One more record Devin Booker can break
Believe it or not, Devin Booker has a chance at being a better free throw shooter than one of the greatest ever: Steve Nash – at least for one season.
A career 90.4% shooter from the line, and 90.7 in his 10 seasons with the Phoenix Suns, in 2019-10, Nash set the franchise-record by shooting 93.8% from the charity stripe – although on a totally disrespectful 2.6 made on 2.8 attempts per game (211-225).
Phoenix Suns
Such an incredibly low number for a superstar point guard averaging 32.8 minutes per game over 81 games played.
Devin Booker has already blown by Nash’s total makes and attempts in just 52 games (347-377), for a fantastic 92.0% average – already fourth best in franchise-history behind three Steve Nash seasons.
Booker is currently averaging 6.7 makes on 7.3 attempts, both career-highs.
Presuming that he continues to average 7.3 attempts per game (and plays in all 27 games the rest of the year), to break Nash’s record (like Tom Chambers – by a hair), Book would need to finish 542-577 on the year to reach 93.9%.
Unfortunately, that would mean, 195-200 over the final 27 games.
Missing some games does not really amp up the difficulty all that much since the margin for error is so small anyway.
Even if Booker missed five games (finishing the year with 74 games played), but still averaged his current 7.3 attempts per game, to break the record, he would have to finish 507-541, meaning that he could only miss 4 free throws the rest of the year, 160-164.
Either way it would be very difficult – although certainly, not impossible.
The Phoenix Suns are likely going to miss the playoffs (their elimination number is 22), and Devin Booker has yet to really have one of those incredible blow-you-away game that we have all come to expect.
However, his consistency could lead to him breaking a couple of major franchise-records, which along with his All-Star nod, could still end up making this season quite memorable.