Who was the better 20 year old, Booker or Stoudemire?

[bwgood77]

I know this is specific to Suns players, but I am curious of what more general fans think about this. I have the same question posed on the Suns forum and I'd like to see if the results are much different.

Amare was actually 20 as a rookie, easily winning rookie of the year, and also didn't have the benefit of having one year in the league under his belt. Of course this was pre Nash as well, so he didn't get any extra benefit playing in any sort of SSOL offense or having a great PG pass him the ball, though one could argue Booker doesn't either.

Booker has more points, assist and turnovers, while Amare had more rebounds and blocks. However, Booker did take 80% more shots, while scoring only 60% more points. Their TS% is pretty equal though.

Most of b-refs advanced metrics say Amare was the superior 20 year old. What do you think?

http://bkref.com/tiny/1w8tv

[HeartBreakKid]

I know this is specific to Suns players, but I am curious of what more general fans think about this. I have the same question posed on the Suns forum and I'd like to see if the results are much different.

Amare was actually 20 as a rookie, easily winning rookie of the year, and also didn't have the benefit of having one year in the league under his belt. Of course this was pre Nash as well, so he didn't get any extra benefit playing in any sort of SSOL offense or having a great PG pass him the ball, though one could argue Booker doesn't either.

Booker has more points, assist and turnovers, while Amare had more rebounds and blocks. However, Booker did take 80% more shots, while scoring only 60% more points. Their TS% is pretty equal though.

Most of b-refs advanced metrics say Amare was the superior 20 year old. What do you think?

http://bkref.com/tiny/1w8tv

When you take into era, then STAT is quite a bit more efficient I think.

[bwgood77]

I know this is specific to Suns players, but I am curious of what more general fans think about this. I have the same question posed on the Suns forum and I'd like to see if the results are much different.

Amare was actually 20 as a rookie, easily winning rookie of the year, and also didn't have the benefit of having one year in the league under his belt. Of course this was pre Nash as well, so he didn't get any extra benefit playing in any sort of SSOL offense or having a great PG pass him the ball, though one could argue Booker doesn't either.

Booker has more points, assist and turnovers, while Amare had more rebounds and blocks. However, Booker did take 80% more shots, while scoring only 60% more points. Their TS% is pretty equal though.

Most of b-refs advanced metrics say Amare was the superior 20 year old. What do you think?

http://bkref.com/tiny/1w8tv

When you take into era, then STAT is quite a bit more efficient I think.

Yeah, I took STAT too, but on the Suns board, Booker won the poll, but that probably has much to do with recency bias.

[Cactus Jack]

STAT

God he was fun to watch in those days.

Watch on YouTube

[bwgood77]

STAT

God he was fun to watch in those days.

Watch on YouTube

Great video. So dominating. 21 boards in a game as a rookie out of high school. 38 pts in another.

[magicmerl]

on the Suns board, Booker won the poll, but that probably has much to do with recency bias.

I think it has to do with being blind fans. Booker had a .035WS/48 last year.

I would have to be medicated for depression if Booker was the starting guard on my team (that had championship aspirations).

[bwgood77]

on the Suns board, Booker won the poll, but that probably has much to do with recency bias.

I think it has to do with being blind fans. Booker had a .035WS/48 last year.

I would have to be medicated for depression if Booker was the starting guard on my team (that had championship aspirations).

Well Amare passed him up since then in our poll.

No one on a bad team is going to have a good WS/48 considering the team doesn't win much. Heck, Wiggins in his first year as a full time starter had a WS/48 of .034 and Durant had a WS/48 of .04.

As for championship aspirations, heck, it takes a lot of great players to become championship caliber, and few teams get there within any given year, and it's usually those same few teams and maybe a couple more within a decade. So the vast majority of fan bases won't see their team be championship contenders even within a decade. And even if they ARE championship contenders, it's still tough to be that team to win it all unless you have multiple premier players and/or one of the best players of all time.

I have hopes that Booker could be a guard on a championship caliber team, but I won't hold my breath. I think he's overhyped by many Suns fans but I think there is a good chance he will be a very good player.

He does end up on a lot of good lists though, such as this one, where if you click a couple times, and then on each chart you can see where he ranks among the elite company he is in with this chart.

Read on Twitter

[magicmerl]

on the Suns board, Booker won the poll, but that probably has much to do with recency bias.

I think it has to do with being blind fans. Booker had a .035WS/48 last year.

I would have to be medicated for depression if Booker was the starting guard on my team (that had championship aspirations).

Well Amare passed him up since then in our poll.

No one on a bad team is going to have a good WS/48 considering the team doesn't win much. Heck, Wiggins in his first year as a full time starter had a WS/48 of .034 and Durant had a WS/48 of .04.

The jury is still out on Wiggins, and Durant was being intentionally played out of position at SG to give him heavy minutes while not pushing up the team's win totals.

As for championship aspirations, heck, it takes a lot of great players to become championship caliber, and few teams get there within any given year, and it's usually those same few teams and maybe a couple more within a decade. So the vast majority of fan bases won't see their team be championship contenders even within a decade.

Correct.

And even if they ARE championship contenders, it's still tough to be that team to win it all unless you have multiple premier players and/or one of the best players of all time.

Yep, which is why tanking is a think.

I have hopes that Booker could be a guard on a championship caliber team, but I won't hold my breath. I think he's overhyped by many Suns fans but I think there is a good chance he will be a very good player.

He does end up on a lot of good lists though, such as this one, where if you click a couple times, and then on each chart you can see where he ranks among the elite company he is in with this chart.

Read on Twitter

What do you think he needs to do to become very good? I mean he already has inefficient volume scoring down pat, but I just don't value that as highly as some other people do.

[gaspar]

Booker had a very slow start and made a big jump halfway through the season. Judging him based on full season stats can be very misleading.

Games #1-35: 18.7 pts on .494 TS%
Games #36-82: 24.8 pts on .555 TS%

[darealjuice]

The jury is still out on Wiggins, and Durant was being intentionally played out of position at SG to give him heavy minutes while not pushing up the team's win totals.

I don't know how much I like using win shares to definitively compare individual players considering how much it takes team success into account, especially when the Suns were deliberately trying to be unsuccessful while playing Booker heavy minutes (although no advanced stat likes Booker because he's an inefficient volume guy, so it doesn't really matter). Not that I think Booker and Durant are the same caliber or player, but I'd say Durant's rookie year is comparable to Booker's career thus far in that they both got a lot of playing time and usage on teams that were not trying to be successful. His advanced stats are hurt a lot by his mediocre shooting efficiency, but like gaspar said, around the start of 2017 he started to click and was much more efficient (i.e. in the 33 game stretch between the start of 2017 and Bledsoe being benched he was averaging 23.4/3.3/3.2 on 45.7/42/82.4/57 TS%). That's obviously cherry picked and doesn't mean much unless he can continue to build on that and turn it into a full season, but he had some external factors effect his season between playing with Bledsoe for the first time, starting the season with turf toe, and finishing the season with a rotation containing multiple players that had played in the the D-League this year, and I think he showed a lot of good things this year once he adjusted.

What do you think he needs to do to become very good? I mean he already has inefficient volume scoring down pat, but I just don't value that as highly as some other people do.

Well I'd say the most important thing is to lose the "in" in inefficient volume scoring lol. Like I said above, I think he's on the right track, but if I had to point at specific things to improve his efficiency, then I'd say that he needs to improve his shot selection (specifically converting the insane amount of long 2-point shots within 1 foot of the 3-point line into 3-pointers), take more 3s in general, and cut down on the contested midrange shots. His defense needs to improve a lot, but the veterans on our team stress improving his defense just about every time they get asked about him so I'm hoping that he'll take their advice to heart. I don't think he'll be a lock down defender, but I do expect him to at least end up being a neutral player on that end. I'd also like him to become a better secondary playmaker and average around 4-6 assists with under 3 turnovers. He averaged just over 4 assists after the ASB, but his turnovers increased as well so it's a bit moot.

As a Suns fan, I think we're excited about him in part because we are a down franchise that hasn't had a rookie get the attention and praise from some of the best players in the league that Booker has been in a long time. All of the talk about him is how hard of a worker he is, how he wants to put in the work to be a great, and that he wants to bring playoff basketball and success back to Phoenix. Anybody can say that, but not everyone sets those goals for themselves and we need something to hope for lol.

[DoubleO8]

Suns board should be suspended indefinitely for booker winning the poll

[bwgood77]

What do you think he needs to do to become very good? I mean he already has inefficient volume scoring down pat, but I just don't value that as highly as some other people do.

I think he needs to become more consistent. He was efficient for stretches, and wildly inefficient for others. I think this should improve given his age and work ethic and maybe some lineup consistency. The starting lineup changed often and he also played with some extremely raw rookies either most of the whole season (Chriss) or the last 20 games or so (Ulis, Derrick Jones Jr, Alan Williams). He almost had no choice but to take over almost all of the scoring down the stretch, particularly when Warren was out as well, given there were very few scoring options. What made it even worse is that last stretch, even in the games with Warren, with those players there were not really any players that defenses really had to respect that could stretch the floor so he was pretty much the sole focus of the defense. I think a myriad of factors will help him improve his efficiency.

He's shown stretches of being a very good passer, and did average a good number of assists for a raw young SG, but of course they came with turnovers so that's another area he needs to improve in.

And the #1 area he needs to improve on his defense.

With hard work in the off season I think he can become an average player next season and by season's end become an above average player

With more hard work in the following off season I think he could potentially be very good at the age of 22. At least that's my hope.