At this point, Bender and Chriss both look like they are not ready for big minutes. They will develop as much as they can in 20 minutes a game, and couldn't handle more than that anyway.Aztec Sunsfan wrote:An usual complain around here, is that Len was never given the chance to swim or sink, and I agree that neither Chriss nor Bender are showing big things so far, but we would be repeating the cycle of getting a patch player, then benching the prospect we want to develop.O_Gardino wrote:I've been on the fence about Len. No way he becomes a star, but I think he's a decent role player. I think he could help a good team.
My concern with him has been the annual Logjam and our questionable willingness to flip players for future assets. If Len is taking minutes from someone who will be better than him, then we should let him go. If we keep him just because he's ours and McD doesn't want to move on, that's bad. If we miss out on a potential trade for future assets that would be bad.
OK, so from what we know this summer, I think we have pretty good answers to two of those scenarios. Is Len stealing minutes and hurting the development of Chriss or Bender? No. neither of those guys has shown enough in summer league to make me want to start them together at 4/5. Did we miss out on a trade for him at the deadline? Apparently not, since we haven't heard of anyone with interest in him.
At this point, I would be happy bringing him back for cheap.
Also, If you get Len on a good contract and actually play him a bit, you can actually build his value and either decide to keep him or trade him depending on what is better for the team.