The regular season is drawing to a close, with the Phoenix Suns riding the charts with a record of 57 wins and 14 losses, and they are the only team in the league that currently has 50+ wins, breaking the record of 62 wins in team history.
According to statistics, in the past four games, the Suns Booker averaged 32.7 minutes per game, could get 30.3 points, 3.8 rebounds, 6.3 assists, 1.5 steals, shooting 55.2% from the field, 41.2% from three-point range, and led the team to 4 consecutive wins!
Under normal circumstances, the record and data double harvest, MVP trophy is basically in the bag, but what I did not expect was that Booker's position on the latest MVP ranking did not rise but fell, Jokic, Embiid and Alphabet Brother still occupied the top three seats, and the record of these three teams was not the first in the division, and the Nuggets even had the danger of falling into the playoffs, so some people were uneven: the MVP selection was too subjective, the small ball market was not welcomed, and Booker was treated unfairly...
In the 2020 park rematch, the Suns once achieved a full victory record, but because the previous record was too poor, or failed to reach the playoffs, after paul's joining directly brought the team to win culture, Booker and Ayton two potential stars also achieved a qualitative breakthrough, the first time in their careers to enter the playoffs on the finals stage, unfortunately lost to the Bucks led by the alphabet brother.
For Booker, he is the core figure of the rise of the sun and an important chip to remain competitive in the future, but in the peak stage of the team, he unfortunately encountered the "triple spell", and it is not surprising that he will accompany him for a long time.
1. The image of "data brush" has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people
From the beginning of entering the league, Booker has been crowned as a "scorer" and regarded himself as a "Kobe disciple", but players of Kobe's style, if they can't show enough maturity and leadership boldness, then it is easy to enter the strange circle of empty data but unable to lead the team to win, and Booker was bound by this strange circle at the beginning of his career.
In a game against the Celtics in 2017, Booker shot 21 of 40 and slashed 70 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists on 24 of 26 free throws, directly breaking Jordan's career high scoring record in a single game, but embarrassingly, the Suns lost the game 120-130, and even the garbage time remained on the court to brush points, such a result directly defined Booker's career.
In fact, for an outside player who is good at scoring and will not organize, it is often accompanied by the inherent impression of "lack of leadership", such as Anthony, Leonard and even Durant, and now Booker is obviously facing such a problem, everyone's understanding of him is still a "brush" that will only score, even in the 13 games that Paul is absent, the Sun win rate is as high as 69.2%, which is also the credit of the head coach and the team as a whole, as for The core leader of Booker, he can only selectively ignore it.
2. Live in the shadow of St. Paul
Although Paul is absent, the Suns still maintain a good record and winning rate, but no one will be stupid enough to question his existence value, Paul has averaged 14.9 points, 4.5 rebounds, 10.7 assists and 1.9 steals per game this season, is the league's current assist king, ranking second in the steals list, 10.5 net efficiency value of the team first, can be described as attack and defense, as well as historical leadership ability.
He plays a calm role in the team, and the reason why the Sun can get on the right track is that he is in front of his teammates to pave the way, whether it is fans, media, or experts from all walks of life are very aware of this.
So what about Booker? His position is very embarrassing, the Suns have been identified as a "backcourt double core" team, and the real soul figure is Still Paul, you know, the Golden State Warriors were so strong that they were destroyed, and because of the internal friction between Curry and Durant, the team could not appear MVP and a player, not to mention the Suns whose ass is not sitting hot now.
According to Paul's state, he can play at least two more seasons, and as long as Paul does not take a day off the second line, Booker must live in his shadow, even if in fact the latter has the ability to stand alone.
3. There is no playing style with distinct personal characteristics
Booker's technical characteristics are typical of the scoring guard play, but his style is not obviously pioneering, for example, Harden in the Rockets in the rocket to do the concept of "holding the ball big core" to the extreme, in addition to the average score per year 30+, three consecutive scoring kings, but also got 50 + 15 + 15 and 60 + 10 + 10 earth-shattering data, comparable to all kinds of ancient mythical beasts.
The same is the unfair treatment of the "with the deng", when the Rockets successfully won the first place in the league in 2018, the judges no longer have any reason not to give the MVP trophy to Harden.
In contrast, now Booker, he only has a "mixed with impurities" record, at the personal level neither too many season masterpieces, average data per game also lacks enough convincing, not to mention the league's strong object, and we still have a distance from the MVP in our impression.
On the other hand, as the best of the quarterbacks, Booker is not yet a top figure on the defensive end, jordan, Kobe Bryant and Wade can be recognized, all based on their offensive and defensive characteristics, if these people can only play an important role on the offensive end, it is impossible to reach the current heights, which is also applicable to Booker.
Perhaps on the surface, MVP is only a comprehensive evaluation honor of record and data, but in fact it represents "the proportion of importance occupied by a player in winning", Booker carries these "three spells", it is normal to not be able to touch the MVP trophy, and it is normal to be able to decide the honor from a deeper perspective, which just shows the league's caution and progress in the MVP selection.