RYAN DUNN ; A DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH
article by Jaspaire
After a season that fell short of expectations, the Suns have selected Ryan Matthew Dunn, an American forward from Virginia, 28th in the 2024 draft.
Generally speaking, the players chosen in this range - at the end of the first round - are players who can be described as role players. These limited players are selected to perform a specific task in the team that has placed its trust in them. What role will Ryan Dunn play for the Suns, and more importantly, how can Bud use such a strong but limited player ?
Mike Budenholzer was crowned NBA champion with the Bucks in 2021, 50 years after the franchise's last title. Budenholzer, who cut his teeth in San Antonio as a video coordinator, has always been able to sublimate the bench players and role players into the cornerstones of a solid team. As a result, players like Pat Connaughton, Brynn Forbes, and Bobby Portis have become essential role players in the Milwaukee Bucks' title success.
‘I think it was a good night for us. We came into this draft with two goals: we wanted to be more athletic. And on the perimeter, on defense, we wanted to add size and youth, and I think we were able to do both things. ‘James Jones
Ryan Dunn started his season with a statistical statement on the defensive end; it had been over 10 years since an NCAA player had started his season with 20 blocks and 20 steals in his first 7 games.
A Hakeem % (BLK% + STL%) of 13%, a rather evocative number. By way of comparison, Anthony Davis' NCAA record is 15% for his year at Kentucky.
Ryan Dunn is a combo forward who excels in versatility and defensive impact, following in the footsteps of the Jonathan Isaac, Matisse Thybulle and Mikal Bridges,type of prospects.
You've probably realised that Dunn will be able to help the Suns defensively, but how and to what degree ?
Last season, the Suns finished 13th out of 30 in DefRating under Vogel, a statistic that is far too low for a team that wants to be a title contender. Virginia, meanwhile, is the CBB's (College Basketball) 6th-ranked ‘Adjusted Defense’, according to Bart Torvik.
95th percentile on half-court defenses while the Arizona franchise is in the 63rd percentile.
When Bud led the Bucks to the title, the Bucks were 10th in the Def Rating.
Staying with the equivocal statistics, Ryan Dunn is a player who is in the 92nd percentile on half-court defenses. Even better, he's in the 94th percentile on PnR when defending the ball handler, 94th when defending the roll, and 90th percentile on isolation.
His numbers, astronomical as they are, are a true representation of the threat Dunn is in any kind of defensive scheme.
The 2.03m winger is just as comfortable defending the POA as he is switching on taller players. Although the term defensive versatility comes up often, perhaps even too often, Dunn ticks all the boxes as a versatile winger who can effectively defend almost every position on the court.
Whether it's in a roamer role, thanks to his excellent ground coverage and big motor, or on ball or off ball, the Virginia prospect will always find a way to be extremely effective.
If we look at the Phoenix Suns' roster, the best defender on the PoA (Point of Attack) is Josh Okogie with 42% of the time on ball-handler defense to be ranked in the 57th percentile of the league.
The Suns are one of the worst teams in the league at defending the ball handler in pick-and-roll situations, 24th in the league in this category.
So it's easy enough to see Ryan Dunn taking on Josh Okogie's previous role in certain sequences, particularly on the taller ball handlers.
But that won't be Dunn's main role, and we know that most rookies arriving in the NBA need time to adapt, especially in defense.
Even for Ausar Thompson, who surprised everyone with a higher-than-expected defensive level, it turned out that he was excellent in 1-on-1 situations, and less good at communicating and managing defensive spacing.
It might also be too much pressure to give Dunn so much responsibility in defense, especially in a role where it wasn't his main task at Virginia.
With 1.3 steals per game and an average of 2.3 blocks, Dunn can excel in a key role in modern basketball: the roamer.
A roamer is a player who fills in the gaps and erases his team's mistakes thanks to his ability to cover a large area in the defensive zone.
Another great quality of Ryan Dunn's is his capacity for defensive playmaking, often by forcing mismatches or simply by creating chaos in the opposing team.
As you can see from some of these actions, the winger is excellent at forcing turnovers, but also at forcing bad shots, particularly with improvised two-man traps, early rotations or forcing dangerous passes.
While he often does this in the NCAA, Dunn is less likely to do so in the NBA because the offense is more reactive and space is better exploited. But it also shows how well he understands defensive schemes and how well he reads rotations and defensive helps.
Now that we've found out his defensive role and how his versatility will benefit the Suns, let's find out what his role will be in attack.
In the mould of a Thybulle, Dunn is a negative offensive player (53% free throws, 20% 3-pointers for a low volume of 1 attempted per game)
His low Offensive Box Plus Minus of 1.1 is quite concerning, even worse considering his high Usage Rate of 17.
To sum up, Ryan Dunn doesn't shoot consistently, he's inconsistent at free throws and he has no positive offensive stats. So how do you use a negative player in an offensive role ?
First of all, let's take a look at Dunn's role at his college, Virginia.
On most possessions, he was used on cuts, so there were no standing starts because he wasn't dangerous on the perimeter (32nd percentile on spot-ups). With this in mind, we can see that he's quite positive in transition, thanks mainly to his good mobility and interesting athletic profile.
But we can also see that he's used very little as a roll man, a shortcoming of Dunn's, who doesn't necessarily know how to roll and can't be dangerous on short rolls because of his lack of shooting and handle.
Dunn is effective on cuts and can benefit from the spacing that Booker, Beal and Durant can provide (with a fair number of sequences in the corner for backdoor or easy basket in the dunker spot), but outside that area, he is far too weak to get minutes on an NBA floor.
So, in my opinion, it's vital for Ryan Dunn to learn to set screens in order to survive in the NBA.
His shooting is still unreliable and the player will often be ‘sagged’ (Sag: When a defender pulls away from his opponent to ‘force’ him to shoot and defend him in the paint).
Of course, he'll need to keep shooting to become at least a threat from the corners, but for the time being, it's easier for him to set screens and have plenty of off-ball runs to make the most of his athleticism near the rim.
So how do you use a winger who sets screens ? Quite complicated, as he needs a center who can at least spread the floor, otherwise the risk of stepping on each other in the paint will stall Phoenix's attack.
On paper, Bol Bol is perhaps the player with whom Dunn can best synergise. Two very different profiles (Bol Bol being very thin and not very mobile, the opposite of Dunn who can play help defense at the rim but also act as a roamer).
A duo with Nurkic or Plumlee is much more complicated to be effective on the surface.
Bud could also use Dunn as a false center in certain short sequences if he wants to run and make the most of a hyper-versatile small ball.
Even if the player is limited, Ryan Dunn has qualities and roles where the player can have a positive impact on the court, but these scenarios are extremely thin at the moment. It will therefore be up to Bud's staff to find a role for him in these many situations.
There is no doubt that he will make an impact on defense, as the Suns need a strong defender at the point of attack.
And let's not forget his roamer qualities and the upside he brings to defensive playmaking.
So it's going to be very interesting to follow the Suns, who in my opinion have had a successful off-season and have far fewer flaws than last season.