In the midst of a Thursday night onslaught courtesy of the San Antonio Spurs, Phoenix Suns center Mark Williams’ internal frustrations had reached a boiling point. The 24-year-old, who was struggling to generate any clean looks with Victor Wembanyama draped all over him, sat on the bench unable to pay attention to anything else going on around him.
Jalen Green, who was in the huddle of players and coaches seeking to chip away at a double-digit deficit, noticed the sulking Williams and briefly broke away from the group to uplift his teammate, speaking words of encouragement before the buzzer sounded to get back on the floor.
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In that moment, Green — who had been shouldering the bulk of Phoenix’s offensive burden with Dillon Brooks serving a one-game suspension and Devin Booker sidelined with a hip injury — was suddenly thrust into a leadership role.
“I’m never going to complain about having the opportunity to be that,” Green told reporters about being in a go-to role two days later after hitting a game-winning 3 to lift the Suns over the Magic in double overtime, 113-110.
The reliance on Green wasn’t in the cards when he arrived nearly eight months ago as part of the blockbuster Kevin Durant trade. Phoenix’s hierarchy was already outlined, with Booker as the centerpiece and Brooks, who also was traded from Houston, emerging rapidly as an efficient two-way second fiddle. It also wasn’t part of the plans when Green finally returned to action a month ago, having missed the bulk of the season with hamstring and hip ailments. The Suns, who were a surprising 30-19 at the time, opted to ease Green back into a rhythm by bringing him off the bench.
That luxury is now nonexistent for Green, whose minutes have nearly doubled since his return to a Suns team that is in a slump, having lost six out of their past nine games since Feb. 1. It’s also indicative of Phoenix’s unfortunate stop-and-start campaign, a season that has seen just 41 shared minutes between Green, Brooks and Booker. (The latter two have played just 37 out of 58 possible games together, and Brooks will now miss the next 4-6 weeks with a fractured left hand.)
“That’s the NBA,” head coach Jordan Ott said last week. “You never know. You can’t really anticipate what’s going forward, if we’re going to get healthy. All those things change so fast; the ability to go out and compete every single night, no matter the circumstances, that’s what this group does. We’re gonna have to keep doing it, if or when we get healthy.”
So what does that look like for Green in the interim? As of Tuesday morning, the fifth-year guard has played in just 10 games this season, averaging a modest 13.3 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.4 assists on .382/.313/.684 splits. There’s some obvious context here in that one of the most athletically gifted talents in basketball has dealt with hamstring and hip problems, which raw data doesn’t account for. Factoring in minutes restrictions, ramp-up periods and the Suns’ lineup inconsistency, Green’s production — or lack thereof — becomes clearer.
Last season in Houston, Green led the team in drives per game and was a 60th-percentile player in transition, scoring 1.174 points per chance, according to Synergy tracking data. This season, he’s driving less and attacking the rim less because of the lack of normal burst (just 7.5 drives per game and 9% of his offense coming in transition, down from 16%), which puts the onus on his shot-making ability. As he continues to add games under his belt, expect these sectors of his arsenal to normalize.
“I think I bring a little bit of everything,” Green told Yahoo Sports. “Play faster, get some steals and get into the open lane. I think that’s where my biggest impact is, getting to the rim, the 3 and scoring.”
Green’s efficiency struggles over the past three seasons are well-documented, although it’s never been as low as it is currently, scoring just 93.4 points per 100 shot attempts — 6th percentile among wings, according to Cleaning the Glass. His playmaking, however, has improved considerably, turning the ball over less and creating more opportunities for his new teammates. He’s also converting 48% of his long 2s and 42% on midrange shots overall, the highest marks in his career by some distance.
In Ott’s system, the offensive engines (Booker, Brooks, Green) are encouraged to be confident on the ball. It consistently puts them in ball screens and has others relocate and move without the ball. Essentially half of Green’s possessions have come in pick-and-roll scenarios, according to Synergy, which, paired with the likes of Williams and Oso Ighodaro — smart screeners — give him a myriad of decisions to make.
“It’s kind of how I’ve been playing my whole career,” Green said. “It’s either [the defender] will be up high or they’re going to be in a drop. So just having that in-between game will open up a lot of things — especially when we have a healthy team.”
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Giving Green the keys temporarily (Booker will miss at least a week, Brooks is likely to return right before the postseason) should make the Suns a quicker unit overall. They’re just 29th in pace since his return (again, the hamstrings!), but between him and Collin Gillespie, a quick-twitch, deep-shooting marksman, Phoenix should find it easier creating advantages and capitalizing on them. Advanced metrics like DARKO still have Green as a high-impact offensive option who parlays his high usage rate into a good helping of potential assists, rim creation and low turnover rate.
Green has actually fared well on defense, too, his biggest need for improvement since he entered the league. What he’s lacked in offensive consistency, he’s made up for with timing, anticipation and confidence at the other end. The Suns allow 12 fewer points per 100 possessions while he’s on the floor, according to Cleaning the Glass. It’s an extremely small sample size, but it’s enough to make you go, “Hmmmm.” Opponents are also shooting nearly 18% worse when Green contests and 26% worse at the rim, both in the 99th percentile, according to Databallr.
(Databallr has a new metric defined as “Stop Percentage,” a combination of steals, drawn offensive fouls and blocks recovered by the defense per 100 possessions. Green ranks in the 78th percentile among NBA players. That’s good!)
It’s important for Phoenix, currently clinging to a play-in spot (2.5 games ahead of 8th), to find some consistency, though it’ll be a difficult task with Boston and the Los Angeles Lakers being its next two games to close out the month.
(It should be noted that the Suns have a relatively light schedule for the remainder of the season. There’s not a real rest advantage the rest of the way, though, which lines up with their 44.5 win projection, per CTG, and makes their net rating comparison to 76ers teams of the late 2000s — good but not great playoff units — more palatable.)
Assuming Grayson Allen is able to return soon, the Suns will still have their three most voluminous 3-point shooters available (Allen, Gillespie and Royce O’Neale), all of whom are shooting better than 36%. And fortunately for the Suns, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, Phoenix was only a +2.6 with both Booker and Brooks on the floor — per CTG. It’s not as if the Suns were completely blowing teams out of the water when relatively healthy; figuring out what this team looks like with Green manning the ship shouldn’t be a night-and-day difference.
If the Suns continue to dominate on the offensive glass, convert 3s at a high clip, force opponent turnovers and win the possession battle, the math with Green — as incomplete as it may be — should work itself out until Booker and Brooks are back.
