Player Preview: Jalen Green can change the Suns’ future, but the clock is ticking

Every day, we’ll take a closer look at another member of the 2026-27 Phoenix Suns, examining what they bring to the roster and what their role could mean for the season ahead as we count down to training camp and the preseason.

Guard, 6’4″, 186 pounds, 24 years old, 6th season

There are make-or-break seasons, and then there is what Jalen Green is facing with the Phoenix Suns this upcoming year. He has reached an inflection point in his career, one where the 24-year-old must prove why he is compensated as the second-highest-paid player on the team.

He possesses so many intangibles as a player. He exudes athleticism and possesses a quick-twitch explosiveness that is difficult to replicate. He’s bubbly, energetic, and appears to be a stellar teammate with an infectious energy. Yet in the world of price versus value paid, there is plenty left to be desired. And when you factor in that his skill set ultimately duplicates some of what the Suns already have in their highest-paid player, Devin Booker, you begin to wonder how Green’s existence in Phoenix can truly become productive enough to match the value of his contract.

Because it isn’t simply that he’s making $36.3 million this season. It’s that the role he’s being asked to play doesn’t necessarily align with what this team needs from a player making that much money, especially on a roster already carrying dead cap. Green was brought to Phoenix to make the math work in the Kevin Durant trade. And while there are plenty of positive characteristics surrounding him as both a player and a person, consistency continues to elude him. Efficiency continues to be a challenge.

This season? Evaluation becomes the word synonymous with Jalen Green. His financial future with the Suns will be directly linked to what he does while under that microscope. Can he live up to the contract? Can he fit next to Devin Booker in a way that allows both players to thrive on both ends of the floor?

Because if he can’t, the organization will need to make subsequent decisions. And those decisions, in and of themselves, are complex.

Last Season

What can you really say about Jalen Green’s first season in Phoenix? We entered the year excited about the potential he brought, but a hamstring injury derailed his season and delayed our opportunity to truly experience what he could be with the Suns.

Green made his debut in Phoenix’s ninth game of the season in early November and immediately showed us why there was so much excitement, scoring 29 points while going 6-of-13 from beyond the arc.

Two nights later, he injured his hamstring. We wouldn’t see him again until late January.

From there, his season became a story of inconsistency. In his first 13 games back, Green shot 24.4% from beyond the arc and 35.1% from the field. Those numbers eventually stabilized, and he delivered some game-saving performances in the Play-In, scoring 26 points and making 8 three-pointers against the Warriors, but ultimately, last season felt like a lost year for Jalen Green. He started too late and had a difficult time catching up to a team that was already in midseason form.

Green appeared in 32 games, with the Suns going 17–15 in those games. So, a season in which Phoenix hoped to evaluate what he could become alongside Devin Booker in the backcourt ultimately didn’t answer many, if any, of the questions we had before the season began.

Contract and Roster Context

Green has two years remaining on his deal, and he’ll make $36.3 million this upcoming season, with a $36 million player option waiting for him next year. That makes him the second-highest-paid player on the Suns and, per Salary Swish, he is the 52nd highest-paid player in the NBA. He also becomes extension-eligible on October 1, meaning we are only days away from the window opening for Phoenix to potentially extend him.

The assumption is that it won’t happen immediately. Instead, the Suns will use this season to evaluate Green and determine whether his contributions align with both their short-term goals and the franchise’s long-term direction.

What He Brings

Upside, right? That’s what we’re all holding onto and what we’re hoping will eventually come to fruition. I’m sure someone out there still has his PSA-graded Panini prizm autographed rookie card displayed on their desk, hoping that it will jump in value.

Green possesses elite athleticism and a unique ability to blow by defenders and get to the rim at will, finishing with either hand. He puts pressure on the rim and can make an offense significantly more dynamic when he gets on a heater. He led the team with 17.0 drives per game during the brief postseason last April, and was second behind Devin Booker with 13.6 during his muted regular season. Amongst all guards last season, Green was in the 83rd percentile in drives, the highest of his career.

That is his superpower. And when you consider that his explosiveness was compromised for much of last season as he dealt with hamstring issues, it’s rather impressive that he still managed to put as much pressure on opposing defenses as he did. He could’ve returned from injury and opted to take it easy, avoiding explosive plays and limiting his attacks on the basket. Instead, he attacked the rim more frequently than at any other point in his career.

At Media Day last year, Jalen Green noted that he had been working on his midrange “in between game a lot more”. And while we had a relatively small sample size due to the number of games he played, that work certainly appeared to pay off, as his midrange game became one of his strengths. After grading out with a D- in midrange shot-making efficiency during the 2024–25 season, according to B-Ball Index, Green improved to an A- in 2025–26.

Sure, he might not be the greatest defender or the most consistent shooter, but there’s no doubt that he cares. You can see it in real time. Green wears his emotions on his sleeve, whether a possession goes wrong, he misses a shot, or he blows a defensive assignment. His frustration is visible because he holds himself accountable.

You want players like that on your team. Players who care about their performance and recognize when they’ve made mistakes. Of course, you’d also like those players to reach a point where they don’t have to be visibly upset so often because they’ve developed the consistency and awareness to prevent those mistakes from happening in the first place.

What Needs to Improve

Efficiency and consistency remain the two biggest challenges in Jalen Green’s game. While he possesses a plethora of ways to put the ball in the basket, we’ve yet to see him do so efficiently or consistently throughout his career.

He’s a career 33.9% shooter from beyond the arc on 7.4 attempts per game. That’s a clear area of opportunity, and one that should theoretically present itself this season. With Booker and Green by his side, he should see his fair share of open three-point opportunities. But he needs to improve upon the 30.1% he shot when wide open last season (on 2.3 attempts per game), with defenders 6 or more feet away. He needs the chart below to start trending upward rather than downward.

As I noted in my five biggest storylines for the Suns this season, finishing at the rim remains a challenge, even with his ability to get there.

He can get downhill with incredible quickness and get to the rim almost at will. The problem is what happens once he gets there. He isn’t always consistent finishing around the basket. He is a career 53.9% shooter inside 8 feet. For context, all guards in the NBA combined last season for 57.7% inside 8 feet. Green shot 54.3%.

In this season of evaluation, Green needs to demonstrate improvement in both areas for the Suns to feel comfortable either offering him an extension or keeping him rather than shopping him next offseason in hopes of getting something of value in return. Because if neither of those improvements occurs, how much value will he realistically have on the trade market?

And if neither happens, we’ll spend the entire season talking about it. We’ll ponder options at the trade deadline, explore the possibility of using his contract as a catalyst to make moves, and if nothing materializes, we’ll pick the conversation right back up when the season ends. That creates additional noise around a player who is already trying to establish the consistency and efficiency his game desperately needs. And that noise could ultimately affect the very things the Suns are evaluating.

The last thing you want is a $36 million player getting inside his own head, but given the circumstances, it’s a realistic possibility.

Prediction

I believe the Suns organization is going to give Green an opportunity to play more on ball, doing what it can to determine whether he fits next to Devin Booker in a traditional distributor capacity. They’ll hand him the reins of facilitation more frequently because that’s an aspect of his game he needs to improve if Phoenix wants to maximize this roster and solidify the rotations around Booker. And ultimately? I don’t think it’s going to work.

I think we’ll see a shift throughout the season toward Booker playing more on the ball and assuming the primary facilitation responsibilities. We’ll be told it’s a fluid situation, and to some extent, it will be. Booker will never be a traditional point guard who operates with the ball in his hands 100% of the time. But I believe we’ll gradually notice that the responsibility of setting up his teammates falls more frequently on Booker than Green.

In a perfect world, that’s exactly where Green could serve his purpose. He crosses the timeline with the ball in his hands and initiates the offense. And I’m not talking about making one pass and heading to the corner. I’m talking about reading the defense, identifying the best way to generate a quality possession, and making it happen. That cerebral aspect of the game that a facilitator and distributor needs to possess.

I think Green is going to have a solid offensive season when it comes to counting stats with numbers that, at first glance, people will use to defend his value to the team. But when you dig a little deeper and consistently watch the games, I believe we’ll find that much of that production was achieved inefficiently. And as a result, I expect the rumblings to continue, with the fan base spending plenty of time firing up the trade machine throughout the season.

Stat Prediction: 78 games, 17.5 PPG, 4.1 RPG, 3.1 APG, 44.1/32.9/78.9 shooting splits

Final Word

I hope I’m wrong, because it would be so much easier if Green became the player who lived up to the upside that warranted the contract he received. It would be amazing if the Suns had a functional backcourt in Green and Booker that didn’t require constant handholding or overanalysis. They simply went out, got the job done, and allowed the organization to focus more of its attention on developing the players coming up behind them.

Because ultimately, I like the idea of Jalen Green. I’d love to have a player on this team who can operate the way he does with his athleticism. It’s a unique skill set that adds complexity to the offense, giving opposing defenses another element they have to account for and ultimately opening things up for everybody else. Add to that the fact that I like the personality Green brings to the team. You can tell he’s a hard worker, somebody who cares about his craft and genuinely wants to get better.

But as he enters a season in which he’ll turn 25 years old, upside remains his greatest strength, and we’re approaching the point where upside alone will no longer be acceptable. Because eventually, you become who you are as a player. And there’s a very real possibility that Green becomes a D’Angelo Russell type of player. Somebody who entered the league with tremendous promise, was given plenty of opportunities to fulfill that potential, and ultimately became a player capable of exploding for 30 points on any given night, although rarely with the efficiency you’d like to see. That’s the outcome I’m hoping Green can avoid.