Alex Len
You know me: I have been an Alex Len apologist from the beginning. An athletic center with a good mid-range jump shot, decent length, and (outside of one season) relative health. Those centers do not grow on trees and for five seasons Phoenix has had a young one in Len already on the roster ripe for development into a reliable starter for the foreseeable future.
But he just hasn’t developed. He hasn’t grown into a reliable starting center, never able to wrestle the starting position away from Tyson Chandler who is significantly older, and by all accounts should have been the reserve center on the Suns for the last two seasons.
There are a number of reasons why Len hasn’t become a regular starter, from the fact that he has had to go through three major coaching changes in his five seasons (not just the head but also the assistant coaches), to the fact that maybe he really isn’t all that good. It is hard to put too much blame on either just him or the coaching staff, but if he really was all that good, he certainly should have made some sort of definable leap in his game over the past couple of seasons, and being a top-five pick, should have been more of a cornerstone piece for the franchise for many years to come.
Prior to the start of the 2017-18 season, Len attempted to find another home, hoping to sign a long-term contract, but when he received zero offers from around the league, he ended up remaining in Phoenix, accepting a low qualifying offer, and becoming an unrestricted free agent this summer.
I do expect that now that he is unrestricted, he will receive offers from around the league and will walk. I doubt that the Suns would be willing to spend any significant money to retain his services and he will not be back. That being said, if he once again does not receive any offers, and the Suns do not draft a big in June, then there is a chance that they look to him as a familiar piece and re-sign him to a short-term, low-cost, deal.