NBA: Ranking all 30 starting centers for 2019-20

Deandre Ayton was taken with the first overall pick in 2018 by the Phoenix Suns and put together a solid campaign that landed him on the All-Rookie first team.

The questions moving forward revolve more around Ayton’s style of play than his ability to put up numbers.

Ayton is an anachronism in the modern NBA, a classic back-to-the-basket, pound-the-ball-into-the-floor big whose shooting range as a rookie evaporated as he got more than 10 feet from the rim.

He was a brutally effective finisher at the rim, hitting 73.3 percent of his attempts, but he only took 47.8 percent of those shots from there.

Instead, he flirted with the mid-range jumper — sometimes settling for it when other options were available — and hit 41.0 percent from the 10-16 foot area and just 34.6 percent from deep mid-range, where he took almost 15 percent of his attempts.

Behind the arc wasn’t an option for Ayton, who was 0-for-4 from there as a rookie.

Phoenix was just 19-63 last season, accounting for a lot of Ayton’s minus-8.5 net rating, but the Suns were 1.2 points better per 100 possessions with Ayton on the court.

As far as the counting stats go, Ayton started 70 of the 71 games in which he appeared and put up 16.3 points and 10.3 rebounds in 30.7 minutes per game, shooting 58.5 percent overall and converting an adequate 74.6 percent at the line.

It’s another year, another coach in Phoenix and it remains to be seen how Monty Williams will change things up after taking over from Igor Kokoskov. Williams was the coach in New Orleans as Anthony Davis was adapting to the NBA game, so he has experience bringing along young bigs.

But Ayton will have to become more engaged defensively and figure out where his offensive game fits to move up this list.