PHOENIX — You might see a career-high 29.2 points per game on 47.4% shooting as a return to form for Phoenix Suns franchise guard Devin Booker, but the numbers fail to accurately tell the tale of his poor week to kick off this season.
Booker’s signature attribute of an unfazed game, a cool customer regardless of the frantic defensive gameplans instilled to stop him, has instead been replaced by a guy who very much does look out of kilter. In an alarming way.
He is not one to hide behind the stats. Booker described his play in the opener on 10-of-19 shooting for 31 points as “nasty.” It was a similar performance in Wednesday’s loss.
It is the most nasty at the time in a game when he has been consistently elite — the opening dozen minutes.
Year after year, Booker has been one of the best in the league at starting on the right foot. In points per first quarter the last seven seasons, he has ranked 16th (49.5 FG%), fifth (50.7%), sixth (47.3%), second (49.3%), fourth (51.8%), eighth (52.3%) and third (48.7%), respectively.
Entering play on Thursday, he is tied for 59th and is shooting 32%.
“Just getting acquainted,” Booker said on what he attributes the severe downtick to. “It’s another new system, we’re five games in still trying to figure out each other, spacing — and just making shots. I feel like I had some good ones in the first quarter that didn’t go down.”
Booker by quarter goes from 32% to 37.5% to 59.4% to 57.1%, respectively. Again, we are five (5) games in. Every night is different and it has been a week. But it’s now top of mind as to how he can find his rhythm before things naturally go haywire for the rest of the team in these sloppy and often bad first halves.
Let’s run down a list of what potentially could be wrong.
The easiest and most obvious answer is Phoenix’s current roster, which has also been shorthanded to begin the year. Jalen Green (right hamstring strain) has yet to play, and even when he’s in, Booker is far and away the best ball-handler, playmaker, initiator, whatever you want to call it. This was a major concern coming into the year, that with a talent-deprived group, Booker had to be maximized to his fullest in order for this team to threaten for a win total beyond the low 30s.
Instead, he’s shouldering the entire burden, and it shows. His turnover percentage of 15.8% would be the highest of his career, even dating back to when he was learning on the fly with far less experience and far fewer capable players surrounding him. Phoenix is giving up 27.4 points off turnovers a night, four more than any other team and a mark that would easily be the league’s most in NBA.com’s stats database that goes back over 25 years.
Collin Gillespie has had a strong start to the season, the type of point guard you’d theoretically like to see with Booker more often. But in an admittedly small sample size through 69 minutes of five games, the Suns’ offensive rating with those two on the floor together is 109.6, slightly below Phoenix’s current ORtg of 110.7 that is 25th leaguewide. And once Green is healthy, that’s far too small of a lineup to use at the start of games. Instead, the hope will be when Green comes back, Gillespie takes the minutes when Green rests to play alongside Booker and give him a more complementary backcourt mate.
It’s also spacing. Mark Williams will provide major relief as the guy easily taking in the most gravity of an opposing defense behind Booker. Beyond him, there’s no other threat help defenders are sweating about leaving too much room. While Phoenix has capable and even good shooters, most of the time they are being left open. Even Grayson Allen, an excellent one, has his helper sometimes drifting inward.
With all those factors, are Booker’s turnovers more decision-making or spacing in his eyes?
“Decision-making more than spacing,” he said. “[I have to] control the ball a lot better than I’ve been doing.”
There’s also the context of where we’re at, as Booker already stated. Not only is it injuries, with Dillon Brooks missing the last two fixtures as well, but this is an entirely new program a week in that had to work from behind with two of its most three important players missing the entire preseason. The time for panic isn’t coming up anytime soon.
But on the opposite side of that, many who have watched Booker over the entirety of his time in the Valley predicted a major bounce-back season this year, myself included. The putrid ecosystem he found himself in the last two seasons clearly dragged him down. With that said, when is he going to rise up out of that sludge, a sludge he somehow avoided almost entirely to start his career? For now, the wait continues, and it’s a few weeks away from feeling elongated.