PHOENIX — Phoenix Suns guard Jalen Green is out for the team’s preseason opener on Friday in Palm Desert due to a low-grade hamstring strain, according to head coach Jordan Ott.
The injury happened this week during training camp and was diagnosed on Thursday. Green will travel with the team to China, where Phoenix plays its following two preseason contests before the finale on Oct. 14 in Phoenix.
A timeline gives Green a little over three weeks to recover in time for Phoenix’s season opener on Oct. 22.
Are the Suns confident he will be ready by then?
“Those are always a little tricky,” Ott said of hamstring injuries in general. “Seems to have good strength and the strength is improving already. In a good place and they’ll continue to monitor.”
It certainly gives Green a way to get acquainted with a new training staff.
He does not miss games. It has been nearly three years since he did, playing the full 82 two seasons in a row after 76 in the 2022-23 campaign, when Green last sat in late February of 2023.
Hamstrings, as Ott noted, are delicate. If Green wants to keep that ironman run going and tries to get ahead of schedule, he could reaggravate it and miss months.
Without him, Phoenix will now have more air space in the rotation to explore its guard depth. Backup point guard Collin Gillespie presumably will get the nod alongside Devin Booker, while roster hopefuls like Jared Butler and Jordan Goodwin will be receiving more opportunities, as could second-round pick Koby Brea.
Butler and Goodwin are both on non-guaranteed deals. Phoenix is dancing very close to the tax line, so that makes it tough for either guy to last the full season.
Goodwin’s contract is only guaranteed for a little over $25,000 until mid-January, so that allows him to hang on the initial roster for a bit before those types of decisions come up, where taking on his full salary of over $2 million would push the Suns into tax territory. Those calculations don’t become finalized until the end of the season, so Phoenix could also choose to initially go over before sliding back under with some moves at the trade deadline, a common procedure in the NBA.
Starting center Mark Williams is also out on Friday, as the team is taking a patient approach to gearing him up for the season to attempt to prevent his injury-riddled issues of the past.
