Overview
Alex Len is now the cornerstone of the Phoenix Suns. Last season (and at the beginning of this season) he was stuck behind Miles Plumlee at the center position and had nagging injuries holding him back, causing him to only play in exactly half of the games last year.
This year he supplanted Plumlee as the starter and played in 69 games (44 as a starter). His minutes went from 8.6 per game to 22.0 as he showed everyone why he was picked fifth overall in the 2013 NBA Draft.
Of course, the emergence of Len couldn’t stop the Suns from regressing as a team. Instead of greatly exceeding expectations and finishing with a surprising 48 wins like last year, the Suns fell to 39 wins on the season amid some injury problems, regression and chemistry issues ignited by the bomb Goran Dragic and Isaiah Thomas deals created at the trade deadline.
It was pretty impossible to face that brutal schedule missing Len and Brandon Knight as well as a third of their roster at the trade deadline.
But it was still a promising year from Len, so here’s a look back on his 2014-15 season.
Next: Weaknesses
Weaknesses
The worst weakness of Len right now is his inexperience that extends to all parts of his game. In a way that’s also his “best” weakness, because the way you fix it is with time, which is inevitable and not dependent on other factors. His inexperience sometimes manifests itself as a something like a missed rotation on defense.
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The most visible error, however, is his propensity for fouling. In terms of fouls per 48 minutes for starting centers with at least 44 starts, Len led the league. He fouled at a rate of 6.2 fouls per 48 minutes and the 12 players above him hadn’t started nearly as many games at center as he did. For comparison purposes, Steven Adams’ 6.0 fouls per 48 minutes in 67 starts was right behind Len.
For a starting center, he didn’t score very much with a measly 6.3 points per game in 2014-15. His field goal percentage is decent, just pushing more than 50 percent, but that is padded by dunks and alley-oops. His jumper isn’t quite on target and he fades away far too much on it for a seven-footer.
His other issue is he only averaged 6.6 rebounds on the season, not nearly enough for his position. That’s mostly due to not having enough weight below the belt to hold his position with the veteran bodies who have packed on the pounds and muscle over the years.
The elephant in the room is his injury history, though this year was not too worrisome as he generally missed time for non-chronic or recurring issues (hand/finger and the broken nose). The tweaked ankle caused by a collision with Portland’s Robin Lopez was the other injury but fortunately, the effects didn’t linger.
Next: Strengths
Strengths
Those weaknesses are just due to inexperience and will go away. Len has just so much latent potential and his jumper is easily fixable. Give him another offseason to gain muscle and awareness and watch his rebounding and post defense improve by leaps and bounds.
He even said it himself in the exit interviews: “[I need to] keep building on what I have right now, develop a post game and just keep getting stronger, pay attention to the little things.”
Everything will be better next year as he’ll have the solidified role as the starting center and consistent minutes. There is a good chance he won’t foul nearly as much next year too.
Len blocked 1.5 shots per game on the season, but deterred so many more. Players didn’t want to go into the paint against him and he changed the shots of many in the paint. According to NylonCalculus’ metric that evaluates rim protection, Len was seventh in the entire NBA in points saved per 36 minutes.
This is their explanation of the metric: Saved/36 – How many points a player saves per 36 minutes, given the number of shots they contest per at the rim per 36 minutes, and their opponents’ field goal percentage on shots they contest at the rim, compared to the league average field goal percentage at the rim.
For the next decade, Len could conceivably be a top-three rim protector in the entire NBA, along with Rudy Gobert and Nerlens Noel.
Next: Lowlights
Lowlights
You can’t really gauge Len’s value by points, because that’s not really what he’s bringing to the table, though he had several scoring outbursts throughout the season. His season high was on Nov. 17, when he scored 19 points to go along with seven rebounds in a 118-114 victory over the Boston Celtics. For him that’s a scoring outburst, but he didn’t even hit 20 points.
Aside from not ever cracking 20 points this season, most of Len’s lowlights have to deal with injuries.
He missed three games in early February after a collision with Portland’s Robin Lopez. He also lost three games in early March. Then against Portland again, Len suffered a broken nose than ended his season with seven games to go, for a total of 13 games missed. Obviously the missed games are lowlights, but there were others.
There is something to be said for letting your game come through the flow of the offense and not forcing anything, but Len needs to demand the ball a bit more. His game widely fluctuates from game to game, depending on a lot of factors including matchup, pace and who else is hot for Phoenix (if Gerald Green or the Morris brothers are hot, he’s not getting any touches). I’ll just show one example.
On Feb. 23, the Suns were at home to take on the Houston Rockets. Eric Bledsoe, P.J. Tucker and Isaiah Thomas had it going, but Len only attempted three shots (and made two). Three attempts for the starting center who is pretty good? Unacceptable.
Len finished that game with those four points in 24 minutes and the Suns lost by two points as Len and Dwight Howard kept each other in check. James Harden went off for 33 points and the buzzer-beater. If Len plays… like…any better, they win that game.
Next: Highlights
Highlights
Len certainly had some great moments this season as he improved in many facets if the game. January was a good month for Len as his field goal percentage was nearly 60 percent, while February was his best rebounding month at 9.3 boards in those eight games.
That’s where Len’s game can end up. About 14 points per game on 60ish percent shooting and nearly 10 boards per game, in addition to being the anchor of the defense.
In terms of individual plays, we’ve begin with a general set of awesomeness from Len.
Then there are the highlights of his career-high 19-point game against the Boston Celtics.
And of course, how could we forget about the time he completely juked Tim Duncan and went right at the hoop to become the Ukrainian version of the Air Jordan logo?
Finally, the most hilarious big man fastbreak solely by Len early in the season again, but isolated and in Vine format, because you know you want to watch that over and over again!
Next: Final Grade
Grade: B
Len’s grade for the season is a solid B.
He played significantly more games this year and showed both some consistency over the season and even bigger flashes of what he can become. He showed he can play extended time against some of the NBA’s best centers.
Last season I laughed at how good he could become. He is already so fluid and mobile and is showing more of that every day. He has the potential to be an All-Star.
Markieff Morris maybe said it best when he talked about how important his health is for next season:
“Super important. When he was at his best we were really good this year, protecting the rim for us and having that fight that we need,” he said. “He is a hard-working young man and works really hard every morning lifting weights and he will be real good for us next year.”
Len didn’t deserve an A grade because that would have required him to reach his potential, which nobody expects to happen just yet. In about two years or so he’ll be hitting those benchmarks of points per game, rebounds and efficiency. Anything below a B would have been him having significant ankle injuries or showing no flashes of brilliance on offense with horrible defense.
Connect with me on Twitter @Eric_Saar to talk about Len and the rest of the Suns.
Jeffery Sanders and Gerald Bourguet contributed to this story.
More 2014-15 Phoenix Suns Player Grades:
Jerel McNeal
Danny Granger
Brandan Wright
Earl Barron
Marcus Thornton
T.J. Warren
Archie Goodwin
Next: T.J. Warren: 2014-15 Phoenix Suns Player Grades