Devin Booker

[Ettorefm]

You can clearly see what's going on with Booker here:





He's settling mainly for mid-range shots that are heavily contested.
And of course, he isnt nailing his open 3pters (which is funny because it was all he did in Kentucky).

I think I'll ask for Coach Nick @bballbreakdown to take a lot at his open looks to see what's going on there.

Thank you. That's basically what I said. Goes for contested shots and can't hit the open 3.

Add laughable defense and effort and you have yourself a red flag for your prospect.

[Ettorefm]

The 2 most important things in 2016 for a 2 guard are defense, getting to the line and 3 pt shooting, and he's bad at all of them right now. I couldn't care less if he can take pull up mid-range shots and cut to the basket, his lazy defense and poor shooting will determine how good a prospect he will be.

If we use those 3 categories as filters, also adding usage% (>=20%) in order to make players relatively comparable we end up with the following (per basketball-reference.com): only SG's cumulatively better than Booker at those specific metrics are Harden, Beal, Fournier and Barton. Among them, only Harden has bigger usg% than Booker. In the end, we shouldn't forget to add that Devin as a sophomore doesn't nearly have that much credit with refs as the stars like Harden, Butler... Also, if there's a position in this league that's pretty scarce of defensive quality/potential, it's SG.

It's not my intention to defend Armani at all costs or diminish/mask his obvious flaws, it just appears to me that maybe you're too demanding.

Good post. The point is, you don't have to be elite at those 3 at age 20.

There are dozens of shooting guards who do at least one or two of those, which are the most important attributes for a 2 guard.

Middleton (3pt and defense), Klay (3pt and defense), Harden (3pt and ft), Butler (defense and ft), Beal (3pt ), Wade (defense and ft), DeRozan (ft and defense), McCollum (3pt and ft)...the lsit goes on and on.

Gary Harris, KCP, Lamb, all SGs who have some of those attributes. Booker's strenghts right now are mid-range shooting, cutting to the basket and finishing at the rim while not being fouled (not good). 2.6TO is a lot for a guy playing with a ball dominant PG and 3 assists is way too low for someone who is praised for being able to pu the ball on the floor and run pick n rolls if needed.

Booker at least had the 3 pointer. We all thought that. Even if he never develops to be a great slasher, creator, or defender, he can score 16ppg extremely efficiently solely on his shooting.

That's not the case. He's scoring because of sheer volume, not efficiency, and taking dumb decisions and turning the ball over. That's a huge red flag. I'd much rather have him limit his shots to mostly open long range shots or open drives to the basket than pretending he's Kobe Bryuant with stupid contested mid-range shots he tries every game

Every game. Like 7 of them a game.

[bwgood77]

I really am not a fan of low efficiency volume scorers. They end up costing your team more than they help. He hasn't looked good, so I'm not going to make excuses for him.

I'd give him another year maybe to prove he can be a better 3 pt shooter, but hopefully it starts improving soon. Reggie Miller shot 35% from 3 over his first 82 games and Ray Allen shot 36% and 35% in years 2 and 3 in the league, so there can be an adjustment period, and he is young. He certainly puts in the shooting practice and can hit them then, as I got to a game about an hour early this year and watched him shoot a ton of them, with only rare misses. Obviously at full game speed with defenders it's much tougher but he has shown at time in stretches he can do it.

I do feel if we had a better more free flowing offense it would benefit him as well.

Harden also is only a 34% 3 pt shooter this year (obviously he is elite at passing and getting to the line though).

[GMATCallahan]

Don't get me wrong, that's not my problem with Booker. I can wait 6 years for Booker to be a star (if he ever becomes one), that's not the issue.

The thing is, people keep excusing him for his poor shooting. I don't care about the 19ppg, he could be scoring 10, but in this time and age, 3pt shooting is essential, and with his mechanics, he should be making a lot more - and not taking such stupid shots.

I'd much rather my 20yo prospect having a fantastic efficiency year with lower volume than chucking ill-advised shots and scoring almost 20ppg. Those habits never change once they're established.

Booker should pick his spots more and hit the open 3. That's all I ask of him. The rest will come naturally.

Just wanted to dispute the 'best shooter in the draft' that in his 2nd season can't even shoot mediocre percentages while not having any pressure.

The 2 most important things in 2016 for a 2 guard are defense, getting to the line and 3 pt shooting, and he's bad at all of them right now. I couldn't care less if he can take pull up mid-range shots and cut to the basket, his lazy defense and poor shooting will determine how good a prospect he will be.

I think that such tendencies can change; Amar'e Stoudemire attempted a lot of wild shots in his second season in the NBA (or his first two seasons) and then cut most of that stuff out. Of course, having Steve Nash thereafter helped immensely, but Stoudemire's shot selection certainly improved. I would bet, for example, that if Booker were playing for San Antonio, his shot selection would be better, because Gregg Popovich would demand it of him and would bench him if Booker failed to get with the program. Especially for a young player, smaller-volume efficiency, as opposed to higher-volume inefficiency, is more likely on a better team with better players. Instead, Booker is playing for arguably the worst team in the West, thus virtually guaranteeing him a fairly large volume of minutes and field goal attempts without many good players to make the game easier for him or to help discipline his game via their presence. If Booker were playing with Tony Parker, Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard, LaMarcus Aldridge, Pau Gasol, Patty Mills, Manu Ginobili, and David Lee, matters would be different. Obviously, he is not in anything like that situation, so either he will need to learn discipline on his own, so to speak, or the Suns will need to radically improve the situation around him.

What concerns me more about Booker is less his three-point field goal percentage—which should eventually improve—and more his two-point field goal percentage, which at .446 is quite low (if not Brandon Knight-low), especially for a high-volume three-point shooter attempting over five treys per game. Booker seems to me to have trouble finishing plays—he reaches the basket well enough, but he struggles to convert. Perhaps he will improve that aspect of his game as he becomes stronger and develops more power, although he is unlikely to ever be especially strong and powerful in the mold of, say, James Harden.

By the way, a shooting guard can still thrive in today’s era without the three-point shot: think of DeMar DeRozan or a younger Dwyane Wade. But obviously, Booker is not that kind of driver and finisher.

[Damkac]

It's not just Booker, everyone shoots 3-pointers worse than last season. Bledsoe is down from 37% to 30%.

[GMATCallahan]

It's not just Booker, everyone shoots 3-pointers worse than last season. Bledsoe is down from 37% to 30%.

Bledsoe's percentage last season may have been more of a small-sample fluke, though; he is not a natural or reliable shooter—on any kind of jump shot.

But there is something to what you are saying, as Knight's percentage is obviously down as well. The reasons may be coincidental (Booker struggling to adjust to a major NBA role, Knight moving to the bench, Bledsoe not being a natural shooter), but as a former All-Star guard, Hornacek may have fostered a positive impact in that regard.

[LacosteM]

I feel like Booker got handed the key to a team's offense too soon. His FGA's have increased from 11.4 to 17.1 and freq of his iso plays has tripled down , from 6 to 18 percent. He's also leading the team in FGA's . Perhaps a bit of a harsh transition for a 20 year old. Like Ettoreform already said, I'd rather simplify his role on offense and increase his efficiency and than hand him the key when he proves he can be a leader on offense.

At the moment 75% of his 3PA's are open or wide open and he's shooting only 34% on them. That's a very underwhelming percentage for someone who was considered a sharpshooter coming out of college. Maybe getting him more shots of the screens and making him move more off the ball (sort of like Thompson, Reddick, Korver) could get him going.

[Ettorefm]

By the way, a shooting guard can still thrive in today’s era without the three-point shot: think of DeMar DeRozan or a younger Dwyane Wade. But obviously, Booker is not that kind of driver and finisher.

Great post, btw. I read the rest, but only quoted a small part to adress it. Overall, great analysis

DeMar and a young D-wade not only have finishing and getting to the line, but twice the defense (Dwade in his prime was an all-nba defender) and effort

[dremill24]

Booker's lack of vertical explosion won't allow him to finish like Wade or Derozan. He needs the 3

[sleepyvato]

I'm a huge Booker fan but It's definitely disappointing that he is struggling with his shot this season among other things like his attitude which is poor so far. I hope it's only temporary and he starts shining once again like he did in his rookie year. If not, then I hope the Suns cash in on him before it's too late.

[GMATCallahan]

I'm a huge Booker fan but It's definitely disappointing that he is struggling with his shot this season among other things like his attitude which is poor so far. I hope it's only temporary and he starts shining once again like he did in his rookie year. If not, then I hope the Suns cash in on him before it's too late.

... something to keep in mind is that Booker's performance as a starter last season was really no better than it has been this year. In 51 starts a season ago, he averaged 17.4 points, 3.5 assists, 3.0 rebounds, a .412 field goal percentage, a .302 three-point field goal percentage, an .850 free throw percentage, and a .522 True Shooting Percentage.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/bookede01/splits/2016

In 30 starts this season, Booker is averaging 19.2 points, 3.2 assists, 2.9 rebounds, a .411 field goal percentage, a .329 three-point field goal percentage, an .816 free throw percentage, and a .505 True Shooting Percentage.

One might have expected more of an improvement from one year to the next, but Booker might simply need more time. After all, with 81 career starts, he is just now reaching a full season's worth of starter sample size. From what we have so far, we are talking about a 41 percent field goal shooter overall, a below-average yet high-volume three-point shooter, and a good free throw shooter yet one who fails to reach the foul line often enough to rescue his True Shooting Percentage (the best measure of scoring efficiency). We are also talking about a respectable passer and modest rebounder for a shooting guard. Of course, Booker is probably one of the worst defensive shooting guards in the game, as indicated by both Defensive Real Plus-Minus and most any visual observation, which would find him prone to mental gaffes and lacking for physical strength.

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/page/3/sort/DRPM/position/2

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/year/2016/page/2/sort/DRPM/position/2

(That metric can be questionable in some cases; I do not believe that Booker is one of them.)

A recent example of those mental gaffes occurred in the recent home game versus Houston where Booker, despite being the only player in position to contest a pending slam dunk, nonetheless ran back out to the corner to protect the three-point shot (and not in a late-game strategic sort of situation).

http://www.espn.com/nba/video?gameId=400899877

And he had done that sort of thing before.

His future is probably still bright. Again, I feel that many Phoenix fans just became carried away last year and imagined that at twenty years of age, he might be what Kobe Bryant was at that age (19.9 points, 3.8 assists, 5.3 rebounds, 1.4 steals, 1.0 blocks, .465 field goal percentage, .549 True Shooting Percentage). Of course, Bryant was in his third season in the NBA, after arriving out of high school, and he was playing with Shaquille O'Neal for one of the better teams in the league. Then again, without O'Neal, he might have averaged 25 points per game that year.

[GMATCallahan]

What concerns me more about Booker is less his three-point field goal percentage—which should eventually improve—and more his two-point field goal percentage, which at .446 is quite low (if not Brandon Knight-low), especially for a high-volume three-point shooter attempting over five treys per game. Booker seems to me to have trouble finishing plays—he reaches the basket well enough, but he struggles to convert. Perhaps he will improve that aspect of his game as he becomes stronger and develops more power, although he is unlikely to ever be especially strong and powerful in the mold of, say, James Harden.

By the way, a shooting guard can still thrive in today’s era without the three-point shot: think of DeMar DeRozan or a younger Dwyane Wade. But obviously, Booker is not that kind of driver and finisher.

... case in point here: over his last five games, Booker is averaging 23.2 points, 5.0 assists, 3.8 rebounds, an .875 free throw percentage in 4.8 attempts, and a .393 three-point field goal percentage in 5.6 attempts.

However, even with that three-point shooting, his overall field goal percentage in that span is still just .429.

http://www.espn.com/nba/player/_/id/3136193/devin-booker

[LacosteM]

Booker's TS% is officially below 50... Yikes.

[gaspar]

Knight has a higher TS% and assist to turnover ratio than Book this season.

[bwgood77]

Yikes

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[Phoenix-Sons]

Yikes

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[bwgood77]

Yikes

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At least you got Wiggins and Ingram in there too, so it's mostly just all young guys. Except with Knight, of course, and gulp, Jeff Green. Check out Westbrook's score up in one of the other charts I just posted in the Stats Corner in the Announcements section.

[bwgood77]

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[LacosteM]

Last season 54.5 % of Booker's made field goals were assisted, while this season that percentage dropped all the way to 41.5%. I guess he's being asked to create his own shots more, and that's taking a toll on his efficiency.

[thamadkant]

He's clearly trying to play like an all rounder... When he doesnt have that game... He may develop into that all rounder... Or he may not.

He isnt explosive nor athleric enough to get seperation from defenders....


He should be focusing on being a specialist shooter... Master that... Then work on all round game as supporting skills.

Because right now he is mediocre at shooting and poor or below average as an all rounder.