Is Devin Booker the next Kobe Bryant?

Everybody’s favorite screaming sports “analyst” Stephen A. Smith decreed on ESPN’s First Take that Devin Booker is the next Kobe Bryant. Check out the clip of Setphen A. and Magic Johnson crowning D-Book as a “Mini-Mamba.”

Smith declared “Devin Booker is the next Kobe Bryant,” and Magic agreed with a “yep.”

Higher praise may not exist. But is Devin Booker actually a Kobe clone?

On a base level, I’m not a fan of ever saying a player will be the next version of a former legend. Kobe Bryant always wanted to be the next Michael Jordan and he came as close as anyone ever has. But he wasn’t the next Michael Jordan. He was Kobe Bean Bryant.

So I’m gonna break this down in two ways. How Devin does resemble Kobe, and how he’s different.

Similarities

If you didn’t catch Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, I suggest you check out the Devin Booker highlights below.

The case for Booker being the next Bryant is this game. There’s a stretch in the third quarter where Booker scores six buckets in a row for Phoenix and hits five mid-range fadeaways and a transition three. He did with the same skills we saw from Kobe.

Bryant’s signature shot was that mid-range fadeaway jumper — and usually contested. He’s patient, he works the defender, feeling out how to maneuver into a jumper. When he shot, he’d nudge into the defender to get their momentum going away from him and then he’d quickly rise into the shot, hanging in the air like a piece of loose-leaf paper as he drags and releases the ball from almost behind his head.

Not only was it an impossible shot to block, but it also went in more often than not. If you juxtapose old Kobe highlights, especially those mid-range jumpers, with Devin Booker’s Game 1 performance, the resemblance is obvious.

The way both of them maneuver into shots — and the type of shots they like to take — is what makes Booker an heir to the Black Mamba.

It’s not just the mechanics of the shot and how similar their form looks. The more important similarity is their demeanor when looking to score. They’re patient. They like to go back and forth with the defender, feel ’em out like two boxers in the ring, angling for the perfect stroke. It’s so savvy.

Now, the differences.

Differences

As mid-range scorers and general shotmakers, the two are peas in a pod. As basketball players overall, I do think they are fairly different but each elite.

Stephen A. Smith has anointed Booker and Donovan Mitchell as guards of the future in the NBA, for good reason. He compares Booker to Kobe Bryant and he also says in the clip that he thinks Donovan Mitchell is the next Dewayne Wade. I think it’s flipped.

Mitchell is the Kobe. Their games aren’t entirely the same, but their approach, their leadership, toughness and total alpha mentality are similar. Mitchell is abrasive, rougher around the edges, but he’s a damn dog; a rottweiler at that. He also lets his own selfishness possess him at times, just like Kobe.

Booker is more Wade in my opinion, and Wade and Kobe aren’t entirely dissimilar. D-Wade had the same patience and methodical approach to scoring inside the arc as Bryant and Booker. But Wade’s a better team player with a slightly lower ceiling compared to Bryant, and I think that’s exactly what Booker is.

Booker and Wade get along with other superstars and are simply better to their teammates than Bryant was. Wade was alright handing LeBron James the keys to a team he’d won a title with. He was 29 when LBJ showed up, smack in the middle of his prime, and he let the newcomer drive Miami to two more championships.

How Devin has responded and developed next to Chris Paul — another superstar talent that took over an offense that belonged solely to him — is the key to his and the team’s leap this year. He didn’t pout or fight with Paul, instead, he used the opportunity of playing next to the best pure point guard of the generation to his advantage.

Bryant refused to take the backseat, and when he had to in the early 2000s, there was immense conflict between him and the other star, a man you might know simply as “Shaq.”

Also, Booker is a better shooter and playmaker than Bryant, plain and simple. His advantage over Kobe is his versatility with the ball in his hands. He’s a very scary threat from three (Kobe was not) and he’s able to get other players easy looks while possessing a Kobian scoring arsenal inside the arc.

When double-teamed, Bryant thought How do I score over both of them?

And Booker thinks Let’s find the open guy. 

Devin Booker is the better teammate with a wider variety of scoring abilities. But Kobe Bryant is the supreme talent, an ultimate leader by example, and one of the ten best basketball players ever born into this world (or any other).

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When Booker’s career ends someday, people won’t look back and say “he was Kobe 2.0!” They’ll say he was Devin Armani Booker, a unique and generational basketball talent that came from the University of Kentucky.

Booker’s gonna write his own story, but he’ll steal a few notes from Kobe Bryant. The same way musicians often build their own work with bits and pieces from the past, basketball players borrow moves and maneuvers from past stars.

Like Kanye West samples King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man” (only my late 60s rock lovers will get this one) in his song “POWER” to unite two vastly different generations of awesome music, Booker samples a lot of early 2000s mid-range Kobe in a skillset that fits the version of modern basketball that barely resembles anything from more than 10 years ago.

At the end of the day, if you’re being compared to Kobe Bryant, that’s a darn good thing. Can’t wait to keep watching Booker light the league on fire.