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Silver linings. You try to find them in every game, especially in a loss. When you look at what the Phoenix Suns put on the floor against the Chicago Bulls on Thursday night, those silver linings are difficult to locate.

It was ugly basketball. The ugliest game of the season? I am not ready to go that far. I do not even know if it cracks the top five. Although when the conversation turns to ugly nights, this one deserves a seat at the table.

The defense was pitiful. If I squinted hard enough, I felt like I was watching the Phoenix Suns from the previous two seasons. You know, the version that could not contain the perimeter and allowed opponents to make a living at the rim? For a second I thought I saw Bradley Beal jogging through the frame. Drive after drive found daylight. Chicago kept attacking the paint, and Phoenix had no answer.

And sometimes that happens. This is the NBA. Strange results live here. The Houston Rockets lost at home last night to the Warriors, a team missing Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler. Nights like that occur across the league.

So you take the game, write it on a piece of paper, crumple it up, and toss it toward the wastebasket. If you shot like the Suns did last night, however, that paper ball probably misses the rim too. Still, we are searching for silver linings. That means digging into the trash, unfolding that wrinkled piece of parchment, and studying what is written on it.

One of those silver linings might be something we did not expect. This game told us something about Jalen Green. More specifically, who he is not.

I know what some of you are thinking. “Good golly, Voita! Another Jalen Green piece?! What is this, the third one this week?!!!”

Yes. Absolutely.

Jalen Green sits at the center of one of the most fascinating storylines surrounding the Phoenix Suns this season. A large piece of the future depends on how the organization navigates his role and his development. He accounts for 21.7% of the salary cap. That is not a small detail.

So while I will continue preaching patience and measured judgment, ignoring what is happening would be irresponsible. The job here is to mark the mile markers along the road. To document the experience as it unfolds. When the season ends, the entire story should be sitting in front of us, not reconstructed from memory, but lived in real time.

As a player, Jalen Green checks plenty of boxes on paper, does he not. Athleticism? Check. Length? Check. Personality, likability, the right attitude? Check, check, chiggity-check. Those are the intangibles, the traits that make you lean forward a little and believe there is something there worth investing in.

Then you get to the deliverables.

Three-point shooting? Finishing at the rim? Rebounding? Defense? Efficiency? Those are the areas that define whether a player turns potential into production, and through much of this season, those areas have left plenty to be desired. Against Chicago, all of it sat under the spotlight.

Green finished the night 5-of-20 from the field and 1-of-8 from deep. Yes, he tied for the team lead in scoring during the late fourth-quarter push, although it took work to get there. He needed 11 shots to score his 9 points in the quarter. Amir Coffey also had 9 points in that stretch. He took 3 shots.

The moment that sticks with you arrived in the final seconds. One of Green’s seven misses in the fourth quarter came on a layup attempt at the rim, a shot that would have given Phoenix a 1-point lead — their first of the night — with 4.5 seconds remaining. Instead, the ball rolled away, and with it went the chance to flip the script.

I know the loss against Chicago does not land squarely on Jalen Green’s shoulders. He was one spoke in a wheel that had a flat tire all night long. Nobody truly played well on either end of the floor, outside of Oso Ighodaro showing flashes here and there. Even he struggled at times protecting the rim. The problem was the inefficiency that spread across the entire roster. Phoenix could not slow Chicago down on one end, and they could not buy a basket on the other. That combination sinks a team every time, and it cannot all fall on Green.

Still, the game offered another look at Jalen Green operating as the second option for the Phoenix Suns. Devin Booker is back on the floor, and there will be adjustments. That process takes time. The team is learning it, the organization is learning it, the fan base is learning it. The early returns, though, have not been encouraging.

External factors exist, and they deserve acknowledgment. Injuries disrupt rhythm. Roles shift. Chemistry develops over time. At the same time, the production this season sits in a place that is difficult to ignore. It has been rough. Far rougher than anyone hoped when the season began.

I bring back a chart I initially posted back in November, fresh off the heels of a stellar 29-point Green performance against the Clippers. I charted Jalen Green’s 307 games with the Rockets and reminded the fanbase that, although his debut with Phoenix was electric, inconsistency is the name of his game.

With Houston, Green scored over 30 points 51 times. That was 16.6% of the time. But he also scored with 15 or fewer points in 107 games. 34.8% of the time. My observation then? “The highs are electric. The lows come more often than you’d expect.”

Now we look at the 14 games he’s played with Phoenix this season. Chart it and…

Inconsistent much?

Green is shooting 35.5% from the field this year. From three-point range, he sits at 26.3%. His effective field goal percentage is 41.8%. To put that into context, among players who have appeared in at least 14 games (which is where Green currently sits) he ranks 428 out of 448 in effective field goal percentage. That is the statistical neighborhood he occupies right now, and those numbers paint a clear picture of the struggle.

You can make the argument that he has not had enough time with this team in this role to truly settle into it. You can point to the fact that he missed 48 games this season and is still working to get his legs underneath him. I hear those arguments, and I acknowledge them. At the same time, I am watching what is happening on the court.

His legs did not look heavy late in the game when he took Isaac Okoro off the dribble and accelerated toward the rim. That moment had burst. That moment had lift. Fatigue was not the issue on that play. The problem was the finish.

That sequence tells a story we have seen repeatedly. Throughout this game, and honestly over the past nine games since returning from injury, Jalen Green has looked athletic. Springy. Explosive. A player who can turn the corner and get downhill. The challenge appears when the play reaches the rim.

Finishing has continued to be an issue for him, and that is not something unique to this season. It has followed him through his career. Green possesses elite athleticism, although his ability to convert around the basket has never matched the level of explosion he brings to the drive. During his four seasons with the Houston Rockets, Green took 57% of his shots at the rim and converted 53.8% of them. This season, the profile has shifted. Only 31.1% of his attempts come at the rim, and he is finishing those at 44.6%. The athleticism still shows up on the drive. The result at the end of that drive continues to be the hurdle.

Here is his career shooting chart.

That’s alotta blue…

When a player is integrating into a new system, the mistakes that show up are usually schematic. You see a missed offensive screen. A defensive rotation that arrives a step late. Those are the fingerprints of someone learning a structure, learning timing, learning where the next read lives.

What I have learned over time is that system integration rarely affects the shot itself.

The shot is the familiar part. It is the one thing that travels with a player from gym to gym, team to team, system to system. It is the comfort zone. The muscle memory. The skill that exists outside of the playbook. So yes, there will be a learning curve when it comes to role and responsibility within the offense. That part is expected. The shooting production, though, should be the steady ground underneath all of it. Throughout this season, that ground has not been steady.

Right now, it is a concern. In his 9 games since returning from injury, albeit some of those out of position and scheme, Green is shooting 20.3% from deep and 43.5% overall.

I assume some regression toward the mean will occur over time. Numbers tend to move in that direction if you give them enough attempts. The issue is that the mean itself still sits a distance away. When you look at Green’s career arc as a shooter, it becomes difficult to imagine a sudden leap arriving this late in the season.

He entered this year as a 34.2% three-point shooter during his time in Houston. With 19 games remaining, the math does not offer much room for a dramatic transformation. To get to 38% from three, which would be defined as “progression”, he would need to hit his next 18 attempts in a row. To reach his own career average, he would still need to knock down his next 12 consecutive threes.

That is the kind of arithmetic that tells you where things currently stand. And therein lies the concern.

For all the positive intangibles Jalen Green brings, the deliverables have lagged behind through this stretch of the season. In a strange way, that becomes the silver lining from nights like this. Not because he struggled, but because a longer timeline reveals something clearer. You start to see the contours of the player. You start to see where the limitations live. And those observations matter when you are talking about a player who will earn $72 million over the next two seasons.

Yes, the sample is small. Anyone can argue that there is not enough runway to identify a trend, and I would not push back too hard on that point. I tend to lean on the twenty-game rule when evaluating stretches like this. I need twenty games to truly understand who a player is within the context of a system. And if your push back is along the lines of, “Well, the situation hasn’t been ideal for Green”, I respond with “Welcome to life. It never is.” The cream rises to the top, regardless of the situation. Champions adjust.

This is not a new story emerging out of nowhere. It is more of a reinforcement of something we already understood. Jalen Green, for all of the upside that exists in his athleticism and scoring potential, has long carried the label of an inefficient player. What the Phoenix Suns are seeing right now is a closer look at that reality. They are gathering information in real time while asking a very important question.

Can he be the number two option next to Devin Booker as Booker moves deeper into the prime years of his career? Is that worth $36 million per season?

There are still 19 games left for Green to answer some of those questions. Nineteen games to settle into the offense, find rhythm, and alter the narrative. If he does not, the offseason conversation becomes far more complicated for the Phoenix Suns.

Then again, there is another layer to consider.

Injuries, recovery, and adjusting to a new system all create noise in the evaluation process. It is possible the organization decides this sample does not provide enough evidence to make a firm decision this summer. That possibility exists.

There is another uncomfortable reality attached to that scenario as well. If Green continues to shoot and perform at this level, his value on the open market shrinks quickly. The Suns could once again find themselves holding a large contract that does not align with the production on the floor. Phoenix fans have seen that movie before. Bradley Beal. Deandre Ayton. The hope inside the building is that Jalen Green does not become the next chapter in that story.

That is the silver lining from Thursday night’s loss to the Chicago Bulls. The game offered another opportunity to understand who and what Jalen Green is as a number two option. Evaluation is the name of the game this season. Whether the results are good or bad, the process has to occur. The organization needs clarity on who they are and what direction they should take moving forward.

Thankfully, this evaluation period is happening at a moment when the Suns are not hurting themselves too badly in the standings. Phoenix remains firmly planted in the seventh spot in the Western Conference. Even after the Warriors defeated the Houston Rockets last night, the Suns still sit three games ahead of Golden State in that position. That means, as things currently stand, Phoenix would host a Play-In game against them. Try not to look too closely at the fact that the Suns are 1-3 against the Warriors this season.

Sure, a win against Chicago would have been ideal. It would have helped Phoenix gain ground on both the Los Angeles Lakers and the Houston Rockets. That opportunity slipped away. Instead, the focus shifts to what the game revealed. Several performances fell below the standard. One of them carried far more weight than the others. When a player commands that level of financial investment, the spotlight naturally follows.

Jayson Tatum last played for the Boston Celtics 298 days ago, when his 42-point playoff masterpiece against the New York Knicks preceded what would become a nine-plus-month rehabilitation from a torn right Achilles tendon. Since then, he has worked to recover from surgery, regain strength, and progress through multiple 5-on-5 workouts in preparation for his long-awaited return.

The expectation is that Tatum will play Friday night against the Dallas Mavericks, per ESPN’s Shams Charania, who reported that the six-time All-Star is “ready to go.”

Boston played its first 62 games without Tatum, while also adjusting to several key offseason departures, including Kristaps Porziņģis, Jrue Holiday, Al Horford, and Luke Kornet. Despite that, Boston has held its own, going 41–21 to sit second in the Eastern Conference with the fourth-best record in the NBA. Their offensive rating ranks second at 119.9, trailing only the Denver Nuggets, they’ve had the stingiest defense over the last fifteen games with a 106.1 defensive rating, and their 12.2 turnovers per game are the fewest in the league.

No matter what hurdles the inevitability of an NBA season has thrown their way, the Celtics have not relinquished their standard.

Now, with Tatum presumably set to return at any moment for Boston, a recycled topic has resurfaced — one about as fresh as wearing a velour tracksuit in 2026: Tatum’s role. Where will he play? How will he contribute? Is there room for him on an ascending Celtics team led by co-star Jaylen Brown amid a career-best season?

None of these questions are new. Only the circumstances surrounding them are different. The conversation is still stale, and like cold movie-theater popcorn, it belongs on the floor — not to be picked up.

There’s no immediate rush to get Tatum back — that’s the first point worth acknowledging. He’s returning from a career-threatening injury that raises questions about whether most athletes can play again, much less perform at their previous standard. No matter what Tatum’s minutes look like in his first 5–10 appearances, the focus won’t be on fitting in or carving out a new role. It will be on getting up to speed and regaining confidence in his strength to compete against NBA-level competition.

Brown has been the No. 1 option, and it’s been working — that’s fine. Expecting Tatum to jump back into the offense’s driver’s seat after nearly a year without an NBA game is absurd. Common sense dictates treating his comeback with as much caution as necessary, which will likely mean minutes restrictions at first and limit what he can do early on. That’s not a problem. Boston’s success in his absence proves it.

Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla has completely redesigned his team’s offense to fit its circumstances. With no Tatum, several offseason departures, and the promotion of inexperienced players into larger roles, Boston couldn’t run its 2025–26 system the same way. Instead, Mazzulla and his staff developed a fresh, new scheme that allowed the roster to flourish. Neemias Queta, a first-time starting center, Hugo González, an impactful rookie, and Luka Garza, a veteran still finding his footing, have all been able to ascend in ways that would have been unimaginable during a typical Tatum-Brown season.

Queta has developed into a reliable starting center, deserving of keeping that role even after the Celtics acquired 15-year veteran and two-time All-Star Nikola Vučević at the trade deadline. González has left executives across the league rethinking their draft evaluations, delivering a two-way impact few rookies can match in their first year. And Garza has taken a notable step in his growth, providing serviceable minutes off the bench that resonate both on the court and with Boston’s home crowd. He’s even set a new career high in 3-pointers made (35) with 20 games left to play, eclipsing his previous mark of 16 set four seasons ago.

Everything the Celtics have worked to accomplish — establishing their core values, mindset, and player development — has been to survive without Tatum. So far, they’ve done a sensational job, making Brown and Mazzulla legitimate MVP and Coach of the Year candidates, respectively. Teams across the league are clueless as to how Boston has made it work, avoiding the easy route of tanking for a lottery pick. But it’s because they’ve become such a well-oiled machine that Tatum’s role this season barely matters. To think that keeping him sidelined because of a role conflict somehow benefits the Celtics is senseless.

The point is simple: Tatum makes the Celtics — and every other team in the league — better. That has been true since he became a pro, leaving zero room for debate. Even if he can only give Boston 15 minutes against Dallas, it’s more than worth playing him for all 15, and not just as an experiment.

He played the role of a facilitator in the NBA Finals. He’s one of the most elite scorers in the league. Questioning Tatum’s ability to fit completely neglects his versatility.

Boston’s offense is already lethal as is. The team rarely makes mistakes, continues to knock down threes at an above-average rate, and finds ways to get everyone involved. It’s not always Brown, Payton Pritchard, or Derrick White doing the heavy lifting. Queta resembled a top-10 center against the Philadelphia 76ers, dropping 27 points on 10-of-14 shooting with 17 rebounds on Sunday. González scored 18 points and grabbed 16 rebounds while fearlessly guarding Giannis Antetokounmpo in Milwaukee. It’s March, and this is what has become normal for the Celtics and their unproven supporting cast.

They’ve reshaped their schemes and their expectations. The ceiling is no longer the Play-In Tournament or any specific win total. Now, it’s about competing with the East-leading Pistons and making a run at the No. 1 seed. It’s about coming out of the East and securing a second NBA Finals appearance in the last three years — and it’s not some Cinderella story. If the Celtics reach the Finals, it will be because they earned it the hard way.

Tatum has spent eight healthy seasons in Boston. He’s played alongside Brown since his rookie year, reaching five Eastern Conference Finals with his longtime partner. To suggest there’s any cause for concern about whether they can coexist for another title run — after winning a championship just two years ago — isn’t a valid debate; it’s simply lazy.

Dillon Brooks, who has been the soul of the Phoenix Suns thus far this season, is currently sitting out due to a broken hand he sustained on February 21.

It has been reported by TMZ Sports that he was arrested in Scottsdale at 2:00am on Friday, March 6, on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. The report states that “he was respectful and cooperative before being released,” noting that he was released at 3:20am.

Per Doug Haller from The Athletic, the Suns made the following statement in regards to the incident:

“We are aware of the situation involving Dillon Brooks and are gathering more information.  We have no further comment at this time.”

Brooks, affectionately known as “The Villain”, is averaging a career-high 20.9 points with the Phoenix Suns this season after being acquired by the team in the Kevin Durant trade this past offseason. We will report more as information becomes available.

Update

Per Arizona Sports’ John Gambadoro, the arrest was not alcohol related, rather, it was marijuana. Brooks was released without being charged.