From Idols to Equals: How Devin Booker and Steph Curry’s Bond Reflects a Shift in NBA Hierarchy
SAN FRANCISCO - When Devin Booker talks about Stephen Curry these days, it’s not through the lens of a wide-eyed kid idolizing a legend. It’s something different now - deeper, more mutual.
Respect still lives there, sure, but it’s evolved. This is no longer just fan-to-hero.
It’s peer-to-peer. And in the NBA, that kind of shift doesn’t happen by accident.
Booker recently opened up about his growing friendship with Curry, and while the words were measured, the meaning ran deeper. Because when one of the league’s most gifted scorers starts building a real bond with the guy who redefined modern offense, it says a lot about where Booker now stands in the NBA landscape.
For years, Curry has been the measuring stick - the guard who bent defenses the moment he crossed half court, who made the three-point line feel like a suggestion rather than a boundary. But over the past few seasons, Booker has carved out a place in that same rare air.
He’s become the kind of player who draws traps 30 feet from the hoop and still finds ways to dissect defenses with surgical precision. Inside the arc, outside the arc - it doesn’t matter.
He’s efficient, he’s dangerous, and he’s earned the kind of defensive attention usually reserved for MVPs.
That shared gravity - that ability to warp a defense just by being on the floor - is where the Curry-Booker dynamic really started to shift. During the U.S.
Olympic run in Paris, the two spent weeks together in the trenches: practices, film rooms, and pressure-packed games where egos get checked and roles get real. In that kind of environment, hierarchy fades fast.
What’s left is who can hoop, who can lead, and who can win. And Booker showed he could do all three.
But if there was one moment that captured how far Booker has come, it wasn’t a highlight or a stat line. It was a shoe.
When Curry stepped onto the court wearing Booker’s signature “What The” Nike Book 1s, it hit different. This wasn’t just a sneaker swap.
Superstars don’t casually wear each other’s kicks - not in this league. That’s a nod.
A salute. A way of saying, “I see you.”
For a generation that grew up watching Curry change the game, seeing him lace up Booker’s shoes was a full-circle moment. It was a passing of the torch, or at least an acknowledgment that Booker now holds one of his own.
For Suns fans - and really, for NBA fans everywhere - that image spoke volumes. It wasn’t just about friendship or mutual respect.
It was about the league’s evolution, about how greatness recognizes greatness. Curry’s gesture affirmed what Phoenix already knew: Devin Booker isn’t just following in footsteps anymore.
He’s walking his own path - and it’s running right alongside the very best.