Phoenix Suns all-time leading scorer Devin Booker is one of the greatest Suns players, if not the greatest player, in the history of the organization. That statement is factually true and cannot be argued against with any real weight.
In his 11 seasons with the franchise, Booker has taken the Suns as close to the pinnacle of the sport as they have been after going up 2-0 against the Milwaukee Bucks in the NBA Finals. He is an Olympic gold medalist, a first-team All-NBA selection in 2021-22, has five
All-Star appearances, and has a career average of 24.6 points per game.
All incredible accomplishments for someone who has given everything he has to the Valley. But looking forward to the future is not as bright as we hoped it would be after his historic playoff runs in 2021 and 2023.
The question that has been asked the last two seasons: Is Devin Booker washed? Declining? Whatever descriptive term you want, and how extreme you take it, there is no arguing that he has not had the same explosive scoring seasons over the last two seasons as he had in the 2021 to 2024 seasons. Over those three seasons, Booker averaged 27.2 points per game, and in the 2024 to 2026 seasons, he has averaged 25.9 points per game.
Now let’s pause for a second. Those are still remarkably great numbers, and Booker is absolutely one of the best players in the game today. But he has not played to the level of an All-NBA, top 10 player in basketball over the last two seasons, as we Suns fans (biased as we may be) thought he was at for the first half of this decade.
It’s not just his scoring that has gone down; his field goal percentage has declined from 49% in the 2023 and 2024 seasons to an average of 45.9% in the 2025 and 2026 seasons. His three-point shooting has dropped from well above 35% to 33% over the last two seasons. Even his percentage of points scored in the midrange has dropped to just 17%, which is his lowest season since 2019-20.
Statistically, Booker has regressed, and unfortunately, the eye test over the last two seasons tells us the same thing. He looks a little slower and does not appear to have the same ability to separate from defenders as he did during his peak seasons with the Suns.
Booker’s role has also changed from those seasons, too. In the last three seasons, Booker has been the primary ball-handler and distributor on offense. Before that, he had Chris Paul to share the load with him, but in the last two or three seasons, it has been Booker in full control of the ship.
So can Booker get back to his first-team All-NBA, fourth-place MVP-voting season self again?
The short answer is yes, and it comes down to two things: get Booker in position to be the savant scorer he is, not the full-time table setter, and Booker has to become a better three-point shooter.
The first thing the Suns have to do is find, or develop, another ball-dominant creator who can help Booker shoulder the offensive load so Booker does not have to run every ball screen and face double teams every possession. Booker is consistently seeing defenses designed to take him away, and let anyone else on the Suns go crazy.
Think back to last season. Booker faced double teams and heavy gap defenses designed to shut off his ability to score. Meanwhile, Dillon Brooks and Jalen Green usually could isolate in their spots without facing the same tilted defense.
The one-on-one midpost isolations that Brooks got last season used to be Booker’s when the Suns had another threat like Chris Paul or Kevin Durant (before things went south). Maybe Jalen Green can eventually develop into that kind of player where Booker doesn’t need to orchestrate every possession, but that seems lofty. And if it does happen, it will take more than one season for Green to get there. As far as Dillon Brooks’ development goes, what we got last year is what we’re going to get going forward: a black hole that thinks score, score, score when he has the ball.
So if the Suns are willing to trade up in the draft or wheel and deal this offseason, finding a big wing that can rebound and shoot the ball is obviously a priority, but finding someone who can make Booker better has to be No. 2 on the list. Booker made everyone else around him better this season, the part we forget about when talking about his decreasing numbers and worse end-of-game execution. Hopefully, the Suns can find players this offseason who can help Booker be better and not just benefit from his greatness.
Organizationally, the Suns can try to surround Booker with players who can help him get free. But the other part of this conundrum is that Booker also needs to get better as well. The thing that Booker can directly control is how well he shoots from the three-point line. It is no coincidence that his best three-point shooting seasons were also his best scoring seasons as a professional. He shot a career high at over 38% from 3 the year he finished fourth in MVP voting. Is that a coincidence? I would argue it’s not.
The ability to shoot threes, especially off the dribble, creates a different dynamic that Booker has been unable to tap into the last two seasons, only shooting 33% from long range. Becoming an above-average three-point shooter will help Booker slow the ferocity of Father Time because it will make it harder for defenses to stop his ability to get to the basket and get to his patented midrange jumper if they are less willing to give up a three-point shot. Even if it’s less often than it was in the 2021-22 season, the Suns have to utilize Booker off the ball more and get him more open three-point shots to accentuate his shooting ability. Whether that is Oso Ighodaro, Collin Gillespie, or someone else in charge of running the offense, Booker has to get easier looks than he got this season, and getting him off the ball will do just that.
Combining a consistent three-point shot with Booker’s savant scoring package in the midrange, on top of his improved free-throw drawing tendencies this past season, Booker can get back to being in the conversation of a Top 10 player in basketball again. That is a conversation he hasn’t sniffed in two seasons, and it’s also not the only thing he can do to get back to it, but it looks like it could be his simplest way back unless he becomes far more explosive magically this offseason. Outside of a ginormous franchise-altering trade that brings in another superstar to Phoenix, the most crucial thing for the Suns to improve in the next couple of seasons to truly get back into deep playoff contention is for Booker to get back to his apex.
Building around the Devin Booker we’ve seen the last two seasons is futile if he is not actually good enough to take us back up the mountain anymore.
