Phoenix Suns: 5 goals for Tyler Ulis in 2017-18

5. Average 20 minutes per game in 70 appearances

This doesn’t seem like much of an increase from Ulis’ first NBA season, when the rookie wound up averaging 18.4 minutes per game.

However, that figure is misleading, since he went from averaging 9.0 minutes per game in 36 appearances before the All-Star break to a whopping 32.0 minutes per game in 25 games after the break.

More from Phoenix Suns

• 3 NBA superstars with legacies on the line heading into 2023–24
• Ranking the 4 riskiest boom-or-bust NBA teams in 2023–24
• 5 NBA players facing do-or-die 2023–2024 seasons
• Report: Phoenix is considering signing two former lottery picks
• Phoenix’s questionable Deandre Ayton strategy is worth the risk

With Eric Bledsoe being shut down for the final 15 games of the season, Ulis was bumped into the starting lineup, which is how his minutes shot up from 11.5 minutes per game off the bench to a massive 39.5 minutes per game.

Those end-of-season numbers skewed the final averages, but he missed 21 games as a rook, many of which were the result of DNP-CDs early in the year.

If Ulis can appear in around 70 games and average at least 20 minutes per game, which is not guaranteed for a player who underwent a “minor” ankle procedure that somehow came with a 12-week recovery time, he’ll have fully established himself as a key piece in Earl Watson‘s bench rotation — a reasonable goal for any second-year player showing promise.