The Phoenix Suns would be lost without their franchise cornerstone in Devin Booker, but that does not mean there is no room for improvement for the 29-year-old.
Despite being an elite offensive player capable of making all manner of difficult shots, he has never been a consistent 3-point shooter. Looking at his numbers across the board, and it is unclear how his shooting prowess has never translated beyond the arc, despite passing the free-throw metric with flying colors.
Booker's free-throw shooting should make him better from deep
It has long been accepted that for special and high volume scorers there is a link between high free-throw percentage and being able to light it up from time-to-time beyond the arc. Only Booker flips that trend on its head, a career 87.3 percent free-throw shooter who has only connected on 35.2 percent of his efforts from deep.
What makes Booker more of an anomaly here is his own teammate Grayson Allen, who in his first season in The Valley led the entire league in 3-point shooting (46.1 percent). His own career average from the charity stripe a still respectable 85.7 percent, despite taking less than two attempts each night.
Contrast that with Booker, who has gotten to the line a whopping 8.1 times per game and still has a higher career average in this area. How do you explain a failure to improve across over a decade then?
Booker has always been more comfortable doing his work in the midrange, and it is clear Kobe Bryant had a huge influence on him growing up. Hard as it may be to believe (and boy does it make us feel old), the 3-point evolution was still a relatively new idea when Booker entered the league as well.
The Golden State Warriors having only proven the year before he touched down in The Valley that you could win a championship by spreading the floor and making enough shots from deep. Having Stephen Curry sure helped as well.
Booker also receives most of the defense's attention on any given night as well, and the proof of this can be seen in the 33 percent he managed on 5.8 attempts in 2025-26. The first without Kevin Durant since 2023 (when he connected on 36.4 percent of his attempts), while taking fewer than the 7.1 of a season ago as well.
With teammates such as Mark Williams and Dillon Brooks, it is no wonder there was less space on the court for the five-time All-Star to operate. Creating his own shot and bailing his team out of bad possessions also returned to the menu more consistently as well.
Hard to do all of that while also upping your productivity from 3-point range.
It is not too late for Booker to extend his game some, and perhaps that will come with age. Some will still argue he should be a better shooter from deep, just because of how good a player he is. Just don't expect his abilities from the free-throw line to be any indicator.
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