Ben Garcia from the Locked on Suns<\/a> stream, who had the following to say about the idea of Booker stepping back in order for Green to grow:<\/p>\n\u201cWhat if Jalen Green turns into a 25-point per game player and ascends past Devin Booker, and Devin Booker turns into the Big Shot Maker. That is stupid in my opinion because Jalen Green has never shot over 42% in a season.\u201d<\/p>\n
He went on to add, \u201cAsking Devin Booker to take a step back, like that\u2019s crazy. No one would ever tell a four or five-time All-Star to take a back seat to a guy who has never been an All-Star, never really contributed to winning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight.<\/p>\n
Ben is caught up in what he thinks Devin Booker should be. It would be crazy to ask Devin Booker to take a back seat in any offense. That\u2019s not what I think Gil meant. I think he meant the Suns would be better if Jalen Green were their leading scorer, and he\u2019s right.<\/p>\n
The Suns don\u2019t need Devin Booker to be less involved in the offense; they need him to change the role he plays in the offense. Or the role he\u2019s traditionally played. You don\u2019t have to look any further than last year\u2019s playoffs when Mike Brown asked Karl-Anthony Towns to take on a different role to see the proof of concept. If Jordan Ott did ask Booker to take on a different role in order to impact winning, he wouldn\u2019t be the only coach who\u2019s done so. Calipari at Kentucky asked Book to come off the bench. Kerr asked Book to be the glue guy to bring a collection of great talent into a cohesive team. Two championship-caliber coaches saw the value in Devin Booker\u2019s greatest attribute behind the butter-smooth jumper. Devin Booker is an egoless (super)star who has the team-first mentality and the basketball IQ to adjust his game to suit the needs of the team.<\/p>\n
The Suns don\u2019t have to build the team around Devin Booker the way you have to build a team around LeBron or Luka. Teammates don\u2019t have to be asked to fill a narrow role and sacrifice their game in order for Booker to get off his. This is important because the Suns have an optimization problem at the top of the payroll.<\/p>\n
Jalen Green did not play as well for the Suns as he played on the Rockets. There are reasons for that. It\u2019s the injury, it\u2019s coming in late onto a team that had already gelled, but it\u2019s also the role they asked Jalen Green to play. Jalen Green\u2019s game didn\u2019t blossom off of Booker\u2019s gravity the way Brooks\u2019 game did. My opinion is that\u2019s because Jalen Green is a one, not a two. It is debatable where Jalen Green falls on the ladder of NBA ones, he hasn\u2019t been an all-star yet, he\u2019s certainly not a better one than Booker, but he was the leading scorer and shot-taker on a Rockets team that landed a two seed and won two play-off games. All four years on the Rockets, Jalen Green took the most shots on the team.<\/p>\n
While Booker remains one of the more potent scorers in the league, the eye test tells that something is changing with Booker\u2019s jumpshot. He doesn\u2019t look as confident, he isn\u2019t getting it off in traffic like he used to, he\u2019s hunting fouls because he doesn\u2019t trust it. Beyond the much-talked-about three-point shooting woes last year, Devin Booker put up his lowest field goal percentage since the 2017 season. The year before that, he also put up his lowest field goal percentage since the 2017 season. He covered up for it by putting up a career-high 8.1 free throw attempts a game. In the playoffs, the Thunder took him out of the game. I don\u2019t care how good the Thunder were; when has there ever been a playoff series in which Devin Booker couldn\u2019t get shots up?<\/p>\n
Jalen Green, with all his flaws, has young legs. He can get into the lane at will. He can elevate above the crowd. He\u2019s a three-level scorer with elite athleticism that\u2019s tough to stop when the ball\u2019s in his hand. At his best, he\u2019s a score-first guy. The questionable shot selection, the limited playmaking, and the ball-stopping are all a part of his game, but the Suns need him to be aggressive.<\/p>\n
This season\u2019s puzzle is an optimization problem. How do you get the most out of Booker while still getting the most out of Green, Brooks, Bridges, and Gillespie? The Suns won\u2019t win as many games as fans expect next season if they get the Jalen Green they had last season. He produced below his career averages in points and assists. Devin Booker is special with the ball in his hands, but so was CP3. CP3 didn\u2019t have to be the leading scorer to be the best player on the floor. Neither does Devin Booker.<\/p>\n
If the Suns need Jalen Green to be aggressive, they need Booker to be efficient. There\u2019s hope that the addition of a fourth shot creator in Bridges will force defenses to be less aggressive in targeting Booker, but I\u2019m not optimistic on that front. Running more plays for Booker is going to lead to more of the same from opposing defenses. More contested jumpers, more walk-up threes, more misses, fewer buckets. The Suns can run more plays through Jalen Green, and eventually, the rush-Booker-every-time-he-touches-the-ball game plan won\u2019t make sense anymore. Devin Booker doesn\u2019t need more shots; he needs better shots.<\/p>\n
We all know Ishbia is a Michigan man so when I try to prognosticate on what vision he has for his Suns teams I go to the Detroit Pistons. Initially, my mind ran to the Bad Boy Pistons with Booker playing Zeke, but there was another championship Pistons team in 2004. Led by Chauncey Billups, but led in scoring by Rip Hamilton. As of the time I\u2019m writing this, one of them is in the Naithsmith Hall of Fame, and the other isn\u2019t. It wasn\u2019t the leading scorer that got inducted.<\/p>\n
Is Jalen Green the perfect fit next to Devin Booker? Maybe not, but unless something shocking happens, Jalen Green is who they have. If the Suns are serious about winning a playoff series this season, they\u2019re going to need to get 25 points a game from Jalen Green because teams are no longer allowing Booker to go off on them. Will there be nights when Booker makes a run at a 50 spot? Of course, there will. But not in the playoffs. The Thunder showed us what\u2019s going to happen in the playoffs. Adding Miles Bridges doesn\u2019t change that. The rise of Jalen Green will.<\/p>\n
Booker is one of the most adaptable superstars in NBA history. The Suns should consider what a different role would open up, not just in opportunities for his teammates, but in him finding more space to get his own shot off as well.<\/p>\n
Is it time for Book to pass the torch and take up a different role on this team than he has on past teams? I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s what Ott has planned. I just know that if he asks. Book will do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What did Mat Ishbia and the Suns pay Devin Booker to do? That\u2019s the question Suns fans need…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":966735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[1260,62,9436,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-966734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports","tag-suns-analysis","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117003190780827218","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=966734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/966735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=966734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=966734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=966734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}