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In addition to adding Bradley Beal to their roster this summer—just a few months after adding Kevin Durant—the Phoenix Suns also signed a number of talented players to low-cost deals to increase their depth.
More significantly, the players they signed weren’t fringe players the previous year. Their efforts helped their respective teams succeed.
The Suns have a ton of information about the new players they signed going into this season. The Suns may use big sample sizes as baselines instead of having to judge a player with only a few hundred minutes to his credit.
Even Metu, who only logged 689 minutes of action the year before, amassed more than 1,200 the year before. That undoubtedly allowed the Suns to make a wise evaluation of him before signing him.
All things considered, it’s strange that Watanabe, a guy with no more than 179 career games under his belt, is one of their most important acquisitions this summer.
The 6’9 striker from Japan may not have impressed you with his 5.6 points in 16.0 minutes from the previous season in Brooklyn, but don’t mistake his underwhelming stats with a lack of output.
Asset for Spacing and Driving Lanes
Watanabe is a fantastic shooter who has already posted two seasons with a long-range accuracy rate of above 40%. He knows his own limitations and plays within his areas of strength. He is a good rebounder.
Watanabe will mostly serve as a floor-spacer, a player who can fit into many different lineups and support talents like Durant, Beal, and Devin Booker. It doesn’t matter if he scores many points or not because his primary responsibility will be to build driving lanes.
He will need to occasionally be noticeable to maintain those lanes, but given that he made 44.4% of his triples last season, that doesn’t seem like a big load.
Watanabe is likely to become more vulnerable than ever. This should give him a chance to not only marginally boost his volume but also surpass his TS of 63.7% from the previous season.
With the three aforementioned qualities, he’ll have more chances to contribute significantly to winning games the more he uses them.
It would even make sense for Frank Vogel to start with Watanabe since he can play both forward positions.
Phoenix may be able to start strong if spacing is optimized and driving lanes are opened up early. This will also allow a more defensively-minded bench team to enter the game and contribute to the maintenance of a lead.
Whatever Vogel decides to do with his rotation, Watanabe will likely end up being a key player.
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Source: Forbes
