Jalen Green’s early offensive improvements are starting to change the way the Phoenix Suns look at him. He arrived in Phoenix with the weight of a trade out of Houston on his back, but the first stretch of the 2026-27 season has shown enough on offense to make his fit worth a second look.
That matters now because the Suns stumbled out of the gate and need answers around Devin Booker. Green was brought in after Houston drafted him with the second overall pick and then tried to move on from him, and Phoenix is hoping the change of scenery unlocks more than raw speed and jumping ability.
The improvement is not complicated. Green is taking better shots, which is the easiest way to raise offensive efficiency without asking him to become something he is not. He has explosive athleticism, and that remains the part of his game that can bend a defense when he gets downhill. The point, though, is not to turn him into a point guard or a full-time facilitator. Phoenix does not need him to spend possessions solving the whole floor. It needs him to finish more cleanly and make better decisions when he drives to the hoop.
That is where the value starts to show. The Suns are trying to find a second all-star around Booker, and Green’s early production makes that search look a little less desperate. In the play-in win against Golden State, he delivered an explosive defensive effort, a reminder that his influence is not limited to scoring. Early in the current season, that mix of energy and cleaner offense has given Phoenix something it lacked when the team was stuck in the middle of its forgettable series against the Thunder: a young player who can still swing a game on talent alone.
Still, the reaction around him has not softened everywhere. Plenty of fans would rather see him gone, and some think he should come off the bench. That skepticism is part of the story too, because Green has not earned blind trust. He still has to prove that his decisions can catch up to his burst. If the Suns ask him to process too much, they will get less of what makes him dangerous in the first place. The cleaner answer may be the simplest one: keep the reads basic, let him attack, and see whether the version of Jalen Green that flashed early in Phoenix can hold up when the season gets harder.
