Suns Reveal Jalen Green's Final Status vs Clippers

The Suns have gone 3-5 to start the year without Green, who originally suffered his injury before the start of the preseason and re-aggravated it during Phoenix's preseason trip to China.

Green had previously not missed a regular season game since Feb. 2023 before dealing with this injury.

Meanwhile, Ott said Grayson Allen will try to give it a go tonight as well after being added to the injury report as questionable this morning after coming to shootaround sick.

What Will Green Bring to the Suns?

The Suns will be cautious with Green as he makes his return, and he will be on a competitive target range of minutes based on the feel of the game, but Ott did not say if he will be starting tonight.

Green is one of the premier athletes in the NBA, and the Suns were willing to keep him because of his potential despite a positional overlap with Devin Booker after acquiring him from the Houston Rockets as part of the return of the Kevin Durant trade.

The former No. 2 overall pick will be looking to prove a lot of people wrong after a disappointing end to his tenure with Houston where he only scored more than 12 points one time in the Rockets' seven-game first-round loss to the Golden State Warriors earlier this year.

This came after the 6-foot-4 Green led the Rockets in scoring during the regular season last year (21.0 points per game) and played a big part in Houston's rebuild to them getting the No. 2 seed in the West last season.

Allen has had some big games filling in Green's spot in the starting lineup next to Booker, leading to excitement for how Green will fit into the offense.

It has also been very obvious that the Suns are lacking a secondary scorer and ball-handler alongside Booker, who is by far the team's primary scorer and playmaker.

Green previously spoke on the backcourt dynamic of him and Booker at Suns media day in September.

"I'm excited to play Book. I think it's gonna be a good situation," Green said. "I think I'm gonna be able to learn a lot from him while at the same time adding what I can bring to the table. I think we're gonna complement each other a lot, especially with the system that Ott's got us playing in.

"I think we gonna be playing fast, and I think we gonna be creating a lot for each other and create for others. So I'm very excited about it, and I think we gonna shock a lot of people too."

Ott outlined what he is expecting from Green in his debut pregame.

"I think we're all excited to see exactly what that looks like," Ott said of Green playing next to Booker. "He had obviously a couple practices with us early in September. Just his speed, his elite speed, his downhill threat, his paint presence, he'll be able to put pressure on the defense in a couple different ways that we don't totally have.

"So athleticism, just everything, we'll put him in pick-and-rolls, we'll move him off the ball. Use his cutting, his speed in multiple different ways."

Both Suns, Clippers Still Dealing with Other Key Injuries

Although Green is returning, there are still some notable players out for both teams ahead of tonight's matchup.

Clippers stars James Harden (personal reasons) and Kawhi Leonard (ankle) are both out, while Dillon Brooks (core muscle strain) is missing his sixth-straight game for Phoenix.

Tonight's game is scheduled to tip off at 7:00 p.m. MST.

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