It’s Devin Booker’s 11th season already. Do you feel old now?
He has made the case to go down as the greatest Phoenix Suns player ever, and even with his franchise at a crossroads, there was never a public hint this offseason that Booker was tired of the noise around him, probably because he’s used to it.
By the expectations Booker set early for himself, the last two years were a disappointment. He had gradually taken steps to improve, pushing to become a top-10 NBA player and putting title expectations on the Suns year after year. Now he’s working from a new foundation without Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, and he’ll need to prove he can do it all over again.
What are we at Arizona Sports expecting out of Phoenix’s leader in 2025-26? We asked our hosts and Suns experts.
Tune to Arizona Sports 98.7 and the app with the Suns’ season tipping off at 7 p.m. MST Wednesday night against the Sacramento Kings.
What do you expect this season to look like for Devin Booker, and what will it mean for his future?
Kellan Olson, Suns reporter, co-host of the Empire of the Suns podcast and Arizona Sports at Night: As the person who came up with this question, I will explain what I meant by it. I think this season will decide the future of the rest of his career. We have zero indication that the Suns need to sell Booker on their vision and long-term plans because of the loyalty and comfort with Phoenix that he continues to share. But at a certain point, the desire to win trumps anything else. I have to believe he is too competitive for it not to, even if he’s here two years longer than he needs to be, like Damian Lillard was in Portland.
If Phoenix’s culture is clear when watching them and the young guys pop in a way where you can see a playoff team coming in 2027 or 2028, great. If not, and this is some level of failure, there is no option left but for the Suns to shuffle things yet again around Booker. And that’s where you wonder if the Suns will make the decision for Booker, like they did with Durant.
For Booker himself, he has to get back to true, inarguable All-NBA form. Not in a way where he’s getting that because a few key guys are hurt. Can he do that? Is he with it on defense? Can he channel a new Nash-ian form and make his teammates better? Make it work with Jalen Green? I used to not even ask those questions. Now I feel obligated to. I would still predict for him to do all of this, but eventually that blind faith can fade.
John Gambadoro, co-host of Burns & Gambo: I think Booker will benefit from not playing with Durant and Beal and not being coached by perhaps the worst, most disconnected coach the Suns have ever had in Mike Budenholzer. For the team, I expect the Suns will be a better team and win more games than they did last season because of addition by subtraction. Younger, more athletic, with more length. Yes, they lose the scoring punch of Durant and Beal, but it is not about that.
The Suns were awful defensively, quit when things got tough and had a coach who was a complete and utter disaster. I expect this team to battle, fight for possessions, loose balls, rebounds, take charges, defend and not decide to stop playing when things are going south. And that will all bring out the best in Booker. Look, he was beaten down these last two years — it was obvious to see. He will be rejuvenated with a good mix of veterans and youth and a team that brings back the fun that was lost these last few years.
Dan Bickley, co-host of Bickley & Marotta: A lot of skeptics and critics think Booker has lost his edge, his ambition dulled by max extensions and a Nike shoe contract. I refuse to believe that. And I think Booker will regain a chunk of his reputation in the upcoming season and rank in the top three of NBA scorers in 2025-26.
Kevin Zimmerman, co-host of the Empire of the Suns podcast and digital content manager: Purposefully and unintentionally, Booker has aligned himself as an acolyte of Kobe Bryant. For better and worse, it has formed his reputation. He was the killer scorer, the same guy every night through the worst of the 2010s. To Phoenicians, he has represented loyalty in a pro sports market where big swings and misses with talent acquisitions have become commonplace.
That loyalty from both his end and the fans’ side will be tested in the next few years. Booker has not strayed from his personality that is un-Kobe-like — he is a quiet killer and seemingly patient with his teammates. For the first time since he’s broken through as a star, he can lead unbothered without looking up to other vets. On the court, he will once again, like in the 2019-20 bubble season, know when it’s his time to take the controls of a game. In a way, Durant and Beal being out of the way makes his role much clearer.
I expect he will regain that form of the No. 1 player. And now it’s time to do another thing un-Kobe-like. Pick and choose when he’s needed as No. 1 scorer and also when it’s time to be No. 1 playmaker to uplift this young team (Booker led the NBA in hockey assists last year).
Dave Burns, co-host of Burns & Gambo: I think the stats will be roughly similar. In many ways, I think it will look to be a typical Booker season to the naked eye. Points per game might be up because shot attempts will be up. I could easily see the trend of him going to the line a little bit more and certainly a career high in assists per game is on the table. Mostly, it will be Booker’s commitment to playing defense that will draw the most scrutiny. It wasn’t that long ago that he was a willing defender, whether it was for Monty Williams or at the Olympics. It’s in there, we’ve seen it. And if he has complete buy-in to Jordan Ott, we should see it again; the system demands it.
I’m also looking to see if he suffers from his typical late December-early January soft tissue injury, which is a fairly regular occurrence. Such an injury this year would cripple what slim chances this team has. As for his future? At this point, I assume he’s here, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad. He’s never shown otherwise. Perhaps, if this season goes off the rails, that changes, but I doubt it.
Mitch Vareldzis, host of Here Come the Suns and co-host of Arizona Sports at Night: I expect Booker to be the team’s leading scorer, specifically somewhere around 28 points per game with about 20 shot attempts a night. That is where he was averaging when the Suns peaked in the early part of the decade. Given there is no balancing act with him, Durant and Beal, Booker should have the full runway to be the centerpiece of the Suns once again.
Should he not return to that pre-Big 3 level, it will be nothing more than regression, and a GULP moment for that big ol’ extension kicking in a few years from now.
Luke Lapinski, co-host of Wolf & Luke: Booker’s going to go down in history as the greatest Phoenix Sun of all time when he retires, so this is already his team every year. But that label’s about to take on a whole new meaning this season. For the first time in five years, he isn’t playing alongside a surefire Hall of Famer like Paul or Durant. On top of everything he brings to the table as a player, Booker is now the undeniable leader of this organization, too. It’s a role he’s embracing, and it’s going to define the direction of this franchise moving forward.
The new players on this roster — and there are a lot — came here fully aware that Booker’s the guy. The national narrative is going to tie every success and failure that the Suns experience to him in some way. And that’s fine, because he’s not a 20-year-old trying to make a name for himself in this league like he was the last time this team was hitting a reset button. He knows who he is, he knows what he’s capable of, he’s been to the NBA Finals, he’s won Olympic gold and he’s still getting better.
Everything the Suns build now is going to be shaped around Booker, and I’m guessing most Suns fans are good with that.
Vince Marotta, co-host of Bickley & Marotta: It’s nearly impossible to find a national NBA expert who believes that Devin Booker should/will end his career in Phoenix. It’s almost nearly as fruitless to find someone in the Valley who thinks he’ll leave at some point. Year 11 is a big one for Devin Booker, obviously.
I think he’ll have the opportunity to flourish as a three-level scorer once again. He could challenge for a league scoring title. But really, this falls on leadership. Booker has proven to be an All-NBA player at different times in his career, but really for the first time since the 2019-20 Covid season, there’s no doubt that this is his team. This year is about planting the seeds of leadership so that skill is firmly established when the Suns can next claim to be contenders, which is probably two or three years down the road, optimistically.