Offseason Beat: Devin Booker Stats Breakdown
Devin Booker was just too good for Summer League. We’ve also talked about him constantly on our podcast, so I thought it might be a good idea to dig in on one of the most impressive rookies last season.
There was really no need for Booker to play in Summer League with how he led the Suns in total points, assists and turnovers in the 2016 portion of last season. In an interview on ESPN, the Suns didn’t want him to play in the second game, but Booker wanted to get out there on national TV to show what he can do and lead the team.
Not surprisingly, he was outstanding in Las Vegas, averaging 26.0 points, 5.0 boards, 6.5 assists, 1.0 blocks, 3.5 turnovers and 3.0 treys. Booker had arguably the best quarter of the event with 18 points in the third quarter during his first outing. The Suns have been talking about his post-up game a ton, which was on display for the 19-year-old guard. That’s definitely going to be something watch in camp, especially with Booker now listed at 6’7”. Basically, his awesome run this month was totally expected.
So, let’s think about what he’s looking at going forward and where he needs to improve. As much as we look at Booker’s 19.2 points per game after the break and think that’s awesome for fantasy, it actually wasn’t. He was only a 12th-round value for nine-category leagues on total value. A big reason was he made just 40.1 percent from the field on 17.0 attempts per game. In fantasy, that actually made him the third worst for total value in field goal percentage (Matt Barnes and Kobe Bryant). Yes, worse than Marcus Smart and Emmanuel Mudiay.
So where can he improve? Let’s take a look at his post-break shot chart first:
That’s pretty average, right? Well, it’s actually below average in every shot location except on his non-restricted paint shots. A big reason why it’s so underwhelming is he was unassisted on 56 percent of his post-break buckets. Unless you’re Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant or a superstar, you’re going to have a tough time hitting 45 percent from the field with that many unassisted buckets. For what it’s worth, his 86 percent from the free throw line and his 1.5 treys per game in this span helped him get to 50.6 true shooting percentage. That’ll work.
Digging a little deeper, how about his performance when he didn’t have to work hard? Here’s a look at his post-break closest defender stats on shots from at least 10 feet away:
Yeah, those tighter defender shots hurt him. Those shots accounted for 31.1 percent of his shot total, but he made just 28.4 percent of them. That’s a serious problem right there, but it’s also extremely rare for a rookie to get that kind of challenge.
What’s more, he wasn’t even really that great when he was open. Specifically on 3-pointers after the break, he only hit made 33.3 of his 105 attempts. He was also just 36.1 percent on catch-and-shoot treys, but he was awful on his pull-up triples at 20.3 percent.
OK, so as bad as this sounds, Booker is still only going to be 19 years old when the next season starts, so this shouldn’t be a doom and gloom moment. Before we look ahead, let’s just take a look at how well-rounded Booker’s game is:
