Jalen Lecque is off to a slow start with Phoenix Suns affiliate Northern Arizona

Ryan McDnough staked his entire career with the Phoenix Suns on prospects. James Jones found at least one this offseason and is watching Jalen Lecque grow in the G-League.

When James Jones signed guard Jalen Lecque as an un-drafted free agent following the 2019 NBA Draft, many fans of the Phoenix Suns leapt with joy because of the 19-year-old guard’s athletic prowess and ability to score at will.

Whereas Ryan McDonough would have demanded his head coach insert him directly into the Phoenix Suns’ starting lineup, James Jones has not forced Monty Williams to deal with developing a complete and total prospect while also trying to win games, and has instead smartly and rightfully placed him in the G-League where he can develop at his own pace and not hurt the real Suns.

This is exactly what the Milwaukee Bucks and Memphis Grizzlies have done with Dragan Bender and Josh Jackson, respectively, and is the very purpose of having a minor league team.

The Northern Arizona Suns do not have a very good record to start their season, and are 2-5 so far, second to last in the Western Conference standings.

Fellow undrafted rookie Jared Harper is having a tremendous start to the season, leading his team in scoring with 23.4 points per game, second behind Shawndre Jones with 4.7 assists while shooting 39.1% from beyond the arc on 7.7 attempts per game.

Lecque is second on the team in scoring at 16.0, and third on the team in assists at 2.9.

However, his shooting is overall much  lower than anyone would hope for from a pure scorer.

Shooting just 41.0% from the field, his 3-point shooting would remind anyone of pre-Ricky Rubio Phoenix Suns percentages at 30.6%, while shooting a dismal 61.9% from the charity stripe.

Lecque has been hot and cold in Northern Arizona with two 25-point games in which he shot his two highest shooting percentages thus far (one in a win and one in a loss), while he has scored less than 15 points four times, including a 5 point clunker on November 23, where he shot 2-10 from the field with 0 assists and 0 steals in 23 minutes.

But here is the beauty of it all: James Jones is allowing Lecque to play and develop in the G-League, not worry about him sitting on the end of the bench getting little work in here in Phoenix, or actually getting un-deserved minutes like his predecessors did.

There is no guarantee that Lecque will ever make it in the NBA, even if it is a lot of fun to speculate what he could be like in Phoenix.

However for now, he, and Jared Harper, are getting their work in in Prescott, Arizona, hopefully growing at a rate that will make them serviceable for the big club in the future.

Hopefully Jalen Lecque’s shooting ticks up soon enough and his scoring becomes such a strong asset that James Jones cannot ignore him, but even if that takes another year or so, at least the franchise is actually treating the development of one of their young prospects right.