Breaking Down Devin Booker’s Summer League So Far
By Scott Chasen
0-of-8.
Prior to Tuesday’s contest against the Utah Jazz, Suns rookie Devin Booker was shooting a whopping 0.0 percent from three in the Summer League, missing on all eight of his attempts. It was a bit of a surprise to see the two-guard out of Kentucky struggle, considering how stellar he’d been shooting the ball the year before.
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At Kentucky, Booker shot 41.1 percent from three, and right around 43 percent in the regular season alone. However, against NBA competition, or at least NBA Summer League competition, 0.0 percent remained the mark for the youngest member of the Phoenix Suns.
That all changed on Tuesday.
Against the Jazz, Devin Booker came out firing. He knocked down each of his first three field goal attempts, but perhaps more importantly, with 6:41 to go in the first quarter, he finally knocked down a three. That three-point make seemed to energize Booker, who finished with a game-high 18 points, adding six rebounds in 31 minutes of action.
Devin Booker has found his shooting stroke. He opened with a lefthanded runner and has added a 3-pointer and an 18-foot jumper.
— Paul Coro (@paulcoro) July 15, 2015
For the team, it had to be nice to finally see Booker’s shot fall, even though he’d found ways to make himself useful in the previous games.
“[Booker] has really stood out on the defensive end, “general manager Ryan McDonough said on the NBATV broadcast. “Even the games when his shots aren’t falling, he’s made a positive contribution for us.”
For Suns fans, it had to feel good to hear that from the GM. After all, most profiles of Devin Booker listed him as a high IQ three-point specialist, and some even called him a good defender, albeit more because of his IQ than anything else.
Many of those same scouting reports criticized his ability to rebound, while others questioned whether or not he’d be able to defend at the next level. And it may seem pretty crazy to make that career-long assumption on the play of an 18-year-old, but that’s the name of the game with the NBA Draft.
As a front office member, you have to figure how good a player is going to be, often based off some high school footage of them dominating lesser competition and one or two (or if you’re lucky three or four) years of college basketball.
But the question is: what have we seen since then?
The Good
Whether or not the shots have been falling, Devin Booker has done a good job of 1) moving within the Suns’ offense and 2) coming off screens to get open for shots. In that regard, I could see Booker eventually becoming a J.J. Redick type player on offense, albeit several years down the road.
#Suns draft picks over last 2 years definitely share a trait. Tony Buckets, Booker, (& even Alec) do a TON of moving w/o ball...
— 🤷 Rich (@True_Rys) July 15, 2015
Like most NBA comparisons for rookies, there are plenty of differences between Redick and Booker, so take that for what it’s worth. That being said, many of the things Booker is praised for (three-point shooting, free throw shooting, off-ball movement, etc.) also happen to be strengths of the Clippers’ guard.
However, one area where they are expected to differ is in rebounding. Despite standing at 6’6″, Devin Booker was a pretty mediocre rebounder at Kentucky, but based on what we’ve seen, you can almost throw this aside completely. Kentucky was one of the biggest teams in the nation, with three big men selected in the lottery, meaning that there weren’t a ton of rebounds to be had.
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After all, the Wildcats essentially had two near-7-footers on the court at all times, with Karl-Anthony Towns (6’11, 6.7 RPG), Willie Cauley-Stein (7’0, 6.4 RPG), Trey Lyles (6’10, 5.2 RPG) and Dakari Johnson (7’0, 4.6 RPG). Those four players combined for 22.9 rebounds per game; there were 17 DI colleges that recorded less than 30 rebounds per game as a team last year; the four Kentucky big men were just one rebound per game behind the entire Denver Pioneers basketball team.
However, at the NBA level, Booker has been pretty solid in that regard. Through three games, he’s averaging 5.0 rebounds per game, and he has recorded at least one offensive rebound in each contest. At Kentucky, Booker recorded an offensive rebound in just 12 of the 38 games he played and he had a streak of three games with an offensive rebound just once.
It’s a work in progress.
Now, defensively speaking, Booker has at least tried to live up to the Klay Thompson-comparison he was given that will likely haunt him for a while. In his first two games, he was solid getting in position to defend, although against the Jazz it wasn’t exactly the same story. Regardless, there’s plenty to be excited about with this young man, and there are plenty of positives to take away from these first three games.
Related: Have you seen his shooting form?
That @DevinBook 3-point shot. It’s a thing of beauty. #SHAZAM #SummerSuns pic.twitter.com/eO4kyrdioV
— Phoenix Suns (@Suns) July 15, 2015
The Bad
Obviously, Devin Booker had a bad start to the Summer League in terms of shooting the ball, and even that isn’t really going far enough. Booker was Earl-Barron-in-NBA-2K15 bad to start the Summer League, as he missed his first eight three-point attempts and was shooting just 6-of-23 (26.1 percent) from the field two games in.
Now, that obviously changed on Tuesday, when Booker knocked down a couple of threes and shot right around 40 percent from the field (which still wasn’t great), but his numbers haven’t quite been what Suns fans were looking forward to when he was selected with the 13th overall pick.
On one hand, I think it’s absolutely fair to question how much these numbers mean; after all, we are just talking about Summer League here. However, there is somewhat of a relationship between how well the best shooting guards in the NBA shot from three this year, compared to how they did in their first NBA Summer League appearances.
Klay Thompson is one really good example of this, especially considering he was the popular NBA Draft comparison to Devin Booker for one reason or another. Thompson shot 71.4 percent from three (10-of-14) in his Summer League appearances with Golden State.
And while that wasn’t the norm for everyone, each of the top five NBA shooting guards last year (as far as three-point percentage was concerned) shot at least 35 percent from three their first year in Summer League. The first player to break that rule was Danny Green, who ranked sixth out of all shooting guards in three-point percentage. Green shot right around 30 percent from three in his first Summer League, but even his three-point percentage was nearly double that of Booker, who has made just 15.4 percent (2-of-13) of his three-point attempts.
It’s also worth noting that Green is more of an anomaly than anything. Looking at the 11 shooting guards that shot above 40 percent from three last year, only two shot worse than 30 percent in their first Summer League: Danny Green and Matthew Dellavedova; more than 70 percent of them (8-of-11) shot above 35 percent.
Then, looking at the other side of the ball, Booker got lost a few times trying to play defense against the Utah Jazz. Fortunately, he had Alex Len on the inside to clean up some of his mistakes, but it was far from a perfect game from the guard out of Kentucky.
Booker has gotten too high in his help and given up baseline drives a couple times in the first quarter.
— Jacob Padilla (@JacobPadilla_) July 15, 2015
Like I said, his game is still a work in progress. Although, I will say seeing him play well in his third game meant more than his first and second game struggles, but even that is all beside the main point.
To make any kind of negative assumption about Booker’s career at this point would be foolish. After all, he is still just 18. By the time he’s done with his rookie deal and his next contact after that, he still will probably be 26 or 27 years old and not even done with his prime yet.
There is a lot of time for him to improve.
Devin Booker has a lot of good basketball in front of him, and it’s worth noting that he’s already more than just a shooter. After all, he has one thing that you really can’t teach: Feel.
Booker has a good grasp of the floor and where guys are. He's very willing to make the extra pass, which I like a lot.
— Jacob Padilla (@JacobPadilla_) July 15, 2015
Devin Booker knows how to play the game, and he knows how to shoot the ball. HE should be an absolute joy to follow in a Phoenix Suns uniform, and if everything pans out the way the front office hopes, he could very well become one of the best three-point shooters in the NBA.
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