Phoenix Suns: The Alex Len Dilemma

With Alex Len’s restricted free agency approaching, the Phoenix Suns need to start feeding their backup center more minutes to better understand his long-term fit.

On Wednesday night against the Los Angeles Lakers, backup center Alex Len had a decent performance for the Phoenix Suns.

He was hardly the main story of the night, with Eric Bledsoe‘s third career triple-double, another 20+ point performance from Devin Booker and the largest single-game point differential over the Lakers in Suns franchise history taking center stage.

But Len was a quiet bright spot, putting up 15 points, nine rebounds and two blocks on 5-of-10 shooting, even though it came with six turnovers and six fouls in only 23 minutes of action.

It was the quintessential Alex Len game, in other words.

"“I thought he had productive games moving forward over the last couple,” head coach Earl Watson said. “[He’s] getting better. The fouls in limited minutes, we have to work on that, but the effort is there.”"

If that sounds a little patronizing, that’s because it may be indicative of Alex Len’s lack of an identity on a tanking team in the most important season of his NBA career. It’s an outright dilemma. A “di-Len-ma,” if you will.