Suns starter officially ruled OUT ahead of meeting with former team

The Phoenix Suns will be looking to get back to winning ways against the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday night, their first contest after going 0-3 on a Western road trip. We've already over-reacted plenty to what we've seen across four games, but the Grizzlies have several key players on the injury report ahead of the meeting.

For the Suns - outside of Koby Brea and CJ Huntley on assignment in the G League - there are only two. The first is Jalen Green, who at this point is questionable to play with a hamstring issue that has seen him miss all of preseason and the regular season so far. This despite playing in every game possible across both regular season and playoffs in the last two seasons.

Dillon Brooks ruled out versus former team in Memphis.

The second player missing is a key starter in the form of Dillon Brooks, having also been absent from the overtime loss to the Utah Jazz to close out their road trip with the same issue, right groin soreness. Brooks has been a revelation from a culture standpoint already, and there is no doubt he will be missed for this one.

He also surely would have gotten up to face his former team the way that he always does, and that too could have led to fireworks. The Suns need guys who are willing to fight for every victory this season, and Brooks is the player who best encapsulates that. Yet you could argue he has been trying too hard, and that his inability to play could force the Suns to go in a different direction.

Oso Ighodaro should be taken out of the starting lineup - whether Green is available or not - having struggled as an undersized big to compete with true centers. Failing that, head coach Jordan Ott could decide that Ighodaro should replace Brooks at the four with the starters, with Nick Richards also joining to complete the unit.

There is no doubt the Suns would be even worse offensively with that tandem out there, but that is the least of their concerns right now. Despite talking about building a defensive identity - which again Brooks was supposed to spearhead - only the Brooklyn Nets are giving up more points per game right now than Phoenix.

When Brooks is out there it does get better - going from giving up 123.7 points to 120.1 - but that only tells half the story. The Suns are also better offensively when he sits, going from 107.7 points scored to 111.7. Still not good enough to crack the top half of the league, but with Brooks out there the offense is scoring at a bottom five rate.

Those numbers combine to also give him a net rating on the still young season of minus 12.4, by far the worst mark of his career. Yet despite all of this - and it will be interesting to see if the Suns can look better on either end without him - they also surely would have liked him for a matchup against the Grizzlies. Here's hoping Green is available.