Phoenix Suns star Devin Booker vs the greats

At his introductory press conference, one of the most talked about quotes that Monty Williams gave was comparing Devin Booker to Dwyane Wade, Brandon Roy, and Kobe Bryant. Let’s do just that.

When the Phoenix Suns introduced Monty Williams to the media and fanbase as their next head coach, the new hire wasted no time before mentioning Devin Booker with some of the great shooting guards in NBA history, Dwyane Wade, Brandon Roy – who Monty coached at Portland during his (unfortunately) brief prime – and Kobe Bryant.

Any comparison to Wade is something to really latch onto as he is not only one of the greatest of all-time, but also one of the most well-liked and well-respected ever as well.

And the truth of it is: when Monty made that comp, he was not speaking in hyperbole.

Book’s scoring accomplishments are well documented, including becoming the youngest player to ever drop 70 points in a game, throwing in a 59-point game as well as a 51-point game last season – the youngest to ever score 50+ in back-to-back games; scoring the fourth most points in NBA history for a player before the age of 21 (2,897 total, behind only LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Carmelo Anthony); reaching 30 points in a game 21 times before 21, the third most in NBA history behind only James and Durant; and becoming the fifth youngest player in NBA history to score 5,000 career points at 22yrs and 86 days old, trailing only LeBron, Durant, Carmelo, and Dwight Howard.

His scoring accolades continue, all enough to fairly throw him into the ranks of some of the greatest ever, especially at his age: he is still  only 22.

Wade only scored 469 points before the age of 22, appearing in only 29 games his rookie year prior to his birth date because of his late start to D1 college when he began at Marquette at the age of 20, and playing two full seasons. Therefore, a comparison by age cannot be fairly had (Brandon Roy played four years at Washington and graduated at the age of 21 and was already 22 before his rookie season began).

I will exclude Kobe from the bulk of this comparison since Booker has thus far far out-produced the superstar through four years in individual statistics with their scoring comparisons already over-documented – by me (haha).

Also, while Monty said that Kobe was one of the one’s “running the league,” he was speaking to his own time in Portland which included the 2009-10 season, which I will discuss later. That year was Bryant’s 14th in the league, which would not be fair to reference in comparison to anyone other than Wade alone.

So while Booker has now played four seasons but is still only 22-years-old, we’ll use the three players’ career stats up to their fourth season (both Wade and Roy already being 25), as that is the only fair marker to break down the group.