If you’re reading this then we don’t need to go through Dillon Brooks’ impact in his first season with the Phoenix Suns again. He was great, we all know it and even had an outside chance of being an All-Star for the first time.
Brooks named among NBA player’s most overrated
Yet despite this Brooks still somehow made his way onto The Athletic’s list of most overrated players in the league, as voted by 151 of the players themselves. Make it make sense.
You could make the case this is just rival players using the opportunity to put Brooks down because of what a pain he is to play against and how he clearly doesn’t care what anybody else in the NBA thinks about him. He’s not here to make friends.
His antics can sometimes verge on theatrical and the technical fouls remain an issue it would be great to see him eradicate from his game. Only that’s part of what makes him who he is and that level of intensity helped the Suns make it back to the playoffs.
Receiving 2.5 percent of the total votes, and despite his former team in the Houston Rockets trending in the wrong direction as soon as he left, the NBA somehow still does not understand the importance of having Brooks on your team.
Even more puzzling is the fact he averaged a career high 20.2 points per game and was the Suns’ most clutch player in their postseason sweep at the hands of the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Those same players and fans who don’t get it can point to the fact that Brooks’ scoring isn’t always incredibly efficient while he sometimes tries to assume more of a responsibility in the offense.
Only with Devin Booker having a quiet campaign by his standards and Jalen Green struggling for consistency because of a hamstring issue that would not go away, the Suns often turned to Brooks for inspiration which he usually provided.
He was brought to The Valley to raise the floor of this roster and improve the group on the defensive end, and he did exactly that with the Suns flirting with being a top 10 defense for part of the campaign. Not bad for a team that most expected to struggle to win 30 games.
You don’t have to like Dillon Brooks. If anything this poll proves that most don’t. But in a year in which is had the most responsibility of his career with an organization that looked to be going nowhere, he answered the call in every way imaginable and more.
What the Rockets would have given to have that guy on the court during their own playoff series loss to a 41-year-old, with Kevin Durant instead missing for much of the series. If anything Brooks has become underrated at this point.
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