Looking back on last season, Devin Booker seems to be the most regrettable of all the league stars, and he is only a few wins away from the final O'Brien Trophy. But even after the ultimate defeat, the amazing performances of Devin Booker and his Phoenix Suns throughout the season deserve our respect.
As a young team, they have made great strides in the West last season, under Paul's command, Devin Booker has performed wildly on the outside, young Ayton has been fighting on the inside, including Bridges on the flanks, Payne Jr. on the bench and others, each of the team has played their own energy in their respective positions, and finally became the only winner in the West that surprised everyone.
As the team's number one scorer, Devin Booker is the brain core of this team.
During the regular season last season, Devin Booker contributed 25.6 points, 4.2 assists and 4.2 rebounds on the field with 48.9 percent and 86.7 percent shooting and free throw percentages. By the time of the playoffs, his shooting percentage and free throw shooting percentage reached 45.6% and 90.5%, and his personal average per game reached 27.3 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.5 assists.
Of all the averages per game, all of Devin Booker's numbers have seen a certain increase during the playoffs, with the exception of a certain decline in free throw shooting. As the young player's first playoff trip, although he had some young people's inexperiencies in some rounds, overall, he delivered far more performances throughout the playoff schedule than we expected at the beginning.
As his teammate, veteran Chris Paul is still the well-deserved organizational commander of this team, and the young Ayton has also taken on the task of the core pillar to the greatest extent on the inside. With the full cooperation of their core trio, although the opponents faced in each series can find ways to target them in some aspects, they have never been able to truly defeat them in the entire series.
For Devon Booker's performance in the team, when he really found his own personal offensive rhythm on the field, almost no defender in the opponent's team could complete the limit on him. Whether it's a personal breakthrough or a steady shot on the court, these extreme personal skills make his singles on the field a very stable scoring part of the team.
We look back at his performance throughout the playoffs, in the first game with the Lakers in the first round, Devin Booker personally scored 34 points on the offensive end, and contributed 31 points to the team in the second game, and in the final life and death battle of the first round of the playoffs, the individual crazy scored 47 points and 11 assists, successfully helping the team eliminate the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers.
In the second round of the playoffs, Devin Booker also handed over a super triple-double of 40 points, 11 assists and 13 rebounds. After reaching the stage of the Finals, he contributed 40+ super scoring performances in the fourth and fifth consecutive games.
As the absolute scoring core of the team, in the game where the team lacked Paul, he also took on the organizational task of ensuring his offensive ability. So we can see that until now, head coach Monti has also begun to put Devin Booker in an organizational defender role to some extent, trying to develop his organizational skills.
For the future, considering the aging Chris Paul, Devin Booker will inevitably take on more tasks on the organizational side of this team, even when there is Payne Jr. or Paul around him, he can also take on certain roles in the offensive organization.
It is also thanks to his performance in this regard that we can clearly see his organizational progress in recent seasons, compared to the 19-20 seasons averaged 6.5 assists per game, his average number of assists per game in the 20-21 season has declined to a certain extent, but considering the emergence of players like Paul and Payne Jr. in the second team around him, it is actually not bad that he can hand over such assist data in such a situation.
From the beginning of the new season to the present, Devin Booker has contributed 5.1 assists per game for the team, and this statistic has once again returned to his peak performance. This is largely due to the head coach's role adjustment for the new season, and such a change should be a good signal for him and for the whole team.
Back on the offensive end, Devin Booker's most famous mid-range jumper remains his most consistent scoring weapon on the field. When he gets a shot in the middle distance, he is basically able to score points for the team steadily. Judging by his percentage of shots last season, more than 70 percent of his shots came from two-pointers in the mid-range zone, and his shot conversion score rate was as high as 54.1 percent.
But when the Suns face an opponent who falls into a positional offense on the defensive end, Booker doesn't seem to be as easy on the court to personally and independently complete the mid-range scoring shot, so in this case, he will choose more from the outside of the three-point shooting. But the 35 percent three-point shooting percentage that averages his entire career isn't too good, and that's a serious problem. Even in his best 17-18 season, he shot just 38.3 percent from three-point range. As of his current performance, his three-point shooting rate is only 36.9%, and in such a team that aims to impact the championship, as the team's core shooting guard, Devin Booker's performance is far from enough.
This is also the direction he needs to continue to work in the subsequent games.
So far in the new season, Booker has averaged 23 points, 6.2 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 1.1 steals per game. For his subsequent games, we hope he will continue to be able to maintain this offensive ability in the middle distance and continue to improve his scoring aspect. If he can continue to improve the organizational skills we mentioned above in such a situation, and to a certain extent, maintain his current excellent performance in defense. Then for the Phoenix Suns this season, their future prospects are more and more invented.
Simply put, the current Devon Booker is the absolute lower limit of this team, as long as he is strong enough, the team can go far enough.