NBCSports: Devin Booker be top-15 in five years

Dan Feldman of NBCSports has ranked current Phoenix Suns star Devin Booker as the 13th best player in the NBA in five years. Could he get there much sooner than that though?

The Phoenix Suns believe that they have the core that will be the next group of players to take them to the playoffs, anchored by Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton.

Over the course of the past few weeks, writers for NBASports.com have been making a ranking of the top-50 players in the NBA in five years, a list that favorably mentioned the two aforementioned stars.

Ayton was rated in the top-25 (21st) while Devin Booker rose to number 13, just behind Jayson Tatum and one ahead of De’Aaron Fox.

After four seasons in the league, rising all the way to becoming a predicted top-15 player in the Association makes perfect sense for a player with individual stats such as Book’s. Granted he has not yet made his way into the playoffs (at least not for a lack of personal effort), his individual stats though to warrant such projections – no one ever complained that Carmelo Anthony did not deserve superstar status even though his teams have made it out of the first round just twice in his 16 year career.

Averaging 25.8 points, 4.3 rebounds, 5.8 assists, and a 35.3% 3-point shooting percentage over his last two seasons, barring serious and/or re-occurring injuries, one would be hard-pressed to not see Booker continuing similar statistics across the board (with likely slight variations in possibly lower scoring and assist averages, but higher rebound and 3-point % averages), which would be without a doubt, All-NBA numbers.

That said, let’s say that Booker averages statistics similar to those of the last two seasons this coming year, and let’s assume that he is able to play at least 75 games without any lengthy layoffs: why couldn’t Booker be considered a top-15 player in 2019-20? Why shouldn’t he receive that kind of positive attention right away?

Obviously, if the team begins to win at a much greater clip than they have in his career thus far (Booker’s career average win-total is a disgusting 21.75 per year), then fans the league-’round will shine more of a positive light on his individual game.

However, if the Suns continue to lose (and he remains in Phoenix), then it might literally take five consistent years of his 2017-19 statistics to reach a level of appreciation that would have otherwise been thrust on him due to external influences.

For both his and the loyal fan base’s sake, the Phoenix Suns start winning beginning with this season, and turn themselves back into the competitive franchise we are all so accustomed to.

Should Devin Booker be apart of a winning franchise – and the face of it – then he will be looked upon as a top-15 player in no time – if not higher. And with statistics like the ones he has been averaging for the last two seasons, it might not take him five years to reach that level.