The Suns are already in Booker’s age-30 season, and the early line on it arrived Wednesday night in a rough way: a 124-83 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers. Devin Booker still put up 23 points on 7-of-13 shooting, but the bigger picture is where things get interesting now. On October 30th, he turns 30, and this is the stage where he keeps climbing through the Suns’ record book.
If Booker stays in Phoenix for the rest of his career, he’s on track to leave that record book with his name all over it. This season, he could move into the top spot in career minutes played, field goals, and free throw attempts.
The real question is what kind of production Suns fans should expect as he settles into this next phase. Booker is the kind of player Phoenix needs at full force if it wants to be more than a team hoping to survive a first-round playoff exit.
There isn’t a perfect group of comparisons, but there are some useful ones among active wings and guards in their age-30 seasons. The list includes players such as Kyle Lowry, Jimmy Butler, and Paul George, all of whom have more All-Star nods than Booker’s five.
Others like CJ McCollum and Derrick White didn’t reach that same All-Star level, but they’ve been reliable throughout their careers. Collectively, those players produced better scoring than their career norms in those age-30 seasons, and every player on that list scored above his career average.
Booker’s own career line sits at 24.6 points, 5.3 assists, and 4.0 rebounds per game. If he matched those career marks over the course of this season, that would translate to 28.4 points, 6.4 assists, and 5.0 rebounds per game. That would be a new career high in scoring, the fourth-best assist average of his career, and a tie for his best rebounding average.
It would also give him the Suns’ single-season scoring record. Tom Chambers currently owns that mark at 27.2 points per game, and Booker’s best season has him just behind at 27.1. Chambers, notably, set that record in his age-30 season.
Phoenix doesn’t offer many recent age-30 Suns comparisons, either. Kevin Johnson, an All-Star guard who was not an MVP, played his age-30 season with the Suns and averaged 20.1 points, 9.3 assists, and 3.6 rebounds.
That was a strong year, though not quite his peak, since he had three seasons in his career where he averaged 20 points and 10 assists. Walter Davis was injured and barely played at 30.
Steve Nash won MVP in his 30th season, but he was excluded from the comparison group. Charles Barkley won his MVP with Phoenix at 29 and still made All-NBA second team the following year.
The Suns’ other great guards and ballhandlers mostly hit age 30 somewhere else. Jason Kidd, Chris Paul, Stephon Marbury, Connie Hawkins, Jeff Hornacek, Dan Majerle, and others were not in Phoenix at that age. That makes Booker unusual in franchise terms: the Suns generally haven’t kept players deep into their 30s, and he becomes the exception.
There’s also a reminder in the advanced numbers. Looking at box plus/minus, three of the seven players on the comparison list - Lowry, Holiday, and McCollum - posted the best BPM of their careers in their age-30 seasons, while White came in with the second-best mark of his career.
Booker has now reached the point where athleticism starts to fade and experience has to carry more of the load. That’s why age 30 matters so much. After 30, only Karl Malone, Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Steve Nash, and Wilt Chamberlain have won MVPs, and it has been 21 years since Nash did it.
That’s an enormous standard, and Booker doesn’t need to reach that height for this season to matter. He just needs to keep pushing toward the Suns’ single-season scoring record, get back to All-NBA form, and serve as the lead piece for a team that can still be dangerous in the playoffs.
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Instead, his first night in a Suns uniform only added to the unease. Bridges scored eight points on 3-of-11 shooting in a loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, and the minus-35 in the box score stood out on a rough evening for a team already trying to justify the trade. Now Phoenix has to sort through not only what Bridges looks like on the floor, but what kind of extension conversation makes sense if the fit keeps feeling this shaky. [Read more 🡒]
Suns Opener Raised An Ugly Question Before Warriors Arrive
The season opener in Portland gave the Suns an uncomfortable early look at their biggest concerns, and the numbers told the story. Phoenix struggled from beyond the arc, got beat badly on the glass and never found a consistent rhythm, even with Devin Booker putting up 23 points. For a team that came in expecting to set a tone right away, it was a rough first step and a reminder that the margins in the West are thin.
Bookers night drew its share of criticism, not just for the way the offense looked, but for the larger question of leadership when the game started slipping away. The good news for Phoenix is that there is little time to sit with the loss, because the Warriors are next and the same problems will be easy to spot if they linger. Before that matchup, the Suns need to show they can shoot better, rebound harder and look more like a team ready to handle pressure than one still sorting out its identity. [Read more 🡒]