The Phoenix Suns have plenty to sort through heading into the new season, but the loudest conversation coming out of The Bill Simmons Podcast centered on Devin Booker.
On the most recent episode, Bill Simmons and Rob Mahoney of The Ringer continued their team-by-team look around the NBA and picked one player from Phoenix to keep an eye on. Simmons landed on Booker, and the case is easy enough to understand: he’s the face of the franchise, the highest-paid player on the roster, and he said at Suns Media Day that he wants to take more shots this season.
“Sometimes I fall into passing too much and this year, hopefully, I fall into shooting too much,” Booker stated to Arizona Sports 98.7.
That fits with the version of Booker the Suns seem to want this year. He led the team in assists last season with 386 and ranked third in passes per game at 35.8, but the hope is that he’ll be asked to handle less creation and spend more time hunting his own offense. Eddie Johnson recently made a similar point while speaking with Kyle Odegard for NEXTPredict.
“If you want to go far and win a championship, you’ve got to have that guy, and he is that guy,” Johnson told Odegard. “I’m happy that he’s talking that way (about shooting more), because until now he’s really been like a rollercoaster, up and down with that mindset. I think now he understands that he cannot take a back seat to anybody on this team.”
Simmons’ reasoning went a step further than just usage. He pointed to the gap between Booker’s reputation and the actual production from deep.
“[He’s] the number one guy that you just assume in your head is shooting like 44% from three and it’s 34% last four years,” Simmons observed. “Is this just it?
This is just what the rest of his career is going to be like? He’s just going to be on mid-level teams averaging 26 a game.”
Mahoney followed that up by focusing on the contract and what it means for team-building.
”The scale of that contract might have sealed it just because,” Rob Mahoney added. “I think it’s every guy’s right to chase after and want to be overpaid, right?
Like, get as much money as you possibly can. At the same time, it’s going to be really hard to build a contending team around him because I think he’s kind of on that cusp of if he’s your number one offensive player, the ceiling feels pretty strict.
You could maybe build an elite defense around him with just enough supplementary playmaking, and then he’s the killer who sort of like Allen Iverson-style wills you to the Finals. I just think that’s a really tough life.
It’s maybe a recipe for like a one-off run, but maybe Phoenix already had its one-off run, you know, like maybe him and Chris Paul, Mikal Bridges, that was it, and from here on out it’s just going to be pretty good.”
That’s the heart of the debate: Booker is the obvious answer, but maybe not the most interesting one.
The player who may matter more for Phoenix this season is Jalen Green.
Green is the team’s second-highest-paid player, and he’s set to make $36.3 million this year with a $36 million player option for next season. In theory, he’s the one who can help unlock the offense by taking on more of the creation burden and making life easier for Booker.
He’s also been training with Steve Nash this offseason, though nobody is asking him to become Nash overnight. The Suns don’t need 11 assists a night with three turnovers.
They need him to read the floor better, create space, and take care of the ball.
That part matters because Green’s track record as a passer has been uneven. His career assist-to-turnover ratio is 1.4:1, which is workable when he’s functioning mostly as a shooting guard. It becomes a much bigger issue if Phoenix wants him to shoulder more responsibility as a distributor.
And that’s why Green feels like the more revealing storyline. Simmons and Mahoney both raised the possibility that Phoenix could end up stuck in the middle because of Booker’s contract and the limits that come with building around him. Mahoney even noted that teams can build around expensive stars if the rest of the roster is aligned properly, but the Suns don’t have unlimited flexibility.
Booker is the known piece. Everyone knows what he gives you, and everyone knows where the ceiling can get tight.
Green is the variable. If he can grow into a steadier facilitator without losing the scoring that brought him here, Phoenix gains a different kind of offense and more room to operate going forward.
If he can’t, the Suns are staring at some hard choices down the line.
So while Simmons and Mahoney circled Booker, the bigger swing for Phoenix might come from Green. That’s the player who could shape how Booker is used, how the offense functions, and what this team looks like in the years ahead.
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Devin Booker Just Reignited The Suns Question Fans Can't Ignore
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Bookers message is simple enough: he wants to win a championship in Phoenix, and he is still locked in on doing it here. For Suns fans, the lingering question is whether that belief can survive the grind of the present roster reality, or if the urgency around his prime eventually forces the front office to make a different kind of move. [Read more 🡒]