Mykhailiuk Is Part of the Pistons' Young Core, Len Is Expendable: Ukrainians in the NBA

This season is turning out to be the complete opposite of the last one for Ukrainian basketball players in the NBA.

Ukraine is represented in the NBA by just two basketball players: Alex Len and Svyatoslav Mykhailiuk. Unfortunately, this number is unlikely to grow in the coming years, so Ukrainian fans have to hope that these two players continue to delight them with their performances in the US.

It cannot be said that this season has been bad for Len and Mykhailiuk, but they are still far from the maximum expectations. How have the positions of Ukrainians in the league changed since the start of the regular season?

Mykhailiuk seized his chance

Before the season began, Svyat's position in Detroit was very shaky, as he was not even guaranteed a place in the lineup. The Ukrainian managed to win one of the last spots on the team largely thanks to his minimum contract for the next two seasons, which was extremely important for the financially constrained Pistons.

Mykhailiuk could count on playing time only in case of several injuries to Detroit's key players, and then he had to make the most of his chance. As expected, Svyat did not start any of his team's games, but his chance came sooner than he could have dreamed.

Detroit's starting point guard Reggie Jackson suffered a serious injury in the second game of the season, which kept him out for three months. Backup guards Derrick Rose and Tim Frazier were also sidelined for several weeks almost immediately. Detroit's star big man Blake Griffin, who was no less responsible for ball handling in the team than Jackson, also missed the start of the season.

This immediately gave Mykhailiuk between 10 and 15 minutes of stable playing time from the very start of the regular season, something the Ukrainian himself could not have dreamed of just recently. Svyat did not fully cope with the duties of a playmaker, turning the ball over too often. In November he played over 16 minutes per game, averaging only 4.2 points, 1.3 assists and 0.8 turnovers, with a terrible field goal percentage of 36.7.

But in the first month, the positives in Svyat's game were as visible as the negative moments.  Because of this, head coach Dwane Casey quickly realized that Bruce Brown was much better as the point guard, while the Ukrainian, who played very well on defense and, most importantly, shot 43.2% from three-point range, was better used as a classic 3-and-D wing. Especially since in December Detroit's problems were compounded by a serious injury to one of the team's best players, Luke Kennard, who plays in the same position as Mykhailiuk.

It was from this month that the Ukrainian's breakthrough began: he kept his accuracy from beyond the arc while also improving his overall efficiency. His scoring doubled compared to November. It is no surprise that Svyat's playing time rose again, this time to almost 20 minutes per game.

This trend continued in January, when Mykhailiuk was already getting around 30 minutes of playing time, averaging 13.3 points per game with a 46.3% field goal percentage and 43.8% from three. Along with his time on the court, Svyat's confidence in his abilities also grew.

He began drawing fouls much more often, which speaks not only to his progress as a scorer but also to the respect NBA players have for the Ukrainian's three-point shooting. Players with a three-point percentage above 40% began to be guarded more closely, which created more opportunities for Mykhailiuk to score on drives or to make passes to open teammates.

Now his position on the team is very strong, as evidenced by Casey's recent statement about Svyat as “part of the Pistons' young core”. These words are by no means accidental, and they were influenced not only by the Ukrainian's good play over the last two months but also by other circumstances.

Center Andre Drummond will most likely hit the free agent market this summer, and Kennard's injury-proneness calls into question his usefulness to Detroit. This has led to a flood of rumors about trades of these two players to other teams.

The wave of injuries also played a role in Detroit's results: after reaching the playoffs last season, the team is now only in tenth place in the Eastern Conference. The Pistons' four-game deficit to the playoff zone leaves them no realistic chance of competing for a spot in the play-in games, especially without Blake Griffin, who is out for the rest of the season.

As a result, the Pistons have essentially waved the white flag on this roster and openly announced the start of a rebuild after several years of hovering in seventh to tenth place in the East. Now the Pistons want to bet on young players, and Mykhailiuk is one of the few who fits that description on the current Detroit roster.

The culmination of this was Svyat's selection to the Rising Stars Game. The international roster will include, alongside the Ukrainian, such NBA stars as Luka Doncic, Deandre Ayton, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and a number of other bright talents in the league.

He became only the second Ukrainian in NBA history after Vitaly Potapenko to take part in the All-Star Weekend. This further underscores that Mykhailiuk has begun to earn recognition in the league, and if he keeps it up, he may eventually even be a contender for the very prestigious Three-Point Contest, where there have long been no random participants.

So far the season has shaped up perfectly for the Ukrainian, and he needs to keep making the most of every chance. Especially since there may be even more of them in the near future.

Len Was Offloaded to Sacramento

Last season Alex Len made an excellent impression in Atlanta, improving his three-point shot and successfully stretching the defense for Trae Young's drives. In the summer his main competitor Dewayne Dedmon left for Sacramento, and it was expected that the Ukrainian could lock down a starting spot with the Hawks and become part of the team's future.

But this season it quickly became clear that the Hawks were not placing as much faith in Len as expected. The Ukrainian himself may be to blame for this, as he failed to show progress in his game, almost stopping shooting threes. This season Alex is averaging just 0.3 three-pointers per game, with a 25% success rate.

He also did not get along well with Trae Young, who was unhappy with his teammates during the failed season, and management quickly began talking about strengthening the center position to placate their main star. The Hawks badly needed a partner for Trae Young in pick-and-roll, and Len had ceased to be one due to the regression of his three-point shooting and his lack of mobility as a “roller”.

This factor also became key on defense. Atlanta's leaky perimeter defense badly needed an elite rim protector, while Len specializes more in one-on-one defense against big men, where he limits his opponents to 45% shooting this season. But this aspect of defense carries less and less weight in the NBA each year, while playing in help and switching on pick-and-rolls has become key for big men. Alex simply lacks the mobility to be everywhere on defense.

Atlanta solved this problem by trading with Houston, which brought the mobile center Clint Capela to the team. The fact that Houston did not send Len back in the other direction speaks to the value of the Ukrainian in the league, especially since Houston was left with no centers at all and had the option of taking on Len's not-so-large contract.

Most likely, the analytics staff of Rockets general manager Daryl Morey decided that the Ukrainian's archaic style of play did not quite match the demands of modern basketball. Atlanta reached the same conclusion, trading Len to Sacramento a day later, ironically sending Dewayne Dedmon back along with several second-round picks.

The Ukrainian's role in Kings looks completely unclear. On the one hand, he is similar in playing style to Dedmon, and Kings general manager Vlade Divac, before the season, thought his team really needed exactly this kind of center. But on the other hand, head coach Luke Walton quickly wrote off the costly Dewayne and used Richaun Holmes in that position, who is more like Capela and not at all like Len.

Now Holmes and Marvin Bagley are injured, so Alex will have several weeks to prove himself with his new team. If he plays well, he may carve out some playing time for the rest of the season, but it is unlikely to be significant, since the Kings' priority is developing Bagley, while Holmes made too strong an impression in the first half of the season and has a cheap contract for next year.

The biggest downside of this situation is that Len has once again ended up in a dysfunctional franchise, one that does not really understand what it is doing. Last season it seemed Alex had landed in a sensible club, but all the panic and disarray in Atlanta this regular season showed that this was not the case.

Now he will have to choose his next team very carefully this summer, when he hits the free agent market again. He is unlikely to be considered as a starting center and offered a decent contract, so Len will be able to choose where he goes on a near-minimum deal. For example, he could join a team with a top coach like Dallas. And if the Ukrainian sets himself the goal of playing for all the NBA's biggest losers, then the New York Knicks are always waiting for him.