Jalen Suggs was the frontman last Friday for the Orlando Magic’s Classic Edition jersey reveal.
This close to the start of the season, everyone is on muscle watch and everyone noted Suggs’ seemingly bigger size heading into the season. The message coming out of the event regarding this year’s team was about the potential this team certainly has and the growth that is certain to come.
All eyes are certainly on Suggs for that reason.
He has had a rough first two seasons in the NBA. Injuries dominated the conversation with him with a hand and ankle injury slowing him down in his rookie season and further ankle and concussion issues slowing him down his second year.
Suggs has not quite put everything together or made good on all the promises that came with his selection. But he has still shown plenty of promise. He has come out as a strong defender able to disrupt opponents on the perimeter. And there is not much more he has to do to impact the game defensively.
Everything that Suggs needs to improve is his offensive efficiency. That will only make his superb defense stand out more.
Jalen Suggs has established himself as an excellent defender in his first two seasons. His next steps will come by improving his offensive efficiency this season.
His offensive game started to come around at the end of last season, providing some hope for Suggs’ development this year.
To be sure, there is a lot of excitement for Suggs. And that only increased with the way he finished this season.
Suggs said he spent the majority of the offseason in Orlando working out with teammates at the AdventHealth Training Center. He also has done his share of traveling including going back home for an early summer pro-am in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.
More importantly for Suggs, it appears he has gotten through the summer fully healthy. That is a big thing for Suggs after he had to miss the early part of his first offseason recovering from a late-season ankle injury.
A healthy offseason for a young player is undoubtedly the most important thing in a player’s development.
Undoubtedly Suggs is a player still filled with potential and promise. He has shown that with big performances like his clutch showing against the Golden State Warriors, let alone his game-winning 3-pointer against the Chicago Bulls. But time is running out for Suggs with his contract running out and the Magic focusing their attention on growing the team in a significant way.
Suggs has a lot of areas he can improve and get better. And the Magic are certainly hopeful to see him take some major steps in his third season.
3 ways Jalen Suggs will improve for the Orlando Magic in 2024
Shooting
The biggest concern with Jalen Suggs remains his shaky outside shooting. It might have ended up being the reason why Suggs slipped out of a surefire top-four pick to No. 5 in the 2021 NBA Draft.
Not that the Orlando Magic were complaining. Everyone still saw plenty of potential in him and what he was capable of doing.
But Suggs has struggled to find his shot. It is almost certainly the biggest weakness in his game so far in the NBA and the biggest thing holding him back in his career.
It is safe to say that if Suggs wants to push his way into the starting lineup — something fans certainly seem eager to see and something that would add another element to the starting lineup defensively especially — he is going to have to shoot a lot better.
Suggs shot 21.4 percent on 4.1 3-point attempts per game as a rookie. Last year, that number improved to 32.7 percent on 3.8 3-point attempts per game.
Fans were eager to see Suggs have a good stretch of 3-point shooting to close last season though. In 19 games after the All-Star Break, Suggs made 36.0 percent of his 3-point attempts on 3.9 attempts per game.
It was encouraging, even if there were a few holes to poke in his performance — he still had eight of his 19 games shooting better than 33.3 percent from deep in that time and had some big outlier games including a 4-for-6 showing in the blowout win over the Detroit Pistons and a 5-for-9 showing in the loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers at the end of the season.
The other place to look at Suggs is how he shot elsewhere and how he got his 3-pointers.
Suggs made 34.8 percent of his 2.1 catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts per game last year, according to data from Second Spectrum. Additionally, he shot 30.3 percent on 1.3 pull-up 3-point attempts per game. Only Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner took more pull-up 3-point attempts per game for the team.
Elsewhere, Suggs made a solid 42.3 percent on mid-range shots, but on only 52 total attempts last season (11.7 percent of his total attempts). He also shot 11 for 27 (40.7 percent) from the corners. But that represented only 13.4 percent of his total 3-point attempts.
The bulk of his outside shots came from above the break where he made only 31.8 percent of his 173 3-point attempts. That is clearly where the issues lie and the question is getting Suggs better at those shots or changing his shot diet some (we will get to his shooting at the rim in a moment).
Suggs has plenty of shooting potential though. It is seen in his solid mid-range numbers, his ability to get some separation off the dribble and his free throw shooting (he made 72.3 percent of his free throws last year and 77.3 percent in his rookie year).
This is probably the most difficult improvement to project. It is also the most important for Suggs to get down if he wants to cement his role with this team and reach his full potential.
3 ways Jalen Suggs will improve for the Orlando Magic in 2024
Shooting at the Rim
If Jalen Suggs is not shooting 3-pointers then, a lot of his offense comes down to his ability to get to the basket.
If there is a defining trait for Suggs, it is his willingness to dive headfirst and throw himself at the basket. Suggs is certainly not afraid to put his body on the line to get to the basket and at the rim.
After above-the-break threes, Suggs took most of his shots in the restricted area. But he made only 59.3 percent of his 123 attempts in the restricted area. That is far from the worst mark in the league, but he is clearly leaving some points on the board.
According to data from Basketball Index, Suggs’ 59.02 percent shooting at the rim is just above the league median.
Suggs’ offensive game is predicated a lot on his ability to get to the basket. He averaged 3.9 drives per game last year according to Second Spectrum and shot just 50.0 percent on those drives.
There is a control issue at play here for Suggs. It is one of the bigger themes for his improvement and next level as a player. He has to learn when to attack and when to pull back and how to measure his attacks better.
Suggs is the kind of player who should be able to live at the rim. It feels like he can get there any time he wants. It also feels like he should be able to draw fouls too — he averaged 3.4 free throw attempts per game in his rookie season and 2.2 attempts per game last year.
His passing was not much better but still encouraging.
Suggs averaged just 2.9 assists per game after averaging 4.4 assists per game as a rookie. His per-36-minutes assists dropped from 5.8 to 4.5. It was not just him coming off the bench in his second season.
According to data from Basketball Index, Suggs averaged 10.7 assist points per 75 possessions. That put him in the 75th percentile in the league. So there is the potential for him to be a better passer.
More impressively is that his passes did seem to lead to points more often than not — he averaged 15.4 potential assists per 100 passes (good for the 61st percentile in the league) and 0.87 potential assists per 75 possessions more than expected for a player in his role.
He posted 4.1 high-value assists per 75 possessions — assists that led directly to layups or 3-pointers or free throws. That was good for the 80th percentile in the league.
There are just constantly all these indicators that Suggs can put everything together. But the whole thing has not come together yet.
Suggs’ offensive improvement will indeed come on two fronts. It will come with his improved shooting from the interior and with better efficiency at the rim and in the paint. Those are the biggest two pieces for him to take a leap offensively.
3 ways Jalen Suggs will improve for the Orlando Magic in 2024
Turnovers
The other half of that coin when it comes to shooting better in the paint and at the rim comes down to protecting the ball. This is an area where everyone on the Magic has to improve.
But the decision-making at the basket is one of the critical points of emphasis for Suggs and one of the areas he can improve. It is not just about his shooting at the rim.
Suggs averaged 1.8 turnovers per game. That was down from 3.0 turnovers per game in his rookie year. It was a big step up for him.
But it is an area where he and the rest of his teammates can get a lot better.
The Magic ranked 27th in the league with a turnover rate of 15.1 percent. This is an area where young teams are expected to struggle. It is also the biggest area where fans can expect the Magic to take a step up this season.
Suggs’ raw turnover numbers were low, but he had a 12.7-percent turnover rate. That was the fifth-highest turnover rate on the team behind Jay Scrubb, Bol Bol, Michael Carter-Williams and Kevon Harris. That essentially means Suggs had the highest turnover rate among all rotation players.
So not only does Suggs need to make more shots at the rim but he needs to be smarter on his attacks and how he passes out of them. He clearly has the passing skill to make plays. Now it is about the consistency of making the right decisions every time he gets downhill.
That has been as big a thing holding him back as his poor shooting — if you are going to be a poor shooter, you better be able to get to the rim effectively.
Orlando as a whole has to reduce its turnovers. That is something everyone expects to gain with experience. And so a full healthy summer is as likely to improve his shooting as it is his decision-making in this area too.
It is one of the many ways the Magic should get better and Suggs specifically.