Jalen Green can’t replace Dillon Brooks, but the Suns need him to get buckets

The Phoenix Suns have been one of the NBA’s best stories this season, and Dillon Brooks has been at the heart of it. He’s scoring at a rate (and in ways) we’ve never seen from him before on any kind of a consistent basis. He’s defending, as always. His competitive prints are all over one of the grittiest teams in the league. 

And now he has a broken hand.

There are bummers and there are bummers. This is the latter. Here’s to hoping Brooks can get back in time for the playoffs/Play-In tournament (ESPN reports he’ll be out 4-6 weeks), but in the meantime the Suns, who are also without Devin Booker (hip strain) for at least the next week, need to find a way to replace at least some of Brooks’ 21 points per game. 

The natural next man for that job would be Jalen Green, who also came over from Houston with Brooks in the Kevin Durant trade. You’re forgiven if you forgot Green even played for the Suns. He’s missed most of the season with a hamstring issue that has refused to fully repair. 

But he’s back and healthy (for) now. He had 26 points and four 3-pointers against San Antonio coming out of the All-Star break. On Saturday, he made up for a miserable shooting night by knocking down a fading corner 3 at the buzzer to beat the Magic in overtime. 

Green is an electric athlete who had a legitimate superstar stretch last season in Houston, but he’s never been a consistent shooter or anything close to an efficient scorer on the whole. He’s only 24, but he’s making $33.5 million. Next year that number rises to $36.2 million, and the year after that he has a $36 million player option as the first player to ever sign a 2+1 rookie extension on a nine-figure contract. 

It’s a lot of money if Green doesn’t pan out. But if he does, it has a chance to become a team-friendly deal. He’s not going to defend like Brooks, if at all. He’s not going to go to work in the post. But he’ll never have a better opportunity to prove his value than right now, with the Suns badly in need of anyone who can contribute to the cause of recreating Brooks’ production in the aggregate, particularly as a self creator. 

One of the notable strides Brooks has made this year is as a guy who can get buckets on his own; over 55% of his field goals have been unassisted. For better or worse, this is what Green does. Last season 63% of his non-garbage-time buckets were unassisted (that was the highest percentage for any wing in the league, per Cleaning the Glass). 

Again, it’s never been efficient. And so far it hasn’t been with the Suns. On Sunday, Green cooked up a donut in the first half of Phoenix’s loss to Portland and finished 1 of 7 from 3. So far this season he’s averaging 13.3 points and shooting 38% from the field over 10 games. Small and randomized sample notwithstanding, that’s obviously not going to cut it. 

But don’t be fooled, there is a big-time-scorer version of Jalen Green that is going to come out, and the Suns need it to be sooner than later. The dream of him turning into the actual superstar his talent theoretically suggests he could be is almost surely dead, but the question remains whether he can be winning player on a winning team. 

We’ve seen in in stretches, but the Rockets, all told, were more than eight points per 100 possessions better with him off the floor last season, per CTG. He’s probably regarded as a negative asset at this point with $70 million in guaranteed money still on the books, but winning looks good on everyone. He’s playing for another contract, be it in Phoenix or elsewhere. 

These next six weeks aren’t do-or-die for Green; he’ll have a big opportunity next season, as well. But it has to start now. NBA perceptions can become sort of irreversible at some point, and Green is toeing that line as the dreaded empty-stats scorer. 

It just so happens that the Suns — who are just two games back of the No. 6 Timberwolves with one head-to-head remaining and the tiebreaker already secured, but are also just two games up on the No. 8 Warriors — are not in a position to consider any scoring stat empty without Brooks. They scored 77 points on Sunday. They need every bucket they can get. And if there’s one thing Green can do, it’s get buckets.