Three reasons non-Phoenix Suns fans (Bill Simmons) are wrong about Devin Booker
By Adam Maynes
The Phoenix Suns have one true star on their roster at the moment: Devin Booker. Yet non-Suns fans love to throw hate his way. This is why those haters are wrong.
Instead of the Phoenix Suns, if Devin Booker were on the Boston Celtics, he would be Bill Simmons’ favorite player.
If he were on the Los Angeles Lakers, he’d be in commercials nation-wide.
If he were on the New York Knicks, he’d already be touted as the franchise’s long-awaited savior.
If Devin Booker was literally anywhere but Phoenix for the last four years of his career, fans the NBA world ’round would consecrate him as one of the up-and-coming greats, the second-coming of Dwyane Wade (imagine if he were on the Miami Heat now that D-Wade has retired), and Suns fans would sit wishing that they had Devin Booker on their roster – the same as every fan of every team in the league wishes right now (*ahem* Bill Simmons), not in Arizona.
But, alas, he is here (thankfully), and while the last four years have essentially been a personal waste playing for Robert Sarver, Devin Booker is still an amazingly fantastic player, with far more losses to be blamed on the poorly run organization than on him, a star who himself has yet to play with a co-star in his entire professional career.
And yet – none of that seems to matter to talking-heads looking to make headlines by throwing caution to the wind and basically admitting that they’ll say anything for RT’s even if there is as much logic in their stated opinions as there is in putting hot sauce instead of syrup on a pancake.
People like Bill Simmons, Jalen Rose, Nick Friedell (who?!), throw hate at a 22-year-old who is already better than everyone of them at this age than any of them at their prime in their respective professional fields, wasting their collective breath insulting a young player who save for one, minor off-the-court incident, has been nothing but a consummate professional placing the requisite time and effort into perfecting his craft that all fans wish of their favorite professional athletes.
(BTW – in the clip linked above, Jorge Sedano (who?!) continued to mention that LeBron James, Wade, Chris Bosh, Carmelo Anthony, Derrick Rose, and Kevin Durant all “grew” because of their experience playing in world championship tournament. Such an idiotic statement, to imply that each of those generational talents somehow reached the professional levels they did because of playing in tournaments such as this, is worth a cancelled show.)
I want to add one additional thing that has nothing to do with the top-three reasons haters of Devin Booker are wrong: Simmons called out Booker for not playing in a FIBA tournament that most American NBA fans could care less about.
Do you believe for a second that if Booker had been participating how Simmons obviously wished he was, and missed a late free throw, that Simmons wouldn’t have then poured blame on Booker for that as well?
Bill, if you or one of your staff assistants happen to read this, be honest with yourself.
Just saying.