Devin Booker is already rewarding the Suns for fulfilling his longtime wish

The Phoenix Suns have retooled their roster a lot since last season after trading away Kevin Durant and adding other players to the mix. The center position in particular has seen a huge overhaul and the Suns will enter this season with a quartet of rim-running centers. This will fit perfectly next to Devin Booker and make his playmaking responsibilities easier.

Booker has been waiting to play with true lob threats

All four of the Suns current centers - Oso Ighodaro, Khaman Maluach, Nick Richards and Mark Williams - are athletic rim rollers who are great at catching lobs. For Devin Booker and the other guards on the Suns, this should make their lives easier as they can often just throw it up for the big man to finish.

The Suns have less proven point guards on their roster than just about any other team, so anything to simplify the game for their playmakers is a huge advantage.

Athletic rim-runners have been a missing element for the Suns in recent seasons. The last two seasons, their opening-day starter was Jusuf Nurkic - a bruising big and large body, but not the best lob finisher.

Prior to that, they started Deandre Ayton for a number of years. Ayton certainly has better athleticism than Nurkic but often prefers to face up and shoot midrange jumpers rather than rolling hard to the rim.

In the Suns’ first preseason game on Friday, Devin Booker took full advantage of the Suns’ newfound athleticism at center. As the team’s de facto starting point guard, Booker threw 7 assists over the course of the game and many of them were passes that resulted in dunks from centers.

Booker reached deep into his passing game and pulled out some wraparounds to get his bigs open at the rim, in addition to more standard bounce passes and the lobs that will inevitably follow in the regular season.

Both Booker and Jalen Green, who has been named the Suns actual starting point guard, will be asked to pass the ball beyond their normal preferences this season. Both are capable of making plays for others, especially when they are doubled by opposing defenses, but it does not come as naturally to them as it would a typical NBA point guard.

The Suns’ decision to stock up on so many high-flying and hard-dunking centers will make the offense a lot simpler for their decision makers.

There’s also an added advantage of rim-running bigs not trying to do too much beyond their role. With guys like Ayton, they are more liable to try inefficient shots out of their own ego but the Suns’ new corps of centers is happy to reset the offense rather than force a jumper or ill-advised post sequence.