Alex Len: Improvements For Year Three

Block-To-Foul Ratio

Usually when we hear about a [blank]-to-[blank] ratio in sports, it’s either an assist-to-turnover ratio in basketball or a touchdown-to-interception ratio in football, because…well…people care about points.

Scoring points is a pretty important part of winning in basketball, but then again, so is preventing them. For that reason, I’d like to talk about another ratio: Block-to-foul ratio. However, before we dive into the advanced statistics, it’s probably best to back up a touch.

Alex Len was a pretty strong defender last year, at least on the inside. Opponents shot 6.3 percent worse against Len then they did all other players on field goal attempts from less than six-feet from the hoop, and as far as shot-blocking was concerned, Len was among the best, at least midway through the year.

Len posted three-plus blocks on 16 different occasions and four-plus blocks 10 times. Additionally, he finished the season ranked sixth in blocks per 40 minutes, not to mention fifth in block percentage, according to Basketball-Reference.

Looking specifically at block percentage, Len was only behind Rudy Gobert, Anthony Davis, Serge Ibaka and DeAndre Jordan, and was in front of players like Andrew Bogut, Tim Duncan and Nerlens Noel, all of whom were ranked in the top-10. And speaking of Noel, Len had absolutely no problem going toe-to-toe with some of the bigger players in the league, let alone players from his same draft class.

However, to only talk about the blocks tells just one side of the story, and that really isn’t fair to do. Aside from time missed due to injuries, Alex Len probably would’ve played more minutes, if not for the somewhat comical number of fouls he committed.

Len had more blocks than fouls in just 18.8 percent (13-of-69) of the games he played in, and he averaged just 0.49 blocks per foul on the year. That number ranked outside the top 30 in the NBA, and it was 20th out of all centers alone. However, it is worth noting that Len averaged more blocks per 40 minutes than every center ahead of him in that category, except for Andrew Bogut, Bismack Biyombo, John Henson, Hassan Whiteside and Rudy Gobert.

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So will he improve? The numbers say yes.

To go back to the popular comparison, Roy Hibbert averaged 8.6 fouls per 40 minutes in his first season. However, that number would decrease dramatically over the next few years. In year two, it went down to *just* 5.6 fouls per 40 minutes; by year four he was down to 4.0 fouls per 40 minutes.

In fact, looking at the three players with more experience than Len that were ahead of him on the block percentage list, the numbers are similar. Anthony Davis knocked out more than 1.1 fouls per 40 minutes from year two to year three; Serge Ibaka’s fouls per 40 minutes dropped substantially in each of his first four seasons; DeAndre Jordan’s fouls per 40 minutes dropped every single year after his rookie season, a trend which continued into last year, where he averaged right around 3.4 blocks per 40 minutes.

If Len can follow in the footsteps of the other elite shot-blockers in the NBA, and limit his fouls, there’s no reason he won’t be able to take his game to a completely different level. And once again, with a mentor like Tyson Chandler, there’s no reason to think that won’t happen.

Since the 2010-11 season, Chandler has committed less fouls per game year after year, while averaging a similar number of blocks. He’s also improved his block-to-foul ratio over each of the last three years.

With the two working together, who knows what the future will hold?

Next: Conclusion