Booker on Ulis: 'The biggest steal in the draft' – CoachCal.com
Devin Booker admitted Saturday that he isn’t quite sure how the thought process works with the NBA Draft, but he’s thankful that it worked out the way it did for his Phoenix Suns this year.
While watching the NBA Draft unfold with his longtime friend and once collegiate teammate, Tyler Ulis, Booker never imagined that the consensus first team All-American could potentially drop all the way to the Suns’ pick at No. 34.
Devin Booker said Tyler Ulis has already shown that he’s the “biggest steal in the draft.” (photo by Chris Reynolds)
“You take all these European guys that they play three minutes per game overseas, but you’re right here you see Tyler playing on the biggest stage in college basketball and performing,” said Booker, who was in Lexington coaching at the inaugural John Calipari Shooting Camp. “But I’m glad it happened how it did. Now we get to be teammates again and he’s just proven to everybody all you have to do is watch basketball, honestly. The proof is in the pudding. If you turn on TV and watched him play last year you see he belonged in the NBA. He has a bright future ahead of him. I’m proud to be his teammate again and I think it’s going to be really fun in the future.”
Booker, himself, has a very bright future ahead of him. Despite being the youngest player in the NBA last season (he’s still only 19), he earned NBA All-Rookie First Team honors and averaged 19.2 points, 4.1 assists and 3.0 rebounds per game after the all-star break.
The young sharpshooter saw a major uptick in his usage and responsibilities after starting guards, and fellow former Wildcats, Eric Bledsoe and Brandon Knight went down with injuries. The injuries were unfortunate, but they provided an unbelievable opportunity for Booker to learn on the fly in his first year.
“This rookie year is going to shape the rest of my career in a positive way because I don’t think it will ever be like that again where a 19-year-old has the ball in his hands the whole game,” Booker said. “But like I said, it was good for me. I got to deal with the pressure of being that main target. Hopefully down the line I’m still going to have that same attention on me.”
In year two, he will be joined in the backcourt by Ulis, who turned many heads in his sophomore season at Kentucky en route to earning Southeastern Conference player and defensive player of the year honors. The 5-foot-9 Ulis then carried that momentum over to the NBA Summer League where he was one of the most impressive rookies to take the floor, averaging 14.5 points, 6.3 assists and 2.8 steals per game.
Tyler Ulis is the fifth Wildcat guard to join the Phoenix Suns’ backcourt. (photo by Chet White, UK Athletics)
“(He showed) that his size doesn’t matter,” Booker said of Ulis. “That’s the biggest thing.”
While some teams took Europeans who offer potential upside, but also perhaps more risk, Booker said if you simply turned on a TV and saw Ulis play you saw a guy who was able to play at the next level. In six games in Las Vegas, Ulis appeared to prove Booker correct.
The diminutive Ulis even had a flare for the dramatic in Las Vegas, hitting one of the most exciting shots in the entire summer league when he drilled a deep, game-winning 3-pointer in overtime to defeat Jamal Murray’s Denver Nuggets and earn the Suns a spot in the semifinals.
“Obviously it’s the biggest steal in the draft and that’s not just my opinion,” Booker said. “He’s proven it already in the Summer League.
“I think every NBA team wants to find that steal overseas that nobody knows about. Like the (Kristaps) Porzingis thing, they don’t want to miss out on one of those. But like I said, if you can just turn on a TV and watch basketball and you’re a fan of the game, I think that should have been the right pick for a lot of teams.”
Next up for Ulis will be taking advantage of his opportunity when he gets one. In November and December, prior to Bledsoe and Knight’s injuries, Booker was playing less than 20 minutes per game. But Booker took advantage of his opportunity after the two starting guards went down and averaged more than 30 minutes per game the rest of the year.
“Rookies don’t always get that opportunity,” Booker said. “If they stayed healthy the whole year I might have been playing five minutes a game. You never know how it’s going to happen, but I know (Ulis’) opportunity is going to come, and when that opportunity comes I’m pretty sure he’s going to take full advantage of it.”
Ulis is the fifth Kentucky guard to join the Suns’ backcourt, along with Bledsoe, Booker, Knight and Archie Goodwin, and the second from the 2014-15 Wildcats.
That UK team, of course, started the year 38-0 and also had the unanimous 2016 NBA Rookie of the Year, Karl-Anthony Towns, and lottery picks Willie Cauley-Stein and Trey Lyles. Add in the Harrison twins and Dakari Johnson and that leaves Booker making one bold proclamation whenever he comes across other fellow former Cats in the NBA.
“Obviously, the 2012 team has the national championship, something that we wish we would have had,” Booker said, “but I always say we were the most talented team. I always say we were the most talented team in college basketball history. Not the best team, because the best teams win championships, but the most talented team.”
