Basketball in October rarely matters. Except when you’re Jalen Suggs. There was a moment at the end of the third Orlando Magic game of the season versus the Los Angeles Lakers that showed how much every game, every possession, and every moment matters to the Magic guard.
With Orlando down by 1 in the dying seconds, Suggs drove into the paint, embracing contact, hoping to finish over the top of Christian Wood. He missed. The Lakers hit two free throws to extend the lead to 3. On the final possession, Suggs corralled the offensive rebound after a missed attempt by Franz Wagner, hurried to the 3-point line, got a good look… and missed again.
Suggs immediately buried his head in his jersey, irate at himself for the missed opportunities. He had finished the game with 15 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists, and a steal but none of that mattered because his team lost.
“I wear my emotions on my sleeve. I’ve done it my whole life. I don’t hold anything back,” Suggs told me over the phone last week. “Tears flow because as a team, we worked hard. Everybody gave their all out there in an away environment where we had a chance to win it, so I just wanted to be there for my team.”
That isn’t just a one-off occurrence. If you turn on a Magic game at any point this season, you’ll quickly learn that Suggs is one of the most expressive players in the league. After every possession, every defensive stop, every loose ball recovered, and every shot made by his team, he is making his presence felt, screaming, yelling, and oftentimes cheering on his teammates. His competitive fire oozes out of him as if it can’t be contained in his body.
“My competitiveness has been there since I’ve been a little kid. And I think it comes out in anything I do. Whether it’s on the court, off the court, watching more film than the next person, beating somebody to the gym, beating somebody to breakfast, it’s something I can carry over all the time,” said Suggs.
Where that carryover is probably the most evident is on the defensive end. Suggs has become a full-time starter for the Magic in his 3rd season and, very quickly, has turned himself into one of the premiere guard defenders in the entire league.
“I didn’t know I was gonna be a starter until the first game, to be honest,” Suggs said when I asked what the conversation was like with Magic Head Coach Jamahl Mosley about becoming a permanent starter. “I think at the end of the day defense is about heart, you know, and then how hard you want to play defense. Coach says it all the time, ‘You want to leave this game on your own terms’ and I really took that to heart.’”
Heart is probably the best way to describe how Suggs plays on defense. Of the 23 starting lineups that have played over 80 minutes together this season, the Magic starters have the 4th best defensive rating, allowing just over 102 points per 100 possessions, and the 7th best net rating among those starting units. A big part of that is Suggs.
He’s never one to give up on a defensive possession. He’s vocal as the weak-side help, guiding his teammates to the right spots and serving as a sort of anchor for the current #1 defense in the league.
His quick feet make him a menace at the point-of-attack and his anticipation skills and awareness allow him to be one of the best help-side guards the NBA has to offer.
As of the time of this writing, he is third in the league in steals per game averaging over 2 per night, a career-high. He’s 10th in the league in total deflections with 40, 5th in deflections per game, 3rd in total loose balls recovered and 1st in defensive loose balls recovered.
For Orlando, he’s 1st in overall deflections and 2nd in the total amount of contested shots.
For those who like advanced metrics, Suggs was recently ranked the 3rd most impactful defender in the league according to Dunks & Threes EPM metric.
Suggs is well on his way to a spot on an All-Defensive team this season. But what’s making him so effective on that end?
The thing that pops the most when you watch him is his spatial awareness off the ball. He’s always on the balls of his feet, like a goalie in soccer preparing for a penalty kick – ready to pounce in either direction. His speed, anticipation, and hand-eye coordination are instinctual as if he was born to do exactly this.
But there’s a reason for that.
By now, most people know Sugg’s backstory. A star quarterback in high school who instead opted to play basketball rather than pursue a career in football. And while he’s not on the Gridiron, making plays, some of those requisite football-adjacent skills have lingered and even prospered on the court. It’s something he acknowledges too.
“I think just acting instinctually. Defense, especially in football is so much just reading and reacting, if you second guess it, you’re going to be half a second late,” Suggs said when I asked him if there’s been a carry-over from one sport to the next. “It’s about being a ball hawk. And not only how hard you do it, but doing it intelligently. And that’s what we’ve been talking about a lot over here: I see everything but how can I anticipate?”
This is an area he’s made massive strides in. Suggs is a risk-taker, in the best way possible on defense. And while most of those risks have paid off this season due to his instinctual skills, he can sometimes be caught out of position or swipe at the ball one too many times to get a foul called on him.
“I see what’s going on two, three steps ahead on that end, but how can I put myself in a position to not always go for it and just to be in solid positions, show my body maybe just force a tough shot, not give up a shot,” said Suggs who is averaging a career-low in foul rate this season.
He still gets caught up at times, and he’s still learning when and where to utilize his hammer-like hands. Ultimately, opposing offenses should know that they can never turn their back on him or risk turning the ball over.
It’s become somewhat cliche to talk about Sugg’s football skills and how they translate over to basketball – but it’s true.
“I really just kind of look at it as a safety in football, you know, being that line of protection for the team, being a communicator and I get to see everything on the floor,” said Suggs.
I watched every single Magic game this season and I can tell you that the way Suggs describes his defensive acumen is unequivocally true.
I was awe-struck by Suggs’s ability to telegraph passes, shut down plays, and just absolutely dominate as the weak-side help.
Oftentimes, Suggs is the final line of resistance and oftentimes, he bails out this Magic defense with his incredible timing.
With that being said, here is over 7 minutes of film to illustrate the point.
There’s a joy to the way Suggs plays on defense. Off the ball, he’s a menace, but on the ball? He’s just an irritant.
He picks up full-court on most possessions. He’s in your chest, pressuring the ball, knowing that one wrong move by you, the offensive player, and he’s going to take advantage. To him, it’s a game.
“I think defense is fun to me. And I think that’s why I take so much pride in it. And, as you continue to grow, everyone works on offense. You rarely see people work on their defense,” Suggs said while detailing the off-season regiment that helps him work on the defensive side of the ball. He told me he’s usually in the film room, just watching hoops.
It’s paid off in a major way. Suggs has the playbook down on a lot of players in the league. He uses his quick feet to duck under and navigate around multiple screens. Those same quick feet help him slide with the faster guards in the league and his overall strength helps him guard up in position as well. On one possession he’s sliding with Jalen Green, on the other he’s in the post, ripping the ball away from OG Anunoby. The man is never a mismatch.
Orlando is in the top half of the league in terms of opponent shots at the rim and in the paint. Suggs, along with the litany of defensive-minded guards on the team like Markelle Fultz, rookie Anthony Black, and Gary Harris simply do not let you enter the paint without any resistance.
Don’t believe me? Here are 5+ minutes of Suggs making things tough on some of the best players in the league on the ball.
They say that defense is 50% skill and 50% effort. If that’s the case, Suggs maxes out on both ends. He uses his tenacity and effort to enhance his skills on defense – and it’s ultimately been a massive reason why Orlando has propelled itself to the best defense in the league and the best start to a season for the franchise since 2011-2012.
Suggs has taken his role as a full-time starter and ran with it. Using it to not only make an impact defensively but also become more adept as an offensive player, averaging a career-high in points, 3-point percentage, and rebounds. He’s using his defense to help propel the Magic’s transition game on offense. And it’s translating to wins for his team.
“All the guys that have been in here with me from the staff meeting, Cory X, Nate Dogg, Coach Mosley, people who have invested a lot of time and energy into me. I want to repay them on that,” said Suggs.
As far as his competitive fire? Well, that’s not going away anytime soon.
“You either have that or you don’t. Competitive fire is not something that you can teach so just trying to continue to be myself with it, embrace it, and just continue to learn how I can apply it in different ways.”
And as Suggs continues to evolve as a player, experimenting and fine-tuning his craft – expect him to continue wearing his heart on his sleeve – because that’s what makes him such an effective player.
All hustle. All heart. All Defense.
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