Phoenix Suns: Top-Five Best First Round Picks of the last Decade

1. Devin Booker – WS 12.2 (.060)

Drafted 13th overall in 2015

Playing on absolutely (and intentionally) awful teams for the first four years of his career has hurt his reputation and some very specific stats (for instance, his Win Share is only 11th in his draft class), and yet Devin Booker holds the second-highest scoring average of his class behind only best friend Karl-Anthony Towns, the second-best assists average at 4.4 per game behind only other best friend D’Angelo Russell, and is the only player in that class – and most classes – to have scored 70 points in a single game.

Phoenix Suns

In a generally deep draft up top (KAT and Russ were taken one and two and Kristaps Porzingis taken fourth), it is amazing to see some of the other names selected ahead of Book: Mario Hezonja, Willie Cauley-Stein, Emmanuel Mudiay, Stanley Johnson, Frank Kaminsky just to name a few.

Booker should have never been available when Ryan McDonough was on the clock, although there is no way that McDonough could have ever imagined the statistical output that Booker would eventually put up.

And he is only improving.

He is currently shooting a career-high 39.1% from beyond the arc, his Offensive Rating is the best it has ever been at 113 (although his Defensive Rating is still poor at 114, it is the second-lowest of his career), and his Win Share per-48min is nearly double his previous career-high now at .121 putting him on pace for 9.5 this season which would be triple his previous high.

If Deandre Ayton can stay on the court, and James Jones can find him another star teammate, Booker will finally see the spike in wins that he – and the fan base – so desperately deserves.