Being 7 feet 1 and transforming a spindly, 230-pound body on his 2013 NBA draft night into a sturdy, 260-pound pillar have made Alex Len a better basketball player for the Phoenix Suns.
That size and strength were more vital when Len needed to save a friend’s life last week.
“I thought I was going to die,” Jay Johnson said. “He risked his life for me. Nobody knows how far gone I was.”
Len and Johnson were on a rainy, windy vacation in the Dominican Republic with Len’s charitable foundation director, Ricardo Dickerson, and Len’s best friend, former Ukrainian classmate Serhii Vysotskyi.