Ahead of the Phoenix Suns’ game against the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday, Devin Booker is not on the injury report. The star guard has missed the Suns’ last four games with a strained right hip, but he’ll be back in the lineup at just the right time. With 22 games remaining on the schedule, Phoenix is 34-26 and seventh in the Western Conference. Thanks to a last-second 3 by Royce O’Neale in its most recent game, a 113-110 win against the Los Angeles Lakers, the team is two games behind the sixth-place Lakers in the standings. The Suns have already exceeded expectations this season, but they should be aiming for a top-six seed, so they can avoid the Play-In Tournament.
Phoenix went 4-7 in February, with the league’s third-worst offense (107.7 points per 100 possessions). Booker hurt his hip during its 121-94 loss against the San Antonio Spurs on Feb. 19, and, before that, he was out for an extended stretch because of a sprained right ankle. Dillon Brooks, who has had a breakout season as a scorer, broke his left hand during the Suns’ 113-110 win against the Orlando Magic on Feb. 21. That night, Jalen Green hit the game-winner in double-overtime, but Green has shot just 21 for 75 from the field and 5 for 33 from 3-point range in his past four games. On Feb. 22, Phoenix scored just 81.9 points per 100 possessions (and 71.4 per 100 in the halfcourt, per Cleaning The Glass) in a 92-77 loss against the Portland Trail Blazers, the sixth-worst offensive performance that any team has had this season.
All of this is to say that the Suns have missed Booker immensely. His return will ease the playmaking burden on Collin Gillespie, Grayson Allen and Green. Phoenix’s three next opponents are not exactly fearsome — after the Kings game, the team has a back-to-back at home against the Chicago Bulls and New Orleans Pelicans — but it wouldn’t be difficult to imagine any of them beating the version of the Suns team that has been on the floor recently.
As by far the team’s most dangerous shot creator, Booker has seen aggressive defensive coverages all season, and he’ll have to do some heavy lifting down the stretch. Brooks is still 3-5 weeks away from a return, according to the timeline that the team announced. On the season, though, Phoenix has scored 117.8 points per 100 possessions with Booker on the court, which is equivalent to a top-10 offense, per CTG.
Booker, by the way, is not the only notable name absent from the injury report. Haywood Highsmith, signed as a free agent a couple of weeks ago, is not listed, either. Highsmith has yet to play in a single game this season; he had surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee last August, had a setback while rehabbing in October and was waived by the Brooklyn Nets just before the trade deadline.
In four seasons with the Miami Heat, the 6-foot-5 wing developed into a reliable rotation player capable of guarding up and down the positional spectrum. Highsmith made 38.2% of his 3s in 2024-25, and, if he’s healthy, could fill in some gaps for Phoenix, particularly on the defensive end. In addition to being without Brooks, who typically guards the opposing team’s top wing player, the Suns have been without guard Jordan Goodwin for the last three games due to a strained left calf. Phoenix coach Jordan Ott told reporters Sunday that Goodwin, an excellent point-of-attack defender, is “just now ramping up” to return, but was not as far along in the process as Booker, per the Arizona Republic.
The Suns have a more favorable remaining schedule than the Lakers do, per Tankathon, and they’ll see each other again on April 10, the second-to-last game of the season for both of them. Phoenix has profiled as the better team pretty much all season, judging by point differential, but Los Angeles has outperformed its mediocre point differential in the win column in historic fashion. If not for those recent game-winners by O’Neale and Green, the Suns would be looking at a steep climb to get to sixth. As it stands, overtaking the Lakers is doable, but they do not have much room for error.
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