BBNBA Season in Review: Devin Booker

Devin Booker and the Phoenix Suns finally broke through in 2021. Booker’s reputation finally elevated to his level of play as he, Chris Paul, and a fun Suns team stormed through the West and were within two games of winning a championship.

Here’s a statistical rundown, recap, and a look at what’s ahead of D-Book.

Numbers

Regular season averages (per game): 25.6 points, 4.2 rebounds, 4.3 assists, 0.8 steals

Playoff averages: 27.3 points, 5.6 rebounds, 0.8 steals

Shooting splits (regular season): 48.4% FG, 86.7% FT, 34% 3p on 5.5 attempts/game

More extra & interesting stats

• Set record for most points by a player in their first postseason (601)
•  First-year in his career where his scoring average dropped
• Made his second All-Star Game
• 7th in NBA in points scored in 2021
• Hall of Fame Probability per Sports Reference: 0.4%

Yeah, we’ll see about that last one in about 15 years.

This past season…

2021 was almost the Year of the Suns. Even though they fell just short of the ultimate prize, not a soul in the city of Phoenix would have predicted a Western Conference Championship out of this group. The organization as a whole flipped its culture from doormat to dominator in less than 12 months. Individuals like Booker, Chris Paul, Deandre Ayton, head coach Monty Williams and front office executive James Jones all took huge strides in their respective roles to help build a title contender.

Booker barely had any trouble meshing with a ball controller like CP3 and the two of them served as perimeter engines for an offense that had role players playing perfect roles and young guys improving by the day. All of a sudden, it’s midseason and Phoenix is for real.

Even heading into the Playoffs a first-round exit was the consensus prediction but this team and its stars shined brighter and brighter as the stage got bigger.

It will be the most important season of Devin Booker’s career.

Let’s say NBA fans are looking back in 20 years at a Booker career that spans two decades and included multiple titles, a string of All-NBA and All-Star appearances, and a statistically unassailable Hall-of-Fame case.

This season kicked open the doors of possibility for Booker. For most of his career to date, the knock-on Booker was exactly what he just did for four rounds in the NBA Playoffs. Fans, media, scouts, execs, etc. would say “he’s a ball hog” or “he just puts up numbers because his team is bad” or “he could never be the lead man on a good team.”

I don’t know, it seems to me he’s plenty capable of playing as the lead guy on an NBA FINALS TEAM. Proving himself as that level of player at his age is a sign of an illustrious, successful career to come. The only two guys younger than Booker to lead an NBA Finals team in scoring this century are Kevin Durant and Dwight Howard, two guys who share three rings, two future Hall-of-Fame speeches, and 20-something All-NBA appearances in their careers — so far.

So this is historic for a 24-year-old. Booker saw the view from the peak but watched sullenly as the other team bathed in confetti and muttered but one word: “Damn.”

Devin Booker “damn” pic.twitter.com/ERUHfUMMjQ

— gifdsports (@gifdsports) July 21, 2021

I love it. That’s the face of a man who will be back in the NBA Finals.

Looking ahead…

As Monty Williams said following the Game 6 loss to Milwaukee, it’s going to take a very long time — maybe a lifetime for Chris Paul — to get emotionally past such a draining run and the pain of coming up inches short.

Nonetheless, this Phoenix roster is wicked. Booker has just one year under his belt playing meaningful, winning basketball and his chemistry with Paul should only grow in year two. Surrounding them, there’s Deandre Ayton, who was terrific for the first three rounds of the Playoffs and made some plays that suggest he could have a heck of a lot more upside than folks thought earlier on in the year.

Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson are flamethrowers from three and are each skilled enough to score a lot more than they are asked.

The Phoenix Suns are going to rock and roll again next year. But the Western Conference will be tougher. Golden State has the band back together, the Los Angeles squared should be healthier in 2022 and everybody watch out for Christian Wood and the Houston Rockets…kidding, lol.

For Booker as an individual, he has plenty of room for improvement. His bread and butter is the mid-range. If he’s not wiggling free for 10 and 12-footers off the glass, he’s creating for others or getting downhill. Whenever he works his way to the elbow he becomes so lethal.

So, the next expansion for his game will be taking his ability to create and score at the mid-range level and pushing it back to the three-point line as well. See, the best-kept secret about Devin Booker is that he really isn’t a great three-point shooter. He’s flat-out below league average and shot only 34% in 2021.

The reason not to panic is that we know he can improve those numbers at some point in his career. He’s a superb shooter, one of the world’s best. His poor percentages aren’t reflective of a lacking of touch, but rather how difficult those shots are- he’s generally creating threes off the dribble rather than catching and launching from the corner consistently like Mikal Bridges.

Booker’s next step is to take all of the little tricks and skills he has for getting open looks in the mid-range and use them a few feet further out while — here’s the key — improving his efficiency; replicating his mid-range game from beyond the arc and shooting it with similar accuracy.

Dame Lillard hasn’t shot 42% from three since he was a rookie. He started as a guy who created inside the arc but could light it up from deep in spurts as well. Years and years and hundreds of games later, he’s added every sort of ridiculous shot you could dream off and he can hit ’em all.

The more Booker shoots crazy off-balance, one-footed threes, the more they’ll start going in. It’s kind of funny to say, but Booker’s main focus should be knocking down shots that would get you benched by your middle school coach.

In this era, shotmaking is overpowering. Devin Booker is not an overpowering shotmaker from three like Dame or Steph or even Donovan Mitchell — who leaped three in 2021 that Devin should imitate. However, I think he can be. He’s already elite in the pick-and-roll, elite in isolation, he can post up smaller guys and he can work any defender in the NBA in the mid-range.

It’s unreal that he is just 24 and is this talented with still a ton of potential left to fulfill. He could very soon be taking Anthony Davis’ crown as the best former ‘Cat.

Take a look at his season highlights on your way out.