The official debut of Devin Booker wearing number 15 is a game I’m sure he’d rather forget. His team lost by 41 points in the season opener against the Portland Trail Blazers, trailing by as many as 52. Hopefully I forget it too.
You can understand why Portland came out and blitzed the Suns. It was an emotional night for the fan base, one they’d been waiting more than a season to experience. After being bought out by Milwaukee in Bradley Beal fashion (the ‘ole 5-year waive and streeeeeetch), Damian
Lillard returned to the Trail Blazers in the summer of 2025. But an Achilles injury kept him sidelined for the entirety of last season, leaving all that pent-up excitement surrounding the return of one of the franchise’s most beloved players waiting to be unleashed.
And unleashed it was. The Moda Center was in a frenzy. Add newly acquired Ja Morant making his Portland debut, and the recipe was ripe for an emotional tidal wave that the Suns would have to overcome. Overcome it, they did not.
“Incredibly emotional to start the game before the jump ball was even tipped,” head coach Jordan Ott said after the game. “They did the better job of using that to their advantage.”
Phoenix managed only 12 points in the opening quarter and posted its lowest point total in a season opener since 2017. Coincidentally, that team also lost to the Portland Trail Blazers, surrendering 124 points while scoring only 76. In that game, a third-year Devin Booker managed 12 points on 6-of-17 shooting, including 0-of-3 from beyond the arc.
And I know it probably doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, but at least in that game, Booker attempted three-pointers. In this game? Not one. Zip. Zero. Not a single three-point attempt.
Does anybody else find that strange? Odd? Your team is getting its teeth kicked in, desperate for points, and…nothing? You’re supposed to be the tip of the offensive spear. You’re the $57 million man. And in a game where your team needs the hemorrhaging to be stopped, you don’t attempt a single shot from beyond the arc?
It was only the 17th time in Booker’s 738 career games that he failed to attempt a three-pointer, and the first time he’d done so since November 15, 2024. And wouldn’t you know it? That was another loss in which the Suns scored only 83 points. Fun Fact: That was the night that, following an abysmal performance and the fact that I watched it whilst waiting for the Mariah Carey Christmas Special to start, we introduced Mariah Carey as a Bright Side Baller option.
Perhaps the opportunities never presented themselves. Perhaps the smothering defense of former Suns draft pick Toumani Camara (palm, meet face) was too overwhelming for Booker to get a shot off. Perhaps he’s become trigger-shy after posting the second-worst three-point shooting percentage of his career last season (33.0%), compounded by the fact that he went 2-of-16 from deep during the preseason (12.5%). But when you juxtapose that against what we saw from Damian Lillard, who went 6-of-10 from beyond the arc on his way to 25 points, it only added to the embarrassment and frustration of the night.
I’m not asking Devin Booker to become Damian Lillard. I’m asking him to recognize what the team needs from him, especially when everything around him is falling apart. We know Booker is an elite midrange scorer. We know he’s never been a high-volume three-point shooter. But at what point does that become a limitation rather than an explanation? The NBA has evolved, and the best offensive players have evolved with it. Booker is entering his 12th season, and we’re still discussing his reluctance to consistently threaten defenses from beyond the arc.
“You can always do everything better in a loss like that,” Booker told Duane Rankin of AZ Central in the locker room post-massacre. “Trying to find the flow. We have some work to do and we have some things to learn from.”
There’s a significant difference between going 0-of-8 and never attempting one. One represents a willingness to take shots the offense needs, even if they aren’t falling. The other raises questions about why those shots aren’t being taken in the first place. I’m not advocating for contested 30-footers. I’m asking why a player of his caliber can’t generate or recognize opportunities from three over the course of 29 minutes.
My concern extends beyond a single game or a single statistical category. It’s about whether the version of Devin Booker we’re watching today is capable of being the offensive engine this team needs him to be. And after last night, I think that’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask.
Ultimately, this may have been the result of a bad matchup against a big, long, physical Portland team fueled by the emotional return of one of the franchise’s greatest and most beloved players. But it also brings to the surface some familiar concerns about who Devin Booker is and what he can provide from beyond the arc at this stage of his career.
Perhaps these are merely the ramblings and musings of a frustrated fanalyst who went to open his Christmas present, only to discover that instead of the gift he’d been hoping for, he received the proverbial lump of coal. All that excitement, all that anticipation surrounding the start of a new season, and it was immediately ripped away from the fan base.
Will Devin Booker have great scoring nights this season? Absolutely. Was this a one-game aberration? We certainly hope so. Maybe Wednesday was an aberration. But if the Suns are going to have any chance of making this season meaningful, they need Booker to be more than an elite midrange scorer. They need him to be a complete offensive threat, and that starts with being willing to take the shots the modern NBA demands.
