Booker & Durant in hot water with Suns fans for what they did after Pacers loss

In a season that appears to be lurching from one disaster to the next for the Phoenix Suns, their run of losses continued Saturday with a defeat at the hands of the Indiana Pacers. A loss that somehow puts this group at 7-17, after a hot 8-1 start that had the entire league taking notice.

That feels like a long time ago now - and although there are some reasons for optimism in The Valley - an increasing number of fans now want to blow this thing up. Be careful what you wish for though, because as older fans of this franchise will tell you, it can be a long way back to relevancy once you're a rebuilding organization.

Devin Booker and Kevin Durant aren't helping matters either.

It is great that both are healthy and out there hooping at the moment, although in another way perhaps it is not. At least then the Suns would have the excuse of injury as they have at other times this season, but their top three players are healthy. Royce O'Neale and his ankle sprain the only issue of any concern on that front at the moment.

We know Booker and Durant are friends, and that they are also people at the end of the day as well. They get paid exceptionally well to play basketball, but it is just that. Basketball. Still, they probably shouldn't have been caught on camera doing this ahead of the final buzzer going on what was their fourth straight loss to leave them languishing 12th in the Western Conference.

This could have been for any number of reasons, yet the timing of this could not have been worse. Booker in particular has come in for a lot of criticism this season because he does not look close to the dominant scorer that we have seen him be in the past. Certainly not the leading man on a team that went to the NBA Finals in 2021.

There is now a very real possibility that Booker won't make the All-Star game this season for what would be his fourth time - Durant will get there through fan voting - and although that might not sound like a big deal, it kind of is. The Suns continue to slip further away from relevancy, and Booker not getting the fan or coach's vote to get in would confirm that the slip shows no signs of stopping.

Durant might still be playing at an incredible level at 36-years-old, and he should enjoy every moment he has left in this league. But is this really what he had in mind when he landed in Phoenix? Nowhere near adding a third ring and with the increasingly likely possibility of having to navigate the play-in tournament just to get back to the playoffs this season.

It is not a good thing that he was their best player of 2024, and help in the form of Jimmy Butler doesn't look like it is on the way either. Perhaps it would have been better to keep the laughing and joking around to the locker-room. Booker said in the aftermath that the vibes were not high with this group right now. Sure doesn't seem like it in the above picture. Fans have every right to be annoyed.