Suns’ Alex Len among ESPN’s sell-high candidates at NBA trade deadline
Jan 15, 2018, 5:04 PM
Phoenix Suns center Alex Len, of Ukraine, watches from the bench during the second half of the team's NBA basketball game against the Denver Nuggets on Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2018, in Denver. The Nuggets won 134-111. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
(AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
With unrestricted free agency coming for him this offseason, Alex Len’s future with the Phoenix Suns is an unknown.
Having a career-best year, the 24-year-old has been switching off with Tyson Chandler and Greg Monroe at center throughout the 2017-18 season.
The 35-year-old Chandler has his contract expiring after next season and has routinely played in only one game of a back-to-back and Monroe’s expires this season.
That makes it difficult to see why the Suns would trade Len before the trade deadline on Feb. 8, but as ESPN’s Kevin Pelton notes in his list of sell-high candidates for teams at the trade deadline, Len has value given how well he has played this year.
After making little progress during his first four NBA seasons, Len has made a breakthrough in Year 5, shooting a career-high 54.5 percent from the field. While his shooting percentage is the most notable difference, Len is on track for career bests in several categories, including free throw percentage, both offensive and defensive rebound percentage, and even assist rate.
There are reasons for the Suns to trade Len, but Pelton adds there are certain restrictions and limitations that could make a deal more challenging.
If the Suns still aren’t sold on Len or don’t expect to re-sign him as a restricted free agent after he signed a one-year qualifying offer last summer, a trade might make sense. That possibility is complicated by the fact that Len would have to approve any deal, and his new team would not have Bird Rights that allow it to exceed the salary cap to re-sign him.
The question is what the Suns could get in return for Len to have a deal make sense. The expectation surrounding Monroe is that he will be gone once the trade deadline passes, so the Suns would need a center to be ready for a large load of minutes.
Len is the de-facto guy at the moment.
An exchange of Len for draft picks wouldn’t make sense with the Suns’ collection of them already overflowing. They have all of their own picks, two first-round picks from Miami, an additional first from Milwaukee and second from Toronto.
Unless the Suns find a can’t-miss deal that Len would approve while also having another player in mind to split minutes with Chandler, trading Len doesn’t make much sense, especially if Phoenix wants to bring him back next season.
