Suns’ Devin Booker, Kevin Durant fall in ESPN’s 2024-25 NBA Rank

After Booker cracked ESPN’s top 10 in 2022-23, he fell to No. 11 last season and dropped again to No. 15 this year.

It was simply about team performance, because there were no obvious signs of a dip in his play, writes Dave McMenamin.

His ranking has regressed ever so slightly because of team success as he went from putting up 40-point games in the 2021 Finals to getting swept out in the first round last year. But at 27 years old he is just scratching the surface of his prime.

Booker played in 68 games last season and averaged 27.1 points, 6.9 assists and 4.5 rebounds while shooting 49.2% from the field.

Durant also dropped from No. 7 to No. 9 in ESPN’s annual rankings.

Why? It’s about the rise of others, according to McMenamin.

While he could have been dinged for the Suns’ underwhelming playoff performance, it’s hard to peg the first-round loss on him after he averaged 26.8 points on 55/42/82 shooting splits against Minnesota in the four-game series. He showed off his sustained excellence all over again during the Paris Olympics as the team’s third-leading scorer, behind Stephen Curry and LeBron James.

Durant played in 75 games last season (his most since 2018-19) and averaged 27.1 points, 5.0 assists and 6.6 rebounds while shooting 52.3% from the field.

Meanwhile, Bradley Beal fell all the way to No. 70 overall after placing 37th last year.

Beal missed 29 games last season due to back, ankle, nose, hamstring and finger injuries.

McMenamin wrote Beal’s fall in the rankings was solely due to his lack of availability.

Since the start of the 2019-20 season, Beal has now missed 130 games because of injury — which is more than Anthony Davis (120) and in the neighborhood of Kawhi Leonard (161) — without taking the hit to his reputation the way those two did. This plummet in the rankings is directly tied to his recent unreliability. If he can stay on the court and help the Suns realize their potential, he, too, will rise again.