Preview: Suns welcome young Rockets to Footprint on Book’s 26th birthday

Who: Phoenix Suns (4-1) vs Houston Rockets (1-5)

Where: Footprint Center, Phoenix, AZ

When: 6 p.m. AZ time

Watch: Bally Sports AZ

Listen: 98.7 FM

DraftKings betting lines: Suns -11.5, Suns moneyline -660

Probable starters:

Suns: Chris Paul, Devin Booker, Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, Bismack Biyombo (if not Jock Landale)

Rockets: Kevin Porter Jr., Jalen Green, Jae’Sean Tate (or Tari Eason), Jabari Smith Jr. (or KJ Martin), Alperen Sengun

Injury Report:

Suns:

Out: Deandre Ayton (left ankle sprain), Ish Wainright (low back pain), Jae Crowder (not with team)

Rockets:

Out: Eric Gordon (right groin) Bruno Fernando (left patellar tendinitis), Phoenix-native TyTy Washington (knee)

Questionable: Jabari Smith Jr. (right ankle sprain)

Not to make things sound like a trap game, but this should be pretty straight-forward. The tanking, rebuilding Rockets come in with a whole lot of talent, but a whole lot of youth trying to put it all together. They have a lot of firepower on the perimeter with their guard rotation — especially Green and Gordon — but not a lot happening inside, especially defensively.

That last point especially should set this game up well to be a get-right game in terms of the Suns trying to figure out life without Ayton, even in what will likely be a short amount of time.

I’m thinking the Suns run away with this one. Good luck picking which Suns play the biggest part in that, they’re sharing the usage so well at this point.

P.S. For our fun little connection for the game, Paul and Gordon were traded, in part, for each other when Paul made his way from New Orleans to the Clippers, and they eventually played two seasons in Houston together.

Gordon has been connected to the Suns numerous times in trade rumors since Paul arrived; I even wrote an entire article welcoming him to the Suns at last year’s trade deadline that never ended up getting used for obvious reasons.