Phoenix Suns: The Alex Len Dilemma

Alex Len: Still A Question Mark

Entering the home stretch of his fourth season, the 23-year-old Ukrainian is hardly any less of an enigma now as he was when the Suns selected him with the fifth overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft.

Though he’s nowhere near as injury-prone or feeble as he was back then, Len’s ceiling is still impossible to project as a backup center who can’t spread the floor on offense, doesn’t make the defense better and is coming off the bench behind a 34-year-old Tyson Chandler.

Can he anchor an average NBA defense? The advanced numbers say no. Is he strong enough to battle the league’s behemoths and seven-foot unicorns on a night-to-night basis? The results are mixed, and the sample size is too small to say. Can he spread the floor to the midrange with a respectable jump shot? The eye test says no, but the numbers say hell no:

Not all of his seemingly underwhelming game is his fault, of course, but with restricted free agency approaching this summer, it’s a problem for the Suns front office and anyone else trying to figure out what the hell Alex Len is.

Is he capable of being the Suns’ answer at the 5 as they rebuild with this young core? Or is he just a fringe starter who would start on bad teams and come off the bench for good teams? As much as the Suns have more clearly outlined Len’s duties by simplifying them this season, they’ve blurred the bigger picture in the process.

"“We have to say Alex Len is a skilled big, he can’t be a big that just blocks shots and runs the court,” Watson said. “Because he is a skilled big and is talented, we have to make him comfortable on the court, give him jump shots at the elbow, throw him the ball in the post. “We have to have unconditional love and live with the fact that he will not be perfect, but we push towards consistency.”"

In his first season, Len played a meager 42 games because of injuries. In his second season, he played 69 games, but missed time due to injury and only started in 44 games because Miles Plumlee was still a thing. In his third season, Chandler was brought aboard to woo LaMarcus Aldridge, and even when that fell through, the Suns were still thinking playoffs.

Despite Len’s steady improvement every season, he has yet to break through, in part because of his limited opportunities. This year, for example, he’s started a grand total of 11 games — despite his upcoming free agency and Phoenix’s miserable 18-39 record, which indicates the youngsters should be playing as much as possible.