PHOENIX - Devin Booker’s name doesn’t always get the national spotlight it deserves, but the Phoenix Suns have made their stance clear: he is worth every dollar.
Booker, the franchise’s leading scorer and the face of the team, signed a historic extension last offseason worth two years and $145 million. That deal gave him the highest annual average salary in league history. His full contract, which runs four years and totals $250.6 million, was recently included in Bleacher Report’s top five worst NBA contracts.
Dan Favale framed the debate this way: "Devin Booker vs. Donovan Mitchell is a legitimate debate.
Many will place Spida's new deal higher up on the ladder, if only because he's owed an extra year and $72.4 million. That's fair,"
Favale also pointed to the financial risk attached to Booker’s deal: "At the same time, Booker is the only one of the two guaranteed to have a top-10 salary in each of the next two seasons. Paying someone like a Second Team All-NBA staple when they've made just one All-NBA squad, period, over the past four years is dangerous territory.
"Booker is probably better suited to lifting up an inferior supporting cast. He has more levels to his playmaking. But his reliance on mid-range jumpers is at an all-time high, coinciding with a drop in rim frequency compared to just a few years ago.
"Although Mitchell will face similar challenges and fall into the smaller-guard box, he can lean on a mix of three-point volume and efficiency that Booker has never delivered. That should make it a more graceful aging curve."
For the Suns, though, the argument goes beyond a contract ranking. Booker has already had to reshape his game, especially in recent seasons. The days of Chris Paul running the offense and letting Booker settle into his natural two-guard role are gone.
Instead, he has spent time working through lineups built around Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, and more recently has been asked to handle more point guard duties with Jalen Green in the backcourt.
Even with those shifts, Booker’s value to the organization remains obvious. He earned another All-Star nod this season, and his impact reaches beyond the floor. His presence matters in Phoenix, and owner Mat Ishbia understands that.
Booker is not flawless, and the Suns are not sitting there as obvious title contenders right now. But if keeping one of the franchise’s defining players required a record-setting extension, Phoenix made the choice it had to make.
Booker still has high-level basketball ahead of him, and as long as that remains true, the Suns can justify the price.
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The optimism, though, comes with a familiar catch. The Suns still look like a team trying to balance scoring, depth and fit, and the conversation around their roster has not gone away just because the front office kept moving pieces around. There is hope that some of the new and returning faces can help lift the ceiling, but the bigger question is whether the group has enough of the right kind of support to make the jump fans want to see. [Read more 🡒]
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Jordan Ott Looks Like The Coach The Suns Desperately Needed
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Ott also spent the season showing he could handle the daily churn that comes with coaching in Phoenix, from lineup changes to the larger pressure of matching the expectations around the franchise. The bigger question now is how he and the organization keep that momentum going, especially with another major roster addition waiting in the wings and the same front-office alignment that helped steady this years turnaround. [Read more 🡒]