Devin Booker! The $100 Million Man Falls Short of Expectations
The Phoenix Suns have failed to live up to any sort of expectations after adding Bradley Beal to their nucleus of Devin Booker and Kevin Durant, forming one of the worst Big Threes the NBA has ever seen. Booker, as the youngest and only one drafted by the Suns, is the clear-cut face of the franchise and set the team record for career points earlier this year.
However, the disappointing season the Suns have had is, in part, on his shoulders. As the franchise player and one of the brightest stars in the league, Inside the Suns is grading his performance this year up until the All-Star Break.
Booker will not participate in any All-Star Weekend events. He was snubbed from the All-Star Game and will not be in the 3-point contest. His season averages are good enough to get him into the event if he were on a better team, but the Suns boast the 11th seed in the Western Conference.
He is scoring 26.2 points per game and offers 6.7 assists and four rebounds, which are all slightly lower than last year’s averages. That is to be expected with Durant in town taking up some touches, but with Durant’s gravity, one would expect Booker’s shooting percentages to go up.
That hasn’t been the case. This season, he is shooting only 33.9 percent from 3-point range and 45.3 percent from the floor, which are both down significantly from last year’s 49.2 percent and 36.4 percent.
Booker has the lowest Player Effecny Rating (20.3) since the 2020-21 season, but he led the Suns to the Finals that year.
For being a more inefficient scorer and taking a step back as a team, Booker gets a B-, only staying out of C territory since he is still a very, very good player. He’s set the standards so high in past years, that he gets penalized this season.
