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In the aftermath of the draft, there is always a spree on undrafted players getting non-guaranteed deals and two-way contracts. For the Suns last year, that landed Jared Harper and Jalen Lecque in Phoenix. It initially seemed that the Suns might sit that out this year, but instead they pivoted to signing Ty-Shon Alexander, a sharpshooting guard out of Creighton, to a two-way contract.
Ty-Shon Alexander of the Creighton Bluejays has agreed to a two-way contract with the Phoenix Suns, per source.
— Matt Babcock (@MattBabcock11) November 19, 2020
Alexander averaged 16.9 points and five rebounds per night in 2019 with the Bluejays and shot 40 percent from deep on 7.5 attempts per 40 minutes. He’s a shooter, pure and simple.
Our own Zona Sports interviewed Alexander earlier this year and got some great insight:
I asked him what he’s working on most in order to get ready for the NBA Draft and he replied, “I’ve been working a lot on my ball-handling, because I want to be a combo guard that can play the 1 and the 2, and also just being able to read the defense more and shoot off the dribble or run off screens.”
That would certainly help find him more playing time right away so he isn’t strictly limiting himself as a shooting guard. In today’s NBA having positional versatility is essential in carving out a role, so it’s a great mentality to have.
When asked which player he tries to model certain parts of his game after he mentioned Portland guard CJ McCollum, saying he watches a ton of his film and studies what he does on the court for his own game. “He (CJ) is a mentor for me”.
Suns fans will love this one.
Read Zona’s entire breakdown for more.
It remains to be seen how the Suns will use Alexander this year, though, as the team of course just sold its G League team to the Pistons and the G League season itself is in doubt. At the same time, the NBA cleared up its rules greatly this week when it cut out the silly way it counted days in the NBA for two-way guys and instead will just use games as the metric.
That means a guy like Alexander can get in a lot more workouts and practices with the NBA roster even if the Suns are not committed to the G League program much at all.