuf Nurkic brings to the starting lineup. Plumlee ranked in the 93rd percentile in screen assists per 75 possessions, according to The BBall Index, and after a few seasons of freeing up elite creators like James Harden, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, he’ll be able to do the same for Phoenix’s Big 3.

It was something he and coach Mike Budenholzer discussed before training camp even began.

“One thing in our conversation has just been, like, be a shot creator, set screens, run the floor, get to the next player,” Plumlee said. “There’s so much scoring and shooting on the floor, so that was one point he made.”

Plumlee is also capable of slipping the screen to provide more of a vertical lob threat at the rim than Nurk can. Also unlike Nurk, he’s a better finisher around there too.

According to Cleaning The Glass, which filters out garbage time, Plumlee had shot 70 percent or better at the rim for five straight seasons until last year’s injury-riddled campaign. Even then, he was still at 66 percent, and he ranked in the 95th percentile in points per possession as the roll man.

Even when he’s not directly involved in a ball screen, Plumlee is a lob threat on the baseline and in the dunker’s spot. He loves a good reverse dunk, twisting and turning his body in midair to finish reverse layups that didn’t need to be reversed in the first place. But as long as he keeps making them, it’s an amusing, stylish little quirk in his game.

In any case, that type of vertical spacing will help whenever he shares the court with the Big 3 and all the other shooters on the roster.

Plumlee isn’t as springy these days as he was during his prime years in Denver, but the good news is he’ll be reuniting with Monte Morris, who played with him for three years on the Nuggets.

They built great pick-and-roll chemistry during their time there, but even the simpler alley-oop feeds will suffice. Assuming Morris and Plumlee start the season as the backup point guard-center combination, Plumlee still has more than enough hops to capitalize on their familiarity.

“Me and Mason, we had a great run in Denver, threw him a lot of lobs,” Monte Morris said. “He knows how to get me open, and I feel like we communicate with our eyes. I feel like we played together three years, and it was a high-level three years. He would hit me on a lot of backdoor cuts and things like that.”

“Some of my best years were playing with Monte,” Plumlee agreed. “So excited to get back with him.”

The film certainly backs that up, as did the fact the over their two full seasons together in Denver, Morris assisted on nearly one-third of Plumlee’s assisted baskets.

Mason Plumlee isn’t limited to simple screens and dives, though. Like Nurk and Ighodaro, Plumlee is a solid playmaking big who can serve as a connector on the perimeter or from the elbows, especially when hitting back door cutters with skillful bounce passes.

According to The BBall Index, Plumlee ranked in the 84th percentile in role-adjusted assists per 75 possessions and the 88th percentile in passing creation quality. He’s not as quick at processing those reads as Nurk or Ighodaro are, and the offense won’t run through the center position — nor should it.

But Plumlee can function as an offensive hub while Phoenix runs split cuts off him every which way, making life easier on guards who can play off the ball like Morris and Grayson Allen.

Plumlee’s playmaking extended to the short roll as well, which is one area where the Suns have seen Drew Eubanks and Deandre Ayton short circuit in recent years. In his last healthy season, Plumlee ranked in the 84th percentile in role-adjusted assists per 75 possessions.

He knows how to put pressure on the low man when he catches the ball there, using one power dribble to force that defender to help before either dumping it off to the open man in the dunker spot or kicking it out to an open 3-point shooter:

It’s worth noting that Plumlee has no shooting range — in fact, he didn’t make a single shot outside the paint last year. But that passing ability in the short roll will be useful on a Suns squad with three stars who will be trapped and blitzed to no end in the pick-and-roll, especially with the shooters Plumlee will have around him.

“There’s shooting everywhere,” Plumlee said. “You spoke about the [Big 3], but Grayson, Royce, there are just so many weapons that can space the floor. So, just making sure you get them the ball where they want it and when they want it.”

Phoenix needs that screener to be able to diagnose those gaps and rotations in real-time before finding the open man, and Eubanks just wasn’t able to do that.

“In that role, it makes you look really good when you have some of the best scorers in the league on the floor,” Plumlee said. “So that was part of the attraction coming here this offseason. And I’m just looking forward to coming in and complementing what they do and figuring out the spots they like the ball and how they like to play.”

One more thing: Mason Plumlee is a persistent presence on the offensive glass. Last year, he ranked in the 85th percentile in offensive boards per 75 possessions and the 81st percentile in put-backs per 75 possessions.

Plumlee isn’t the most agile crasher, but he doesn’t even need to jump out of the gym; he’s got great timing and effort on his crashes to the rim, gets good positioning because his stocky frame is difficult to uproot, has solid bunnies from a stationary position, and shows pretty great touch on some of these tip-ins:

Defensively, there will be some similar problems to when Nurkic is on the floor. Watching Plumlee defend pick-and-rolls or generally move in rotations, he’s not exactly fleet-footed. Guards and wings will try to target him on switches, and a Mason Plumlee closeout on the perimeter necessitates sound rotations, since it’ll usually result in a blow-by.

With that being said, Plumlee is a willing, frequent deterrent around the rim. In fact, no one contested more shots at the rim last year on a per-75-possessions basis than him.

“Yeah, it’s definitely part of the position,” Plumlee said. “I don’t know advanced stats that well, but yeah, that’s what I’m here to do. So I want to do that at a high rate, and I’ve never been an elite shot-blocker, but to alter, make finishing tougher around the rim, is really important.”

Plumlee was correct about not being an elite shot-blocker, as his 0.4 blocks per game last year and 0.8 blocks per game for his career can attest. But holding opponents to 6.2 percent worse shooting at the rim than they’d normally shoot while contesting that many shots was still pretty impressive.

Mason stays in plays after pump fakes and on second chance opportunities, with his roots firmly planted in the paint and limbs swatting at shots like the Whomping Willow:

If he can just do those little things in a backup role, avoid mistakes and not be a glaring negative every time he takes the floor, he’ll be miles better than what Phoenix had at the backup center spot last year.

Getting Mason Plumlee acclimated

Plumlee had great conversations with owner Mat Ishbia, general manager James Jones, CEO Josh Bartelstein and coach Bud before agreeing to sign in free agency, but he was also excited to join this particular roster because of the roster they had assembled.

“Just a lot of talent,” Plumlee explained. “Guys who have won big, and guys who are in their prime. So I think that was really attractive to me, and to me, that’s what, like, offseason and training camp’s about: just coming in and figuring out, how can you complement what they do so well?”

We’ve already laid out the biggest answers to that question, but taking rookie Oso Ighodaro under his wing is another big one. At NBA Summer League, assistant coach Vince Legarza — who coached the Summer Suns — mentioned Plumlee as an ideal big to learn from.

“I really couldn’t think of a better guy than Mason,” Legarza said. “Mason’s always been one of the better connectors of getting the ball from one side to the other, being a great backdoor passer, being physical and versatile on the defensive end. He’s someone I’ve always enjoyed watching play, so I think that’s gonna be a great guy for him to kind of learn from.”

Surprisingly — or maybe not-so-surprisingly, given Oso’s basketball IQ — Ighodaro already did his homework on Plumlee’s game and Nurk’s game at Marquette under coach Shaka Smart, even before he’d eventually become their teammates.

“I watched a lot of Plumlee’s film,” Ighodaro said. “Shaka would have me watch his film a lot at Marquette. So they’re both very smart players and they do a lot of different things well. So I’m gonna try to learn as much as I can, ask them a bunch of questions.”

If Ighodaro continues to impress, it’s only a matter of time before he works his way into the rotation. But Mason Plumlee still has a lot to offer this team in a backup role, and he’ll hopefully be able to show more of that as he gets more acclimated to his new team.

More 2024-25 Suns season previews

• Collin Gillespie: Written breakdown | Video breakdown
• TyTy Washington: Written breakdown | Video breakdown
• Jalen Bridges: Written breakdown | Video breakdown
• Ryan Dunn: Written breakdown | Video breakdown
• Oso Ighodaro: Written breakdown | Video breakdown
• Bol Bol: Written breakdown | Video breakdown
• Damion Lee: Written breakdown | Video breakdown
• Josh Okogie: Written breakdown | Video breakdown
• Monte Morris: Written breakdown | Video breakdown