Stephen’s Notebook, Vol. 2: Seeing “Red” with Rookies, Okogie's role, Unlocking Devin Booker

It hasn’t been an easy stretch for Devin Booker and the Phoenix Suns.

The Suns are 9-7, with an Offensive Rating of 113.7 (16th), a Defensive Rating of 116.7 (21st), and a non-garbage time Net of -3.0 (20th).

They’re coming off of a multi-day stretch with no games and resume play with a four-game slate of matchups at home on  Tuesday night against the Los Angeles Lakers, the penultimate game of Phoenix’s NBA Cup slate.

Operating without Durant, then Beal in shortly after that, the Suns hit a snag and have gone winless in their last five games.

Here are some of what has caught my attention recently.

Seeing “Red” with the rookies

Phoenix has been hit with plenty of injuries in the stretch since my last notebook installment, which came shortly after the news that Kevin Durant would be out for two weeks.

In this seven-game stretch, Bradley Beal played just two games, and both Grayson Allen and Jusuf Nurkić appeared in just five.

Phoenix hasn’t worked with the ideal deck of cards, and while that can be seen as a negative, guys being out always presents an opportunity.

Insert one rookie, Oso Ighodaro.

In this somewhat perilous seven-game stretch for Phoenix, the injury-riddled Suns have had a 110.7 offensive rating, 121.1 defensive rating, and -10.4 Net. The bright spot has been Ighodaro’s play.

When Ighodaro has been on the floor, the Suns’ advanced metrics have upticked positively to a 110.8 offensive rating and defensively with a 106.1 defensive rating, meaning the Suns are defending at the league’s fifth-best rate in effectiveness this window.

Even more, he’s the sole Suns player who has a positive net rating (points scored per 100 possessions when he’s on the floor minus the points allowed per 100 possessions), no insignificant feat, and honestly is loud considering the lows the team has seen and felt.

But how and why has a rookie that’s a hybrid in terms of positioning been their most effective per advanced metrics? Well, that’s what we’re here to discuss.

At his foundation, Ighodaro is a versatile tweener who combines plus-athleticism with springy movement patterns, IQ as a weapon that drives his game, and feel on the floor that all combine to put him ahead of the general rookie “learning curve.”

The defensive base for the Suns, customary to Budenholzer’s wheelhouse on that end, is drop coverage. The depths of that drop have varied, but that’s the coverage Nurkić and Plumlee are at their best in.

It leaves the Suns susceptible to being stuck reacting against elite guards and/or rollers, and can also lend itself to conceded advantages for opponents to poke and prod at.

Take the game against the Orlando Magic for example.

Phoenix was certainly more aggressive defensively in this game against the Magic but got dinged consistently in pick-and-roll, which is where Orlando scored a solid bit of their 64 points in the first half.

Some of the greatest value Ighodaro brings is when he’s on the floor at the center position, where he’s spent 71% of his non-garbage time minutes this season. The Suns can dictate to opponents with switching, a coverage also known as “Red.”

We saw them feature this coverage more exclusively in the second half, especially in the third quarter, where they held the Magic to 20 points on 38% shooting.

Now, the minutes in tandem with Dunn in this scheme were somewhat abbreviated, but when they’re back in their deemed roles as the team gets healthy, this is a scheme they can unlock, adding an additional layer in cross-matching to their switching.

Their reserve units are littered with players that can work in tandem with unlocking Ighodaro this way, including Royce O’Neale and Okogie, both of which were seen above.

In all, excluding garbage time, the Suns are +6.6 on the advanced side when Ighodaro is on the floor this season, third-best on the team. As detailed above, a great bulk of that comes from the versatility and change of pace provided defensively, where Phoenix is a team-best 9.1 points better per 100 possessions defensively, which ranks in the 91st percentile across the league and is the best defensively on the team.

They ramp up their defensive activity levels when he’s on the floor, and their opponent’s turnovers uptick hit at 3.3% more (a jump that ranks 95th percentile), the opponent’s effective field goal percentage drops 5% (a dip ranking in the 93rd percentile), all of which are team-best marks.

I briefly spoke with Steve Jones Jr. about just that in terms of layering their defensive process, last week:

Ighodaro has many other dynamics on the offensive end to note, like the pace he creates with his slips into rolling after setting a pick, his understanding of screening angles and how to create an advantage from it off the short roll, his connecting nature as a hub to unlock their movement (cutting or for dribble handoffs) around him, and his IQ in creating advantage when spaced (in cutting or in screening for others) that we will get to in time. For now, his impact in changing the flow of the game and allowing the Suns to stay out of rotation defensively – via the versatility of his defense – is his most quality skill he brings to the fold.

Raising the bar of competition: The newest member of the “Blue Collar Boyz”

Josh Okogie’s role is unheralded in many respects.

His efforts often aren’t loud on the boxscore, nor do they pass the optically pleasing tests, but in functionality combined with impact, he’s rather quickly carved out a piece of the main rotation when the team is back in full health.

There is a ton of value in having a reserve player who can provide a spark, but even more so when said player does so in ways complementary to the top-end talents on the roster.

Phoenix has a litany of guys whose calling cards are to put the ball in the basket in multiple ways, but who’s going to hit on the margins for them (rebounds, deflections, etc.)? Even more importantly, who is going to consistently guard in the ways they need for their defense to hit the levels it needs to?

In just 154 minutes since returning to play on November 8th, he leads the team in deflections with 17, and in steals with nine. He’s also second in offensive rebounds with 14, and fourth in total rebounds with 35. The impact on the margins with these numbers are easily repeatable for him, and perfectly fit into the desired team context when they’re healthy as well.

Take it past the defensive side of the ball, and you can also see his impact on the offensive margins, past just the offensive rebounds. He’s a selfless and timely cutter, understands how he’s often guarded and how to flip that into an advantage past just cutting, by strategically spacing either in the corner or dunker spot and setting pin-in screens to compromise 2-v-1 scenarios.

Also, especially in a window of time where the Suns struggled to compile paint touches without Durant and Beal largely because of how Booker was being covered, Okogie was the only constant that was able to garner those in a reliable manner.

Over the last five games, he’s third in drives at 30 total and is fourth in paint touches, but first on the team for non-bigs with 16.

An overarching point I’ve maintained for this team is where are their paint touches coming from, how are they coming about, and how diversely are they occurring? Is it solely paint touches for three-point attempts? Are they getting paint touches from Beal on drives where he goes up with it? Are those coming in succession with Booker out of pick-and-roll? What about Durant’s post touches mixed in? Are the ancillary players generating paint touches from driving the closeouts those guys create off their attention or on the short-roll?

Additionally, though this isn’t logged on any database (but I’m sure the Suns keep tabs on it), his paint touches via cuts can be as impactful as paint touches from drives because it forces a defense to react off-ball, and is a form of advantage creation.

These dynamics are where they need their role players to have their most impact in timely cuts, tagging rollers, taking charges, and defending in rotation. He does all of these things consistently.

I will be circling back to Okogie as we (hopefully) see the Suns healthy and whole soon in a sustained manner, but keep these things in mind as he continues to carve out his niche as the newest member of the “Blue Collar Boyz.”

The key to unlocking Devin Booker

With Durant and Beal out, Devin Booker’s seen his fair share of coverage where defenses apply pressure on-ball when its in his possession.

He’s been double-teamed in multiple capacities, combined with additional protection in driving lanes the last few weeks, which has made his static touches (where he isn’t already on the move) ineffective past drawing of attention of multiple defenders.

The Suns and Booker often found themselves going up against the grain, ad nauseam, to the point of Booker appearing to be a shell of himself in the scoring realm in multiple pockets, which makes sense when contextualizing things in this window of time.

Think back especially to both matchups with the Kings and Thunder, with each saying “not you” to Devin Booker in ways unique to their team constructs.

A large part of the issue for me persisted with the process for the Suns. Two to the ball with Durant and Beal off the floor or not available is inevitable for Booker. Phoenix can use that to its advantage, as we spoke to at length in my first notebook installment.

The issue is, though this approach is an offense in and of itself, is it’s not as effective when the shots aren’t falling around him, when there’s no effective counter, and it grows more predictable.

By my eye, Booker and the Suns’ general offense have needed an uptick in using him in much more movement, for dynamic touches — where he’s touching the ball already in movement, stemming from screening, screen-the-screener, and handoff variations.

I have compared the 2020-21 through 2023-24 seasons, where Booker averaged out to the 75th percentile in usage in that context and the 60th percentile in points per possession, to this season’s trends.

It’s important to note that, especially under Monty Williams, the staple base of their offensive was “Elbow” out of Horns, where Booker would often be the guard of a pair of players stationed at the elbows on the floor, receiving a cross-screen to play off, which was the trigger for their offense.

However, these touches often turned into scoring opportunities to either counter coverage as defenders would eventually try to cheat the action, or the Suns would cleverly re-space to clear the side of the floor Booker was headed to, giving him an isolation but off of a dynamic catch, on the move.

Additionally, they’d also use him as the initial screener in screen-the-screener variations, as well as off of “quick” action with empty corner wide pin downs, off floppy-adjacent actions or even give him option screens, as Durant gets these days.

I detailed one action under Budenholzer, “Wedge-Step Up,” where the Suns have consistently gotten great movement and shot quality, where the Big 3 are involved and are interchangeable:

The Suns’ most recent matchup with the New York Knicks was a prime example of how I feel Booker’s usage should be blended.

I spoke with Mike Budenholzer about just that at practice on Sunday, to which he provided some solid insight into their process and how this can become somewhat complicated (in a positive manner as a good thing to have), given the talents at his controls:

Let’s take a look at a few possessions from their match-up with the Knicks, that I spoke about with Budenholzer.

Notice the set-up into the movement for Booker, coming off stagger screens here to get the game going, setting a tone for things to come in terms of their intent on usage.

Whether a catch into a shot for him to get downhill, or if he boomeranged it back to Tyus Jones, there were plenty of options on a dynamic touch, making it impossible to also double-team him.

This rep is akin to the Monty Williams and Kevin Young era that was referenced earlier, where play through the elbows triggered action as a quick hitter.

Notice who’s where in their spacing first. It’s Booker with O’Neale on the elbows, with Nurkić (who’d typically be screening for Booker in primary action) spaced to the deep corner, and Allen in the other.

OG Anunoby cheats under and Booker counters by flaring to space and gets a touch in the movement for two, already at home in the mid-range.

This action they’ve gone to frequently for Durant — “fluff” with the initiation in the opposite slot, then a swing into the wide pin down. It’s a miss, but you can see the difference in comfortability felt, plus how much harder (and consequential) it’d be to double him there.

From sideline out of bounds, it’s more unique screen-the-screener in the form of staggers for O’Neale, that flow into a quick-hitting flare for Booker.

Space is enabled, and he can work to an even more comfortable pull-up pocket, again already at home in the mid-range.

Suns go to “delay” where Nurkić has the ball up top with movement around him.

Flow stagnates some due to Anunoby’s defensive prowess, but look how easily Booker is again able to work to space catching and attacking immediately.

Then he gets to his bump-fade in the middy, off another dynamic touch.

Naturally, methods of approach with Booker (or either of the others in the Big 3) won’t need to be as nuanced when they’re all in the mix. Still, the lesson in this time without them all on the floor feels to be more intentional in creating those dynamic touches for all of them as moving targets.

We spoke with Tim Legler about just this last week:

Now, with the news of Durant and Beal being probable, I’d like to see Budenholzer feature them in succession, in the ways Legler mentioned. 

Of note:

• Grayson Allen’s last four games played: 14.5 points per game, 8.3 three-point attempts on 39.4% and 3.5 FTA stemming from drives through contact.
• Phoenix is sixth in three-point attempts (42.1) and 10th in three-point makes (14.8) per game over the last eight games.
• Devin Booker is 752 points away from surpassing Walter Davis as the all-time scorer of the franchise.