PHOENIX — Despite an inspiring 5-5 start to the season that is fair to classify as surprising, the Phoenix Suns now have much more work to do to keep defying low expectations after Jalen Green reaggravated his hamstring for the second time on Saturday.
Green is expected to miss four to six weeks, per Arizona Sports’ John Gambadoro. Prior to Monday’s matchup with the New Orleans Pelicans, head coach Jordan Ott did not offer any specifics on an official timeline. Green is undergoing multiple tests to determine the severity of the injury.
Green, one of three primary pieces in return for Kevin Durant this summer, had a sensational debut on Thursday before going right back on the shelf.
It is crude luck for the Suns, because while Green has his faults that made him available in this type of trade, his best quality was that he doesn’t miss games. Green last sat 32 months ago in February 2023, and in his first four seasons with the Houston Rockets, he missed a total of 21 fixtures. If that timeline is cut down the middle to five weeks, he will have been out for 23 already this year.
Phoenix’s lone upside here is that it has played the majority of the season without Green already, so there aren’t many adjustments to make that haven’t been made already.
It’s more about the Suns doing what they’ve done already to have a decent offense that ranked 16th in offensive rating heading into action on Monday, all without the guy expected to be their second-leading scorer, while also more importantly addressing problems that will expand.
Green’s No. 1 trait was going to greatly boost Phoenix’s biggest weakness offensively — generating shots at the rim.
You’ll remember the elite Suns teams of a few years past also sucking at this. But they overcame it by using all-time efficiency in the midrange game and playing tremendous defense. This is a different group.
Without Green’s downhill presence even further, the Suns will have to scrape by and find a way to score at an adequate rate without the two easiest ways to do so. They enter play on Monday 29th in the percentage of their shots around the basket and 27th in free-throw rate, per Cleaning the Glass. The rim rate ranking doesn’t quite do the deficiency justice. Phoenix’s 23.2% rim rate is a whole 9% lower than the league average of 32.2%.
Booker in his last five seasons including this current one checks in at 15%, 22%, 20%, 18% and 19%. It’s never been a strong suit of his, and with all the extra gravitational pull he sucks in, even more this year, he’s not going to be able to contribute to that number.
The other perimeter players are in the same boat. Grayson Allen (15%), Dillon Brooks (14%) and Collin Gillespie (6%) aren’t doing it this season and don’t have a track record of doing it any season.
As Booker has been doing very well to begin the year, his setups as a playmaker are Phoenix’s only chance of realistically boosting its troubling rim rate. Whether it’s a dump-off pass to an open big lurking near the key or a kick-out feed that triggers movement to play off rotations, that is how the Suns can find more opportunities at the basket.
Center Mark Williams is the biggest beneficiary of that, and outside of the occasional floater, is only looking to dunk the ball and/or get to the foul line. His 61% rim rate scores well amongst bigs and he boasts a terrific shooting foul percentage as well. The more he becomes a focal point of the offense the better.
The absence of Green’s raw production, expected to be north of 20 points per game, will keep asking the supplementary scoring players on the perimeter to keep producing.
Allen is having a career year, posting a personal best 16.3 PPG. He has never averaged double-digit field goal attempts and is up to 13.3, which is naturally boosted by 8.8 3PA/G after his previous high was 5.9.
From his perspective, what’s that spike due to?
“Just from a pure numbers base, I think the extra ones I’m getting up are off the dribble. … On ball, just being a little bit more aggressive,” Allen told Arizona Sports, noting teams will give him certain coverages that do open up a brief window to let one go on the screen.
He said he was sure the numbers back up the extra pull-up 3s via more time on the ball, and he’s right. It’s 3.0 pull-up 3s a game right now, easily topping his previous best of 1.3. This is the most time he’s spent on the ball in his career since the early parts of it in Utah and Memphis when he was used more as a combo guard.
Similar heaving of 3s to a new rate has bumped Royce O’Neale to his own career high of 12.6 PPG, while Collin Gillespie provides the most self-created offense out of the three at 10.4 PPG. Brooks doesn’t need to get told to be more aggressive with Green out and is at 14.2 PPG for his overall career.
Without Green, are those other guys intentionally looking to score the ball more?
“I think it’s the same mindset,” Gillespie told Arizona Sports. “The game might call for something because he is out but just approach it the same way, be aggressive, look for my opportunities and just play the right way and make the right reads.”
Allen noted he will be a bit more headstrong in his approach, but not strictly with looking for his shot.
“It’s not necessarily scoring as much as it is looking to make a play and playmaking,” Allen said.
Allen (8.8 3PA/G), O’Neale (8.3) and Gillespie (6.8) join Booker (6.1) at all doing an outstanding job jacking them up, playing a heavy hand in generating the fifth-best 3-point rate. That’s the golden solution to make as much headway as possible on the critically low rim rate.
Gillespie is doing that in just 24.9 minutes per game. Gillespie said collective encouragement from players and coaches plays a huge part in all those 3s going up.
“Definitely being aggressive, because I think it’ll ultimately help us,” Gillespie said of the threat that presents.
They are one of three teams with four guys at six 3PA/G or better and at least 150 minutes played, per Stathead. That last qualifier eliminates Brooks and Green, who should be up around that six number too.
“It’s the ball-handler making the right play,” Ott said pregame of what he attributes that to. “Doesn’t matter how it happens — we want to get into the paint, we want to be aggressive and then make the right play. … You’ll keep seeing it. We have so many threats on the perimeter.”
That conglomerate will have to keep the ship from sinking when Booker rests.
The face of the franchise is back to All-NBA-worthy play, so as long as off-ball shooters are knocking down their looks, things will be fine when Booker is out there.
When he’s not, though, Phoenix is getting outscored by 16.1 points per 100 possessions, according NBA Stats. When he is, it’s the Suns outscoring opponents by 4.2. Williams’ numbers are even more magnified, as he’s at a 14.3 net rating on the floor and the Suns are at -16.0 when he sits. That gap is larger than any other in the league.
Stated in no way to do any disservice to the great start to the year for Williams, he’s also spent 221 of his 230 minutes out there with Booker, so that is a great contributing factor.
It is a must each night to watch how the minutes go when Booker and Williams spend time together on the bench.
“That’s a good one, we’ve had a review of that recently,” Ott said of that time. “Whoever is on the floor, just beat the other team by one point. … We gotta find a way without those guys on the floor to be better. We’ll go through different combinations to find those solutions.”
Ott also mentioned how Williams is doing that against starters, a nod to credit him and also point out how the backups are really struggling against the backups. Perhaps those solutions include more tweaks to the rotations, possibly involving the rookies at some point in the coming weeks.