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Three games is an aggressively small sample size, but make no mistake about it: Devin Booker is showing early signs that this will be the most complete scoring season of his career.
It didn’t take reaching Year 8 for Booker to become an elite scorer; he’s already been that for a while now. When the Phoenix Suns finally presented him with above-average point guards in Ricky Rubio and then Chris Paul, Book proceeded to lead the league in points per touch for three straight years among all high-usage players.
However, as efficient as Booker was playing off the ball, he didn’t always get his buckets in the easiest ways. His free-throw attempts dropped once CP3 arrived in the Valley, he didn’t get to the rim as much, and even with last year’s surge in 3-point attempts, he still relied heavily on the midrange.
Through the first three games of the 2022-23 campaign, Booker has flashed growth in forcing the issue to create easier shots — even if he’s been coy about his specific focus coming into the year.
When Chris Paul offered that even superstars will always have areas for improvement until they go 82-0 and post perfect shooting percentages, Booker took it a step further last week.
“Even if you did that, there’s still improvements to this game,” he said. “That’s the beauty of it. You talk to anybody, nobody feels like they’ve mastered this game.”
Okay, but where exactly does Devin Booker want to improve in Year 8?
“Win more games than we did last year,” he said with a smirk. “That’s what it’s about, yeah.”
The soon-to-be 26-year-old may not be volunteering any information, but his play so far is doing it for him. For the latest Bourguet Breakdown, let’s take a quick look at the early, encouraging indicators that Booker is ready to make yet another stride.
Devin Booker is still good at what he does
Coach Monty Williams hinted at the key after the Suns’ double-digit win over the LA Clippers.
“When he’s knocking down shots, obviously it’s something to watch, but I thought the quality of shots he had was right where we like to be,” Williams told AZ Central’s Duane Rankin. “It wasn’t forced, it wasn’t outside of the offense. We were just playing in 0.5 and he was getting good looks and then he can create his own.”
Through the first three games of the season, Booker is averaging 32.0 points, 5.3 assists and 3.3 rebounds per game on .531/.529/.950 shooting splits.
Aside from Booker’s blistering shooting percentages, the first thing that jumps out from his stat sheet is that he’s kept his 3-point attempts high. After an ugly comeback win against the Dallas Mavericks where he only took one triple, Book has attempted seven and nine in the next two games. His current average of 5.7 per game is skewed by that season opener, but it should continue to climb closer to the 7.0 per game he averaged last year.
His percentage of catch-and-shoot looks is nearly identical to where it was all of last season, but that’s actually a positive, considering how often Paul has been playing off the ball. Even with the Point God ceding some of the ball-handling and playmaking duties, the Suns have been able to find Booker for clean 3-point looks:
Booker’s frequency of pull-up 3s has also dipped from 18.2 percent last year to 12.5 percent so far this season.
Again, three games is a microscopic sample size, but even the 3s he’s attempted off the bounce have usually only involved one or two dribbles to relocate or set himself up for an open look, at which point they may as well be set shots.
And in case anyone was wondering, Devin Booker is still an elite midrange scorer. His combination of shot fakes, footwork, turnarounds, spin moves and dribbles weaving through the lane while keeping defenders on his hip would make Kobe Bryant proud.
The numbers back up his efficiency there too: According to Cleaning The Glass, Booker is shooting 50 percent from the midrange so far — up from last year’s 46 percent mark, and just shy of his career-high 51 percent conversion rate the year prior.
However, as effective as Book’s been from his favorite area of the floor, the key to his early success has actually been a slight decline in his attempts from there. Only 43 percent of his shots have come from the midrange, which is a 10 percent decrease from last year, per Cleaning The Glass.
With his midrange and 3-point attempts slightly down, his shots around the rim have picked up the slack.
Book drives
Last year, Booker drove the ball 9.7 times per game. Through three games this season, he’s nearly doubled that number, with 17.3 drives per game. That’s the sixth-most drives per game in the NBA entering Monday’s slate, trailing only Ja Morant, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, De’Aaron Fox, Trae Young and Kevin Porter Jr.
According to Cleaning The Glass, which filters out garbage time, Booker has taken 33 percent of his shots at the rim — more than doubling last year’s 15 percent mark. His 58 percent conversion rate on those shots could still improve, but that factors in a few missed bunnies, and the increased volume helps make up for it.
Williams said Booker’s work in the weight room has helped his body embrace more contact around the basket.
“Devin’s been around so long, sometimes you forget he’s still a young player, but I think he’s moving into the early parts of his prime, and that’s where you become your strongest,” Williams said. “You’re starting to see his ability to get there and take punishment, or go past the punishment and dunk the ball.”
That downhill mentality is boosting the quality of his looks on pull-ups. With defenses scrambling to cut off his drives to the rim, Booker’s been able to feel how heavily his defender is leaning in one direction, stop on a dime, and take a virtually uncontested shot in the short midrange.
It’s also helping him generate easy points at the foul line. After attempting only 5.9 and 5.3 free throws per game over the last two seasons, Book is back up to 6.7 per game so far this year. On drives specifically, Booker is averaging 4.7 free-throw attempts, which is the fourth-best mark in the NBA.
“It’s only a few games, but his ability to attack the basket and finish should be an asset for us,” Williams said. “Hopefully, it’s him getting to the free-throw line more so we can set our defense and be able to change up our defenses if we need to.”
All in all, Booker is averaging 13.3 drive points per game (fourth in the NBA) and shooting 61.9 percent on those drives.
From Williams’ perspective, the array of easy layups and dunks is a byproduct of Booker’s ability to simply make quicker decisions when dissecting the defensive coverage opponents throw at him.
“The times where he makes the quick decisions to attack, I think that’s when we are our most lethal in that environment,” Williams said. “So many teams are running two guys at him. If he has an isolation situation, they’re hitting or blitzing from the backside. When he’s able to just attack it before they can change the defense, I think it really helps him and us.”
Playing up-tempo to keep defenses off-guard is a slight change of pace for a guy who’s perfectly comfortable slithering through defenses until he gets to his sweet spot in the midrange.
“He’s been really decisive, but the pace which he’s attacking with, the aggressiveness — he’s drawing fouls, he’s creating for others, but he’s coming off those quick drives flying to the basket, or wherever he’s trying to get to,” Cam Johnson said. “He’s really been carving teams up like that.”
From Booker’s perspective, it’s just a matter of finding new ways to punish opponents for whatever way they choose to defend him.
“I’m just trying to be aggressive, man,” he said. “Impose my will, do what I have to do to make plays for my team, and understanding that I cause a lot of gravity and try to get my teammates easier shots, but at the same time, make defenses pay.”
The playmaking component
When probed about where Booker could improve this season, Williams suggested that when it comes to top-10 players, it’s about how they impact those around them.
With all the attention being paid to his drives, Booker has been able to find Deandre Ayton for dump-offs or locate shooters like Johnson in the corners. It’s the type of “paint-to-great” looks Williams always preaches about as a staple of Phoenix’s offense:
“It’s not that much of a change from how he’s always played, but the decisiveness is up, and that pace, attacking with that pace, it’s been impressive to watch,” Johnson said. “And I’m the beneficiary of that pace a lot of the time, where I’m kind of lurking, ready for a shot, ready for an opportunistic drive, ready to play off of it.”
Step one is typically getting the ball out of Booker’s hands — a constant goal for defenses, but also for the Suns once he’s able to identify the double-team or trap being sent his way.
“That’s a tough thing to do when you’re trying to survey, ’cause in your head, you might be in audible mode, you don’t know what’s coming,” Williams explained. “But he’s done a good job of attacking it, and I think the guys around him are getting to their spots quicker, so he knows where his teammates are.”
Booker is averaging 5.3 assists per game so far, and his assist percentage on drives (7.7 percent) only ranks 23rd out of 41 players with at least 30 drives so far this season. Still, keeping the ball moving in the face of those blitzes keeps Phoenix’s offense humming.
“I think that’s something that we’ve really worked on, something that we’ve really tried to implement in our game, and it’s also something that we’ve seen so much — those double-teams, those hits, those blitzes off pick-and-roll,” Johnson said. “We’ve seen a ton of ’em over the past couple years, and we’re just getting better at playing out of it.”
Johnson and Mikal Bridges’ increased emphasis on handling the ball and creating more offense certainly helps, but so does Booker’s meager 5.8 turnover percentage on drives. He may not be racking up a ton of direct assists, but he’s not turning it over much either, and the ball is finding the open man more times than not.
Booker has 35 potential assists on the season (tied for 15th in the league). He believes the ball movement and spacing will get even better as time goes along with this new starting lineup.
“It’s just tough to guard,” he said. “I think we have a real efficient shooting team all around, and the better quality shots that we get, the more we make. So it’s our jobs, me and Chris and the other playmakers on the team, to cause that attention and make sure everybody stays involved and everybody gets good looks.”
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