Draft Profile: Jalen Suggs (or, mini-Scottie Barnes with a bag?)

Hello CtB!

We continue with our draft profiles series, and today we’ll look at the highly touted Gonzaga freshman, Jalen Suggs. Let’s dive right in…

The Pros for Jalen Suggs

As with Scottie Barnes, what immediately jumps out about Suggs is his mind for the game of basketball. He’s a coach on the floor, with elite anticipation on both offense and defense. Suggs ranked in the top 10 of the West Coast Conference in assist percentage as a freshman point guard. Suggs showed off elite defensive playmaking with a 3.5% steal percentage (ranked second in the WCC). There is very little that Suggs can’t do on a basketball court.

The second thing that stands out watching Suggs is his overall athleticism. In spite of a lack of extraordinary length (6’3″ without shoes with a 6’5″ wingspan in 2018 according to nbadraft.net), Suggs is the ideal size for a NBA point guard and has OK size as a small ball shooting guard. He’s built like a tank and can leap out of the gym and throw down lobs in transition. Suggs’ physical play style will fit seamlessly into the NBA.

The third thing that stands out watching Suggs is his ability to score and make plays in the half court. Suggs has a bag of moves off the dribble to create space for himself and for his teammates to score. Suggs demonstrates the ability to shoot off the dribble at an elite level (1.103 points per possession, 93rd percentile in the NCAA according to Tyler Metcalf of Hashtag Basketball). He also demonstrates the ability to get to the rim fairly consistently posting a .370 free throw rate, which is a higher rate than guys such as Donovan Mitchell (.260 FTr at Louisville) and Jamal Murray (.283 FTr at Kentucky). Suggs also has a knack for finding space off the ball for easy buckets. Suggs is the type of perimeter offensive player that is coveted in today’s NBA game with his combination of scoring and playmaking. As this statistical tidbit shows, Suggs projects to be a dynamic scorer in the NBA:

Only 8 freshmen since 2008 meet these criteria:
FT% > 75
usage% > 22
block% > 0.5
steal% > 2
at-rim FG% > 62.5
at-rim unassisted% > 60

1) Anthony Edwards
2) Bradley Beal
3) Jayson Tatum
4) John Wall
5) CJ McCollum
6) Josh Christopher
7) Jalen Suggs

— avinash 💯 (@100guaranteed) June 27, 2021

The Questions for Jalen Suggs

The biggest and seemingly most obvious question about Suggs is his three point shooting. Suggs only shot 33.7% from three this season. Two bits of context add some nuance to that number. First on the positive side, the film shows that Suggs generally took high degree of difficulty shots from three off the dribble. He was rarely spotting up and shooting, which is an easier shot to make. Unfortunately for Suggs, he’s pretty bad at the catch and shoot three, averaging 0.919 points per possession, ranking in the 39th percentile in the NCAA (h/t Tyler Metcalf, Hashtag Basketball). Jonathan Wasserman of Bleacher Report reported that Suggs averaged a dismal 29.7% in catch and shoot situations. While catch and shoot threes are one of the easier shots to work on, if Suggs doesn’t improve that aspect of his game it limits his offensive versatility and will cause a clogged paint when he plays off ball against a set defense. Luckily for Suggs, the catch and shoot three is an easy shot to improve with practice. His free throw percentage (75.4%) is indicative of a fundamentally sound shot technique and the film shows a fine shooting stroke.

Perhaps of greater concern than Suggs’ shooting is the level of competition he faced while playing for a mid-major powerhouse in Gonzaga. Layne Vashro of Nylon Calculus compiled a ranking system based on the strength of competition among basketball leagues across the world. The West Coast Conference wouldn’t even rank among the top 50 leagues in the world (check out the article here). The lack of NBA competition Suggs faced does show up on film. For instance, while Suggs shows ambidexterity with his ball handling and finishing, he was rarely forced to his weak hand to finish around rim. I expect a lengthier-than-usual adjustment period for Suggs to familiarize himself with such a steep upgrade in competition. Fortunately for Suggs, his NBA body and athleticism won’t be a cause for concern, just his skill level as he sets out on his developmental NBA years.

Final Thoughts

The apparent concern for Suggs’ ability to score among online basketball fans seems exaggerated. Suggs is a bucket with the ball in his hands, and even better than a bucket, he’s also a problem with his ability to create easy shots for his teammates with the pass. The real concern about Suggs on offense is whether he can be effective without the ball in his hands especially as a spacing jump shooter. Adding the catch and shoot jump shot will make him a complete offensive player.

The larger question is how fast can Suggs adjust to NBA competition. I expect him to struggle for a bit, and how fast he can develop will determine how high his ceiling is. As with Scottie Barnes, I can’t see Suggs washing out of the NBA with his ability to create his own shot, pass, and defend at a high level. But can he become a franchise superstar player? At the end of the day, Suggs is worth a gamble. Why? Because the combination of NBA athleticism, scoring ability, and innate feel of the game are the ingredients necessary to become a superstar. For Suggs, it isn’t about becoming a completely different player, it’s about fine tuning and doing the things he can do better and more consistently.